Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court overturned Bill Cosby‘s sexual assault conviction today after finding an agreement with a previous prosecutor that prevented him from being charged in 2015.
Cosby, 83, was charged in late 2015 after being accused by Andrea Constand, in March 2005, of drugging and molesting while she was under the influence of an unknown substance.
Bill Cosby has served more than two years of a three to 10 year sentence, to which he has vowed to serve all ten rather to acknowledge any remorse he had over his 2004 encounter with Andrea Constand. According to the Pennsylvania Supreme court, District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby and that no evidence was given that the promise was ever put in writing.
Judge David Wecht said that “Cosby had relied on the former prosecutor’s decision not to charge him when he later gave his potentially incriminating testimony in the Constand’s civil case.” Because of this, the conviction is now overturned and any further prosecution against Cosby has been barred. To that extent, the court explained that it is “the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices expressed their concerns regarding sexual assault cases, but also believed that the testimony “tainted” the trial, even though a lower appeals court had found it appropriate to showcase Cosby’s pattern of drugging and molesting women. The prosecutors did not specify whether or not they were going to appeal or seek to try Cosby for a third time.
Cosby was the first celebrity to be tried and convicted during the height of the #MeToo movement, which gained traction after film producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault and rape in late 2017.
