The Supreme Court ruled on Monday against an appeal concerning Bill Cosby’s overturned conviction in 2021 involving a sexual assault conviction.
The decision left in place a 4-3 ruling by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court that ruled Cosby’s 2018 conviction violated his due process rights. Cosby was released in June following the overturned decision.
The Pennsylvania ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court in November by Montgomery County’s district attorney regarding a case reaching back to 2005.
The appeal to the Supreme Court emphasized the due process clause: “Where a prosecutor publicly announces that he will not file criminal charges based on lack of evidence, does the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment transform that announcement into a binding promise that no charges will ever be filed, a promise that the target may rely on as if it were a grant of immunity?”
Cosby’s publicist Andrew Wyatt released a statement on behalf of Coby’s family following the decision on Monday.
“Mr. Cosby’s Constitutional Rights were a ‘reprehensible bait and switch’ by Kevin Steele, Judge Steve T. O’Neill and their cohorts,” Wyatt said. “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.”
Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Cosby, had previously urged the court in January not to revive the case.
“Under the unique facts of the case, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that [the former district attorney] had made an unconditional promise of non-prosecution, and that Cosby had relied on that promise to his detriment, namely foregoing his Fifth Amendment guarantees and testifying at four days of depositions, and that as a matter of fundamental fairness, the promise should be enforced,” she said.
Cosby, now 84, spent nearly three years in prison prior to the overturned verdict.
“The 84-year-old Cosby became the first celebrity convicted of sexual assault in the #MeToo era when a jury in 2018 found him guilty of drugging and molesting Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. A jury had previously deadlocked in Cosby’s case, resulting in a mistrial in 2017,” CNBC noted.
Following his release in June 2021, Cosby reportedly refused to accept responsibility for the 2004 incident. The Daily Wire previously reported:
The Associated Press reports that Pennsylvania’s highest court dismissed Cosby’s conviction “after finding an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented [Cosby] from being charged in the case.
“The trial judge had allowed just one other accuser to testify at Cosby’s first trial when the jury deadlocked. However, he then allowed five other accusers to testify at the retrial about their experiences with Cosby in the 1980s,” the AP reported. “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that testimony tainted the trial, even though a lower appeals court had found it appropriate to show a signature pattern of drugging and molesting women.”
Cosby, the outlet added, has refused to take responsibility for the 2004 incident and had “vowed to serve all 10 years rather than acknowledge any remorse.”