Prosecutors are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to toss the decision that overturned Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction, warning that the ruling sets a troubling precedent that press releases can be treated as immunity agreements, reports the AP. Cosby, who’s been accused of multiple sexual assaults and served almost three years in prison for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, was set free on what many called a legal technicality earlier this year. Cosby’s lawyers have said he only sat for a 2006 deposition—in which he admitted to having sex with Constand and giving women drugs—as part of a verbal “non-prosecution agreement” that meant he he’d never go to trial. However, the only proof of such an agreement between prosecutors and the defense was in a 2005 press release from Cosby’s then-prosecutor, Bruce Castor. Evidence from Cosby’s deposition was eventually used at his two criminal trials, and a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that “the moment that Cosby was charged criminally, he was harmed.”
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele wrote in the petition to the Supreme Court that the decision will have “far-reaching negative consequences beyond Montgomery County and Pennsylvania. The U.S. Supreme Court can right what we believe is a grievous wrong.”
Read it at The New York Times
