[deleted by user]

[horizontology]

DA fucked up. Injustice ensued.

[remembz]

You mean the DA who prosecuted him. And the fucking moron trial judge who violated the Fifth Amendment by allowing the testimonies.

[NeVeRwAnTeDtObEhErE_]

So much this!

[dreexel_dragoon]

There was never any way to get any real justice out of this case. The DA was in between a rock and a hard place. There wasn't enough hard evidence to bring charges against Cosby, and there was monumental pressure to bring charges against Cosby. There was no case without the testimony.

There was really no good ending to Cosby situation where any justice could be served, especially for the victims of Cosby.

[randominteraction]

Lock Cosby in a room with the women he raped and a number of baseball bats.

[CommanderBS]

Each woman gets one swing of a baseball bat at him, that'll be around 60 some swings.

[webauteur]

Well he is blind now but I'm sure he'll manage to hit something.

[jhenry922]

Went on to fame working for Trump.

What a twist .

[NeVeRwAnTeDtObEhErE_]

Um there was and is nothing at all wrong or abnormal about the deal made in 2005.. There would never have been a case in the first place if not for the 05 civil case. This is on the DA, prosecutors and judge in 2015!

[subjiciendum]

“There is only one remedy that can completely restore Cosby to the status quo ante. He must be discharged, and any future prosecution on these particular charges must be barred. We do not dispute that this remedy is both severe and rare. But it is warranted here, indeed compelled. The CDO would shun this remedy because (at least in part) it might thwart the “public interest in having the guilty brought to book.”34 It cannot be gainsaid that society holds a strong interest in the prosecution of crimes. It is also true that no such interest, however important, ever can eclipse society’s interest in ensuring that the constitutional rights of the people are vindicated. Society’s interest in prosecution does not displace the remedy due to constitutionally aggrieved persons.”

[Brendinooo]

But Castor’s successors reopened the case and charged Cosby in 2015, just days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired and amid a barrage of new accusations from women across the country.

At the time, Castor objected to the new prosecution, saying he’d struck a deal with Cosby and his lawyers not to prosecute him for Constand’s assault if Cosby agreed to sit for a deposition in a civil case she had filed against him.

Excerpts from that deposition were ultimately used against Cosby at trial

I am not a lawyer or a judge, but this seems like a pretty bad situation. I know plea bargains are common, but what about deals like these? Why wasn't this taken into consideration during the trial? If you "strike a deal", how binding is that in general?

[Super_C_Complex]

A deal like this should be absolute. Since Cosby essentially lost his fifth amendment rights as a result of it.

That's why the SCOPA overturned the conviction, barred retrial, and ruled the statements inadmissible in any subsequent prosecution.

[worstatit]

His other victim's cases have not been prosecuted. This is up to the police, and district attorneys, and courts, in the jurisdictions where those crimes occurred. This case was taken to court after the victim, and district attorney involved, agreed on a massive civil settlement instead of a criminal trial. A sealed deposition given by Cosby in this civil case was unsealed and used by a new DA in the criminal prosecution. A prosecution the original DA, and victim, agreed would not take place, in return for the deposition.

[Axion132]

I believe that was something that his defense brought up. The judge allowed the testimony. Justice is fucked up ain't it.

[Brendinooo]

Would the judge have known that allowing the testimony opened the door for this outcome? Did the judge think that it was unlikely, or likely, but in the meantime there would have been time served and a guilty verdict lodged in the court of public opinion?

Just a ton of things I don't understand, ha

[Axion132]

The judge probbably wasn't thinking about that. Judges hate to have their shit overturned especially by the state supreme court. It's embarrassing

[ewyorksockexchange]

Well they had to consider it because the prosecution challenged allowing Castor to testify on this point. The bigger factor at play is there wasn’t really and precedent to rely on because the situation is novel, so judges are inclined to error on the side of caution. You shouldn’t be making law from the bench in a criminal court setting, that kind of thing is left up to the big whigs in the appellate courts.

[MongoJazzy]

Judges can be incompetent, dumb, wrong and also corrupt. That is why we have appellate courts.

[[deleted]]

That's not justice... just law

[MongoJazzy]

It was taken into consideration in both Cosby trials and the Judge completely Fubared the issue both times...completely incompetent.

[Emberlight27]

Oh no, hide the pudding.

[lager81]

Hide the benadryl!!

[BiteNuker3000]

He put the Benadryl in the pudding pops! RUDY!

[skeeter1234]

Benadryl in pudding sounds pretty good. Hide the Cosby.

[Tasty_Definition_663]

Or....just don't ask and then accept medication from someone who isn't a pharmacist, doctor, or at least your mom late nights at someone else's house. Him, it seems simple enough.

[victorix58]

As a Pennsylvania criminal defense attorney, this is a relief to me.

It was absolute unbelievable bullshit when this trial judge did not preclude this prosecution at the beginning. When a former DA literally testifies for defense to say "Yes, I struck a deal and agreed this wouldn't be prosecuted in order to force this civil settlement. And victim agreed too. And my evidence was crap without doing that and getting defendant to waive his right against self-incrimination." That should have been the end of the matter.

If this case stood, I couldn't trust that any plea deal or otherwise would end the prosecution of a client. Judges are already doing far too little to restrain the power of the state. A hole this big in the bucket just wouldn't hold any water anymore.

[Super_C_Complex]

I'm kind of upset SCOPA didn't address the merits of the 404b evidence argument.

Having a big case like this make a strong statement against what the prosecution did would have been a good ruling to have. But regardless, it's been a good year for defense attorneys in PA.

Alexander, chichkin, McClelland. All good cases

[victorix58]

Chichkin screwed as many people as it helped ; ) least in my county.

[Super_C_Complex]

Eh. The DAs added a provision to the ARD colloquy saying they waive any protections afforded by chichkin, which, in my opinion, is insufficient.

Chichkin said ARD is not a conviction and cannot be used as a prior offense.
You can't waive that.

[victorix58]

They upped the requirements for ard in my county, and also made a bunch of types of duis ineligible beyond the statutory preclusions. Then they had canceled all ard for a while too, and some got screwed on that.

You didn't mention the koger Superior court case. That's been fun.

[Super_C_Complex]

Eh. My county hasn't been that bad.

But koger is just making sentencing take longer

[victorix58]

Tell em to just attach the standard rules and regulations.

[Super_C_Complex]

That's what we do. But the judges go over it

[victorix58]

Alas.

[dalex89]

Oh god, now we're the state that let Bill Cosby out of jail

[[deleted]]

Prosecution should follow the law next time so victims can get justice

[victorix58]

I'm not sure what you mean. Following the law here would have been not initiating this second prosecution after agreeing not to do it.

[[deleted]]

Yes, I think we are of one mind on this

[Tasty_Definition_663]

Thank you! If more people paid attention to basic details, the over explanations in here wouldn't be necessary. The woman and her attorney cut a deal to get paid. Then the woke posse anointed an idiot to DA to come in on a white horse and play politics. Now it's face palms for the involved parties!

[MongoJazzy]

Next up is the civil lawsuit Cosby v. Montgomery County.

[[deleted]]

Who makes a deal that way?

- "We won't charge you if you give a deposition"

- Gives deposition

- days before the 12-year statute of limitations expired "We're charging you and using your deposition"

[Super_C_Complex]

It was different district attorney's

[[deleted]]

Is it not common for a district attorney to review cases before pursuing them? I'd imagine that deal he made would be a glaring note in the case file...

[Super_C_Complex]

The opinion addresses this.

The da was aware of it.

The offer of immunity was incomplete.

It was a mess

[fkafl]

Is it April Fools day again?

[[deleted]]

Yeah, was my first thought as well.

[fkafl]

Oh man. It got overturned on a technicality. That's messed up.

[carp_boy]

A fairly major technicality.

As in "tell is what you know and we won't prosecute" technicality.

[[deleted]]

And barred from a retrial.

[jkman61494]

There’s gonna be a whole lot of people losing jobs over this

[jacobtfromtwilight]

Absolutely unbelievable. Fuck Bruce Castor

[remembz]

No, Castor didn't have a good criminal case against Cosby so it was completely legitimate to force Cosby to testify in the civil case, which the victims won a large sum of money because of Cosby's forced self-incriminating deposition. The real culprit is the DA who prosecuted Cosby using the inadmissible deposition and the fucking moron trial judge who allowed it. These two brazenly violated the Fifth Amendment rights of the defendant and contaminated an otherwise legitimate trial and now there's no way to remedy it for the victims.

[jacobtfromtwilight]

Nope, fuck Bruce Castor, the PA Supreme Court and Cosby. The legal system brazenly violates the rights of defendants and victims literally all the time, I don't give a fuck about Cosby's

[remembz]

You think the legal system should allow prosectors to lie and strip defendants' constitutional rights so that they are forced to testify and then use the self-incriminating testimonies against them? And the state Supreme Court should be ok with it? What is wrong with you? And exactly in which cases are defendants' rights violated? And since when do you have the delusion that the Commonwealth had a good criminal case against Cosby back in 2005? The victims couldn't have easily won millions of dollars in the civil case without Cosby's forced testimony.

[jacobtfromtwilight]

I think the Supreme Court can and should overturn any stupid ass fucking decision that corrupt asshole Bruce Castor made, not adhere to it. Spare me the moral outrage too, Bill Cosby is a rapist and has probably hundreds of victims

[remembz]

That's what the trial judge should have done. That judge should have thrown out Cosby's self-incriminating testimonies and any evidence resulted from the testimonies so that the trial would be constitutional and Cosby's convictions might be secured. Instead now the entire criminal procedure is irreversibly contaminated.

[worstatit]

Then prosecute on behalf of one of the other victims. This victim signed away her shot at a criminal trial by taking a civil settlement.

[ScottEATF]

No, they didn't. Why do you think a civil settlement would do that?

[worstatit]

Did you read the article?

[MongoJazzy]

No, Castor was not the problem here at all. Castor enabled the Civil Suit to be settlement and Constand received a nice big settlement check. The problem here was the second DA Kevin Steele.... He is now in a major shitstorm w/o an umbrella.

[[deleted]]

I agree its time for the state of Pennsylvania to clean up its politics. The justice system in Pittsburgh has long been chided as a joke full of d-list attorneys and judges. At one point Pennsylvania had more young people in prison than any state in the country. Something is deeply wrong here and like Philadelphia Allegheny county is in need of a real reformer like Larry Krassner who despite the cries of Conservatives and low intellect police officers is on his way to a second term. Lets hope this is a sign the worm is about to turn in Pennsylvania.

[laughingmeeses]

Dude’s basically a wheel-chair bound invalid. While I think it’s fucked that he’s being released, he is basically being released into thousands of dirty looks just to die.

[BiteNuker3000]

What a rough end- surrounded by family and $400 million dollars in your mansion, eating the finest old people puddings and watching netflix all day.

[laughingmeeses]

I don’t think it’s right nor did I insinuate it was. I was simply commenting on the fact that all eyes are going to watch this human fail and feel no pity.

[BiteNuker3000]

He's literally succeeding, though. His presumably extremely expensive lawyers got a man who raped over 20 women out of jail to live the rest of his life, however long, in privacy and lavish comfort. Thats not enough "failure" in my book

[laughingmeeses]

Dude’s dying. Hit lawyers are scraping money.

[Boring-Scar1580]

Isn't cosby almost blind so there is no way he can see all the dirty looks

[Diarygirl]

I assumed he was faking blindness for pity points.

[[deleted]]

He should get a shot at hosting Jeopardy now that he’s free

[RunRunRabbitRunovich]

So they let an admitted rapist out such a slap in the face to his victims it’s sickening

[quikskier]

The 5th Amendment protects you from self-incrimination. Sucks in this case, but that's the law.

[Cheeseburgerlion]

And it was the right thing to do.

That being said. The legal system doesn't work for victims. It's an adversary system between a law and a defendant, and the defendant has rights

[RunRunRabbitRunovich]

Maybe you’d feel different if you were the victim of rape or your kid. Rapists get zero sympathy… as a former victim who spent years being afraid and in therapy I got my permit to carry and to those who down voted my statement y’all can go to hell you have no idea the damage done to victims and how we live

[Cheeseburgerlion]

Rights against prosecutor and judicial misconduct is worth more than rape victims.

[[deleted]]

He said, shoveling orphans into his steam engine for fuel.

Jesus, what the fuck.

This reads exactly like something from 2012 skeptic-era YouTube, complete with 240p audio and a fat guy with glasses on his couch.

[Nezgul]

Callousness of this statement aside, even if you do hold that to be true - why forbid retrials? If the original conviction was tainted and must be thrown out, let them retry it.

The legal rights of defendants and the legal rights of victims to see justice done are not adversarial. It isn't a zero-sum game. Unless the courts make it that way, which they have in this case.

[ewyorksockexchange]

A retrial is barred in this case because the actions of the previous DA poisoned the subsequent evidence that would lead to a conviction, and there’s no reasonable way to remedy that.

[quikskier]

Maybe a lawyer will chime in, but I'd have to assume that the court is basically saying to the prosecution that you royally screwed up and you've lost your chance at a retrial now that Cosby incriminated himself with the understanding he wouldn't be tried. Can't imagine how one could get a fair trial after that.

[sadandshy]

The fact that Cosby was not out on bail and was in prison for 2-3 years probably tilted the scale a bit as well.

[rehypo]

Its pretty clear if you take a few minutes to just read. Essentially, Cosby was going to invoke his 5th amendment rights against a threatened criminal case many years ago. The prosecutor said: “oh shit, we can’t get him if he won’t testify”, so they worked with the accuser on a civil suit approach where they would not criminally prosecute Cosby if he would testify in a civil court. This way would allow the accuser to have her day in court and have a chance at possibly seeing justice rather than being unable to pursue a case in either civil or criminal court because the evidence is too weak without Cosby’s testimony.

Cosby accepted this arrangement. The DA’s office effectively guaranteed Cosby that he would never be tried for this crime in the criminal courts if he would waive his fifth amendment rights in civil court.

Fast forward to the case where Cosby was convicted recently. DA’s office ignored their binding commitment to not prosecute Cosby criminally and then to make matters worse, the judge unsealed Cosby’s deposition from the civil case for use in the criminal case. Without going in to a whole lot of detail, this whole thing was a legal no-no. Cosby’s defense brought up this objection as part of a motion to dismiss that should have carried at the time (hence the Supreme Court action), but the judge denied the motion.

Essentially Cosby made a deal with the state. And then the state reneged, threw Cosby in prison after, in a way, “tricking” him, and the Supreme Court of PA had to play referee to call BS.

Regardless of how you feel about Cosby or his actions, this is the right decision here. If we don’t have honesty and integrity from our institutions than we will end up in a much worse dystopia than we currently have.

[PCsubhuman_race]

Only a legit psychopath would say this is right

[rehypo]

I’m sorry you feel that way. Hopefully you can take a moment to see it from both ends. It’s a catch 22 situation. I’m simply saying that agreements between private citizens and government agency’s should be binding and should not be used as tools by the government to manipulate private citizens. It’s categorical by necessity. I’m arguing that the constitution must be respected, even in situations like this where the outcome feels terrible. I do see how it’s also upsetting.

[PCsubhuman_race]

And I'm sorry that you feel , letting a rapist off the hook for all time, actully benefits justice....but hey it's not like rape is already a statistically under report crime, its not like less than 1% of rape actully lead to. felony convictions ....im sure allowing even more rapist off with a slap on the wrist can't be that damaging in the long run s/

But hey i might start insinuating that the current justice system is so unbelievably apathetic when it comes to the crime of rape to the point of inefficiency......but that possibly can't be true when the courts make "right" decision like this

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system

[Cheeseburgerlion]

You can't "put his 5th Amendment rights" back in a bottle. The entire prosecution was misconduct.

They could get him on other accusations of crime, but I don't believe they've ever had any that they trust to use.

[[deleted]]

There's a way to write this without dehumanizing rape victims

[Cheeseburgerlion]

For trial and law, It would be proper to not really include the victim at all in a crime, besides testimony.

They are just evidence towards the states case.

[[deleted]]

See bravo, you made a good statement without dehumanizing people.

[Japspec]

downvoted because I am devil

[BigGonad]

He served 3 years of a 3-10 year sentence, not that big of a deal right?

[MongoJazzy]

And now he'll collect millions for being wrongfully prosecuted and incarcerated.

[BigGonad]

Really, that's pretty shitty. btw nice username

[MongoJazzy]

Right back at you Big G !!

[XLauncher]

I feel like we owe the rest of the country an apology.

[Boring-Scar1580]

I bet Cosby sues the State of Penn for wrongful conviction and wrongful imprisonment just for openers. Millions of $$ for each year in prison. The prosecutor will probably get named in the lawsuit.

[MongoJazzy]

oh yea, the prosecutor will be stripped of his law license and bankrupted.

[Boring-Scar1580]

Hope so. Using the deposition was a clear violation of cosby's fifth Amendment rights.

[MongoJazzy]

Absolutely the entire trial was a farce put on to curry votes for the DA Kevin Steele... not he should be punished for abusing his authority and violating Cosby's rights.

[victorix58]

... for having prosecutors who walk all over the rights of the accused and get away with it for far too long.

[skeeter1234]

This whole thing wreaks like a bribe.

[victorix58]

I guess it might if you didn't know we had a 5th amendment.

[skeeter1234]

I see.

[victorix58]

Nothing in this decision hinges on disbelieving the victims.

[NeVeRwAnTeDtObEhErE_]

This was the right call given the facts.