Updated November 29 at 4:54 p.m.: Prosecutors in the case of Bill Cosby’s 2018 conviction are now requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court throw out the appellate court ruling that led to his conviction being overturned in June. The Associated Press reports that on Monday, Montgomery County DA Kevin Steele petitioned the decision to be overturned, arguing that the court freeing Cosby in June after he served less than three years of a three-to-ten-year sentence “will have far-reaching negative consequences†by setting a precedent for future defendants to claim immunity on flimsy grounds. The AP points out that Steele’s request to overturn the reversal of Cosby’s sentence is a “long shot,†noting that the Supreme Court “accepts fewer than one percent of the petitions it receives.â€
Original story follows.
Bill Cosby’s 2018 conviction for sexual assault has been overturned by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. NBC News reports that “prosecutorial mistakes†were cited as the reason for the reversal; more specifically, Bloomberg reports that an agreement with the previous prosecutor to not charge Cosby in the case should have prevented him from being tried by a new prosecutor. The 83-year-old Cosby, who was sentenced to three-to-ten years in prison, will thus become a free man. He also cannot be retried for the same charges. The court ruled the following:
When an unconditional charging decision is made publicly and with the intent to induce action and reliance by the defendant, and when the defendant does so to his detriment and in some instances upon the advice of counsel, denying the defendant the benefit of that decision is an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was foregone for more than a decade. For these reasons, Cosby’s convictions and judgment of sentence are vacated, and he is discharged.