Bill Cosby reacts outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after being released from prison. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday, that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. The 83-year-old Cosby had served more than two years at the state prison near Philadelphia and was released.
Comedian Bill Cosby reacts outside his home in Elkins Park, Pa., Wednesday, June 30, 2021, after being released from prison. Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned his sex assault conviction.
Bill Cosby leaves his home alongside spokesperson Andrew Wyatt Thursday, July 1, 2021 in Elkins Park, Pa. Cosby was released from prison Wednesday after his 2018 sexual assault conviction was overturned.
FILE – In this Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018 file photo, attorney Debra Katz reaches out to Christine Blasey Ford as she testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. On Wednesday, June 30, 2021, as the nation watched Bill Cosby released from prison, some worried it would have a chilling effect on survivors, who often don’t come forward because they don’t believe it will bring justice. And they wondered whether some of the movement’s momentum, already slowed by the pandemic, would be lost amid the feeling that another powerful man had gotten away with it — albeit on a technicality.
Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad.”
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The seven justices who reversed Bill Cosby’s conviction this week spent months debating whether he had a secret agreement with a prosecutor that tainted his 2018 criminal sexual assault conviction.
In the end, Pennsylvania’s highest court ruled that a district attorney had induced Cosby to give incriminating testimony in 2005 for a lawsuit, with the promise that no criminal charges would be filed. Then, a decade later, another prosecutor used it against him — a fundamental violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. “America’s Dad” walked out of prison Wednesday and won’t face any further trials in the case.
The public outcry over Cosby’s sudden release three years into a potential 10-year sentence was swift, with #MeToo activists worried it would have a chilling effect on survivors. And lawyers for another high-profile man convicted of sexual assault, Harvey Weinstein, praised the decision.
But criminal law experts believe the court acted reasonably in finding that a prosecutor’s word should be honored, even by a successor. One called the ruling a wakeup call for prosecutors who might try to quietly resolve a case without a paper trail, or make a deal over a handshake.
“It probably would have been much better lawyering to get it all in writing,” Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor, said of the hidden deal in the Cosby case. “It’s a teachable moment, I think, for prosecutors across the nation. It’s a big lesson.”
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