{"id":1066118,"date":"2021-11-29T20:29:33","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T01:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1066118"},"modified":"2021-11-29T20:29:40","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T01:29:40","slug":"prosecutors-ask-u-s-supreme-court-to-reinstate-bill-cosby-sex-crimes-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/prosecutors-ask-u-s-supreme-court-to-reinstate-bill-cosby-sex-crimes-conviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Reinstate Bill Cosby Sex Crimes Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fprosecutors-ask-u-s-supreme-court-to-reinstate-bill-cosby-sex-crimes-conviction%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1066118&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/billcosby1-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Prosecutors urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tag\/bill-cosby\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bill Cosby\u2019s<\/a> sexual assault conviction, complaining in a petition released Monday the verdict was thrown out over a questionable agreement that the comic claimed gave him lifetime immunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">They said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision in June to overturn Cosby\u2019s conviction created a dangerous precedent by giving a press release the legal weight of an immunity agreement.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele called the court\u2019s decision \u201can indefensible rule,\u201d predicting an onslaught of criminal appeals if it remains law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">\u201cThis decision as it stands will have far-reaching negative consequences beyond Montgomery County and Pennsylvania. The U.S. Supreme Court can right what we believe is a grievous wrong,\u201d Steele wrote in the filing, which seeks review under the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Cosby\u2019s lawyers have long argued that he relied on a promise that he would never be charged when he gave damaging testimony in an accuser\u2019s civil suit in 2006. The admissions were later used against him in two criminal trials.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">The only written evidence of such a promise is a 2005 press release from then-prosecutor Bruce Castor, who said he did not have enough evidence to arrest Cosby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">The release included an ambiguous \u201ccaution\u201d that Castor \u201cwill reconsider this decision should the need arise.\u201d The parties have since spent years debating what that meant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Steele\u2019s bid to revive the case is a long shot. The U.S. Supreme Court accepts fewer than 1% of the petitions it receives. At least four justices on the nine-member court would have to agree to hear the case. A decision on the petition, filed Wednesday but only made public Monday, is not expected for several months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Castor\u2019s successors, who gathered new evidence and arrested Cosby in 2015, doubt Castor ever made such a deal. Instead, they say Cosby had strategic reasons to give the deposition rather than invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, even if it backfired when \u201che slipped up\u201d in his rambling testimony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Cosby\u2019s spokesperson called Steele \u201cobsessed\u201d with the actor and said he only hoped to please \u201cthe #MeToo mob.\u201d Defense lawyers have long said the case should never have gone to trial because of what they call a \u201cnon-prosecution agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">\u201cThis is a pathetic last-ditch effort that will not prevail. The Montgomery\u2019s County\u2019s DA\u2019s fixation with Mr. Cosby is troubling to say the least,\u201d spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Cosby, 84, became the first celebrity convicted of sexual assault in the #MeToo era when the jury at his 2018 retrial found him guilty of drugging and molesting college sports administrator Andrea Constand in 2004.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">He spent nearly three years in prison before Pennsylvania\u2019s high court ordered his release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Legal scholars and victim advocates will be watching closely to see if the Supreme Court takes an interest in the #MeToo case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Two justices on the court, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, were accused of sexual misconduct during their bitterly fought confirmation hearings.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Appellate judges have voiced sharply different views of the Cosby case. An intermediate state court upheld the conviction. Then the seven justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote three separate opinions on it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">The majority found that Cosby relied on the decision not to prosecute him when he admitted giving a string of young women drugs and alcohol before sexual encounters. The court stopped short of finding that there was such an agreement, but said Cosby thought there was \u2014 and that reliance, they said, marred his conviction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">But prosecutors call that conclusion flawed. They note that Cosby\u2019s lawyers objected strenuously to the deposition questions rather than let him speak freely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Cosby himself has never testified about any agreement or promise. The only alleged participant to come forward is Castor, a political rival of Steele\u2019s who went on to represent President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial. Castor said he made the promise to a now-dead defense lawyer for Cosby, and got nothing in return.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">He never mentioned it to his top assistant, who reopened the case in 2015 after a federal judge unsealed Cosby\u2019s deposition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">At a remarkable pretrial hearing in February 2016, Castor spent hours testifying for the defense. The judge found him not credible and sent the case to trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in its ruling, called Cosby\u2019s arrest \u201can affront to fundamental fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Weeks later, the ruling prompted the state attorney general to dismiss charges against a jail guard accused of sexually abusing female inmates, because of an earlier agreement with county prosecutors that let him resign rather than face charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Cosby, a groundbreaking Black actor and comedian, created the top-ranked \u201cCosby Show\u201d in the 1980s. A barrage of sexual assault allegations later destroyed his image as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Dad\u201d and led to multimillion-dollar court settlements with at least eight women. But Constand\u2019s case was the only one to lead to criminal charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Five of Cosby\u2019s accuser\u2019s testified for the prosecution to support Constand\u2019s claims, testimony that Cosby\u2019s lawyers also challenged on appeal. However, the state\u2019s high court declined to address the thorny issue of how many other accusers should be allowed to take the stand in a criminal case before the testimony becomes overkill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/entertainment-sports-arts-and-entertainment-trials-education-ca9a20a6db01fb4240ac7b0fade72c30\">In a recent memoir<\/a>, Constand called the verdict less important than the growing support for sexual assault survivors inspired by the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">\u201cThe outcome of the trial seemed strangely unimportant. It was as if the world had again shifted in some much more significant way,\u201d Constand wrote in the book, \u201cThe Moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">The Associated Press generally does not name alleged victims of sexual assault unless they speak publicly, as Constand has done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">Cheryl Carmel, who served as jury foreperson at Cosby\u2019s retrial, said she was glad to see Steele ask for the review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-192 Component-p-0-2-183\">\u201cI firmly believe that what we decided was correct, or else I wouldn\u2019t have made that decision \u2026 with the group. Having it overturned because of something that was outside of the facts of what we were given is disappointing,\u201d Carmel told The AP on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Prosecutors urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Bill Cosby\u2019s sexual assault conviction, complaining in a petition released Monday the verdict was thrown out over a questionable &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}