|
 Cosby's lawyers blame his
conviction in part on the national fervor in
2018 surrounding the #MeToo movement, which
sought to hold powerful men accountable for
unpunished sexual assaults. Cosby was the first
celebrity convicted of sexual abuse after the
start of the movement.
"The American criminal justice system was
designed to convict defendants based upon their
conduct - not on their general character,"
Cosby's lawyers argue in their brief. "The
fervor of the #MeToo movement rendered this
cherished constitutional tenet obsolete at
Cosby’s trial."
Cosby, a comedian and actor best known as the
lovable father from the 1980s TV hit “The Cosby
Show,” was convicted of three counts of
aggravated indecent assault after drugging a
former friend, Andrea Constand, in January 2004
at his suburban Philadelphia mansion. At the
time Constand was director of operations of
Temple University women’s basketball team. Cosby
is serving a three-to-ten-year sentence in a
state prison near Philadelphia.
One prong of Cosby’s appeal, which will be heard
virtually by the seven justices because of
pandemic restrictions, attacks the decision by
Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill to allow
testimony at the trial by five “prior bad act”
witnesses.
Prosecutors hoped the testimony of five women
who over the years have also accused the
entertainer of sexual assault, would show a
pattern of behavior by Cosby of befriending
younger women with promises of career help and
then drugging and raping them.
They were among some 50 women who accused Cosby,
now 83, of sexual assaults going back decades,
though all the accusations but Constand’s were
too old to prosecute.
Cosby’s legal team, led by Jennifer Bonjean, a
Brooklyn lawyer, will argue that the five
women’s claims are too dissimilar to Constand’s
complaint to have been allowed.
[to top of second column]
|
 His lawyers will also argue
that Cosby was given immunity from prosecution
by former Montgomery County District Attorney
Bruce Castor in 2005 in return for his
deposition in Constand’s civil suit.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin
Steele’s legal team, led by Adrienne Jappe, an
assistant prosecutor at the 2018 trial,
disagrees on both counts. “The
trial court properly denied the non-prosecution
claim. Its credibility determination and
factual-finding that there was no promise is
supported by the record. Even if it existed, the
district attorney lacked the authority to grant
non-statutory immunity,” they write in their
brief.
Prosecutors note that testimony by the five
women and the invalidity of Castor’s supposed
non-prosecution agreement with Cosby passed
muster both with O’Neill and the Pennsylvania
Superior Court, the state’s intermediate
appellate court.
In December 2019, a Pennsylvania appeals court
dismissed Cosby’s bid to overturn his
conviction. It is unlikely that the Supreme
Court will render a decision on Tuesday. It
typically takes weeks or even months to hand
down rulings.
(Reporting by David DeKok in Harrisburg, Pa.;
Editing by Frank McGurty and Matthew Lewis)
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