The Supreme Court has declined an appeal by Pennsylvania prosecutors in Bill Cosby’s overturned sexual assault conviction. Cosby had been convicted of sexual assault in 2018 and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, but he was released in June 2021 after the Pennsylvania supreme court overturned the ruling in a stunning decision. The Supreme Court’s rejection keeps the reversal in place.
The Pennsylvania court determined last year that Cosby’s due process rights had been violated during his conviction and that a 2005 agreement with former prosecutor Bruce Castor should have prevented him from being charged again.
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“The collective weight of these considerations led D.A. Castor to conclude that, unless Cosby confessed, there was insufficient credible and admissible evidence upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby related to the Constand incident could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,’” read the decision.
Cosby’s overturned conviction was for raping Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia home in 2004. The verdict was one of the first major victories of the #MeToo movement after dozens of women came forward with allegations that Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them. The decision to overturn the verdict last year was met with outrage and disbelief among many in the Hollywood community.
Cosby was originally tried in 2017, but the jury was not able to reach a verdict. At the retrial in 2018, five more accusers were allowed to testify about their similar experiences to Constand’s, which led to Cosby’s conviction. However, the Pennsylvania court decided that the testimonies were tainted and turned into character attacks, as law only allows testimony in limited cases, including to show a crime pattern that is so specific it serves to identify the perpetrator.
“On behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Cosby and the Cosby family, we would like to offer our sincere gratitude to the justices of the United States Supreme Court for following the rules of law and protecting the Constitutional Rights of ALL American Citizens of these United States,” publicist Andrew Wyatt said in a statement obtained by Variety. “Mr. Cosby’s Constitutional Rights were a “reprehensible bait and switch” by Kevin Steele, Judge Steve T. O’Neill and their cohorts. This is truly a victory for Mr. Cosby but it shows that cheating will never get you far in life and the corruption that lies within Montgomery County District’s Attorney Office has been brought to the center stage of the world. Thank you very much.”
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