The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court has overturned Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction, and the 83-year-old comedian/Jello pudding salesman/serial rapist will be released from prison with no chance of his having to go back, according to the ruling vacating his conviction issued yesterday.
Is that justice? Well, it’s a kind of justice, but only for Cosby. Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned his conviction because a previous prosecutor had granted him immunity from prosecution in order to force the Coz to admit to some of his criminal sexual activity. Cosby could not use the Fifth Amendment nor lie without risking perjury charges, so he made several incriminating statements on the record. These should not have been used to convict him later, but a different prosecutor determined that his office was not bound by the previous deal. But it was. Because Cosby’s statements were improperly used against him, the conviction was based on inadmissible evidence. This new ruling bars any retrial in the case.
Much as Bill Cosby deserves to rot in prison, upon reading the opinion, I see no way to criticize the decision. Even bad people have to be prosecuted and convicted the right way, and Cosby, who is about as bad as one can get, was not. I’m sure there is some reason why Cosby’s lawyer wasn’t able to block the use of his client’s damning but unusable testimony before Cosby had to spend time in jail, but so far, I can’t find it.
If a sociopathic predator like Bill Cosby can be freed on the basis of an unfair trial—and he can and should be—so can and should a brutal cop like Derk Chauvin, whose trial was also unfair, though for very different reasons. We shall see how far the integrity of the justice system goes.
Nobody is going to riot over Bill Cosby going free. That, I fear, might be the critical difference.
Ethics Alarms 
I’m sure there is some reason why Cosby’s lawyer wasn’t able to block the use of his client’s damning but unusable testimony before Cosby had to spend time in jail, but so far, I can’t find it.
So it was a strategic decision to generate a basis for a successful appeal?
This is my read. Without COVID messing up the courts, I suspect Cosby would have been out sometime around a year ago.
The answer is on pages 27-28
lightly edited to remove the footnote.
The trial court felt that the former prosecutor couldn’t grant immunity–verbally or with a press release. A judge had to agree.
It continues.
Thanks. I missed that at the time, in part because it was obvious that Bill should rot in Hell, but what a Catch-22 ruling! What matters is only that Cosby had every reason to believe the DA, and was literally tricked into waiving his rights against self-incrimination. Talk about “Otter’s Excuse”: “Hey! You fucked up! You trusted us!” Outrageous. The judges should be disciplined.
Thanks Val. Nice spade work.
“Nobody is going to riot over Bill Cosby going free. That, I fear, might be the critical difference.”
You fear right. I’m sure the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court has already issued a memo to all his fellow justices and the entire appellate bench that says “Derek Chauvin stays locked up no matter what. This state needs to heal, and it can’t heal if there are more riots.”
That said, I have very little sympathy for Derek Chauvin himself. If you end up locked up for twenty years plus for killing someone by abusing your power, plus create the optics of being a homicidal bully who just didn’t cross enough lines earlier, I have a real hard time feeling sorry for you. That said, even homicidal bullies are entitled to the same due process as everyone else. Chauvin didn’t get it, in large part because the media decided making good copy and ratings was more important than due process and activists didn’t give a damn about whether a conviction would stand up later.
I also have no sympathy for Cosby. If you end up spending the last years of your life in prison like Henri Petain did (although for different crimes) because you drugged and raped every woman who came within your wingspan, you have forfeited any claim to sympathy. That said, even sociopaths who drug and rape are also entitled to due process, and to the honoring of any deal the government makes with them. The government does not get to promise you something to incriminate yourself, then go back on the deal.
The fact is that there is a human desire for swift justice, and often not much interest in procedural niceties when the accused is thought of as bad enough not to deserve them. That’s why the Providence police beat Esteban Carpio until he was unrecognizable after he killed one of their own while trying to escape, and no one said boo. No one gave a damn about Carpio, he was a cop killer and a suspect in the murder of an 86yo woman. That’s why the US Marshals smashed Eric Frein in the face after he was in cuffs for assassinating a PA state trooper and no one cared. And that’s why you and I watched NYPD Blue and the Shield and are still watching Chicago PD and cheered or cheer when Andy Spiowicz beat a suspect in the interrogation room, or Vic Mackey slammed someone’s head into the corner of a dumpster, or Hank Voight twisted someone’s already broken arm demanding a confession. The thought is these are bad people and whatever they get they deserve.
The thing is, it’s easy to forget that you could one day be on the receiving end of street justice or it could be decided that it’s politically expedient to give you a long sentence with imperfect procedure. Ironically, the same people who proclaim “black lives matter” as an article of faith don’t care much about the lives of those they target.