Bill Cosby Sex Assault Conviction Overturned

@eladar said
Did you look at the numbers? You claimed just one white person. Obviously the truth is against your claim.

I'm talking about police brutality. That's not the same as police shootings. Some police shootings are justified.

You posted one instance of police brutality against a white person as if that means anything. Actually, I didn't even check the link, I'm just assuming you did; it's possible your link doesn't even contain an instance of brutality against the white man in your first link.

@vivify said
I'm talking about police brutality. That's not the same as police shootings. Some police shootings are justified.

You posted one instance of police brutality against a white person as if that means anything. Actually, I didn't even check the link, I'm just assuming you did; it's possible your link doesn't even contain an instance of brutality against the white man in your first link.

Police brutality is a result of resisting arrest. Once again, we are talking mostly about the poor. How many rich black people get beat up by police? I am not talking about being questioned, I am talking about being brutalized by the police.

Once again rich vs poor.

@eladar said
Must be due to White Privilege.

When was the last time you heard of a rich, white guy doing over two years in prison before his conviction was overturned by an appellate court?

@no1marauder said
When was the last time you heard of a rich, white guy doing over two years in prison before his conviction was overturned by an appellate court?

I just hear of rich white men winding up dead in prison.

@vivify said
Agreed.

If you think the right not to incriminate yourself is a minor "technicality", that's true. However, here's the first three paragraphs of the majority decision:

"In 2005, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor learned that Andrea Constand had reported that William Cosby had sexually assaulted her in 2004 at his Cheltenham residence. Along with his top deputy prosecutor and experienced detectives, District Attorney Castor thoroughly investigated Constand’s claim. In evaluating the likelihood of a successful prosecution of Cosby, the district attorney foresaw difficulties
with Constand’s credibility as a witness based, in part, upon her decision not to file a complaint promptly. D.A. Castor further determined that a prosecution would be frustrated because there was no corroborating forensic evidence and because testimony from other potential claimants against Cosby likely was inadmissible under governing laws of evidence. The collective weight of these considerations led D.A. Castor to
conclude that, unless Cosby confessed, “there was insufficient credible and admissible [J-100-2020] - 2 evidence upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby related to the Constand incident
could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”1

Seeking “some measure of justice” for Constand, D.A. Castor decided that the Commonwealth would decline to prosecute Cosby for the incident involving Constand, thereby allowing Cosby to be forced to testify in a subsequent civil action, under penalty of perjury, without the benefit of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
2 Unable to invoke any right not to testify in the civil proceedings, Cosby relied upon the district attorney’s declination and proceeded to provide four sworn depositions. During those depositions, Cosby made several incriminating statements.

D.A. Castor’s successors did not feel bound by his decision, and decided to prosecute Cosby notwithstanding that prior undertaking. The fruits of Cosby’s reliance upon D.A. Castor’s decisionCosby’s sworn inculpatory testimonywere then used by D.A. Castor’s successors against Cosby at Cosby’s criminal trial. We granted allowance of appeal to determine whether D.A. Castor’s decision not to prosecute Cosby in exchange for his testimony must be enforced against the Commonwealth.
3

https://www.pacourts.us/Storage/media/pdfs/20210630/163038-june302021opinionwecht.pdf

The bottom line is Cosby would never have been compelled to give evidence against himself at the civil deposition IF there had been a criminal charge hanging over him. The DA's office expressly stated he would not be charged just to force him to testify and then reneged on the deal.

With those facts essentially undisputed, I agree with the Court's finding:

"For the reasons detailed below, we hold that, when a prosecutor makes an unconditional promise of non-prosecution, and when the defendant relies upon that guarantee to the detriment of his constitutional right not to testify, the principle of fundamental fairness that undergirds due process of law in our criminal justice system demands that the promise be enforced."

p. 52

@earl-of-trumps said
the RATE, but not the raw numbers. There are more whites killed by cops, 60% are white.

Exactly. The rate being that much higher is just more evidence of a systemic issue.

@no1marauder said
If you think the right not to incriminate yourself is a minor "technicality", that's true. However, here's the first three paragraphs of the majority decision:

"In 2005, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor learned that Andrea Constand had reported that William Cosby had sexually assaulted her in 2004 at his Cheltenham residence. Along with his top deputy p ...[text shortened]... ds due process of law in our criminal justice system demands that the promise be enforced."

p. 52

Okay. Details like that make it far from being just some technicality. Thanks for posting.

@vivify said
Exactly. The rate being that much higher is just more evidence of a systemic issue.

When adjusted for poverty, the numbers are not that different.

Here is a liberal source saying exactly what I am saying.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/20/kil1-d20.html

From the link...

Police violence is focused overwhelmingly on men lowest on the socio-economic ladder: in rural areas outside the South, predominately white men; in the Southwest, disproportionately Hispanic men; in mid-size and major cities, disproportionately black men. Significantly, in the rural South, where the population is racially mixed, white men and black men are killed by police at nearly identical rates. What unites these victims of police violence is not their race, but their class status (as well as, of course, their gender).

@eladar said
Police brutality is a result of resisting arrest. Once again, we are talking mostly about the poor. How many rich black people get beat up by police? I am not talking about being questioned, I am talking about being brutalized by the police.

Once again rich vs poor.

The blacks should be given a course in What to Do when a cop approaches them, or asks them to roll down their window. Did you see George Floyd when he was asked....he never stopped talking. He confused the cops and himself. Just dont talk...class dismissed. But they just spout out anything they can think of, starting with What!>|?!???? I didn't do anything! In effect, to Eladar's point,, he was resisting...resisting arrest. Don't resist anything, just listen to the officer, and then you can be on your way if you didn't 'do anything '. Uhh, you didn't do anything, did you ??
They need a class. That's it.

@averagejoe1 said
The blacks should be given a course in What to Do when a cop approaches them, or asks them to roll down their window. Did you see George Floyd when he was asked....he never stopped talking. He confused the cops and himself. Just dont talk...class dismissed. But they just spout out anything they can think of, starting with What!>|?!???? I didn't do anything! In eff ...[text shortened]... you didn't 'do anything '. Uhh, you didn't do anything, did you ??
They need a class. That's it.

Cooperating with the cop didn't help Philando Castile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile

@no1marauder said
Cooperating with the cop didn't help Philando Castile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile

Or Charles Kinsey:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/north-miami-officer-who-shot-unarmed-caregiver-man-autism-found-n1018616

@eladar said
Must be due to White Privilege.

Bill Cosby is black.

@eladar said
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/


Cops kill more white people than blacks every year.

Whites greatly outnumber blacks in the USA.
How many per capita of whites and blacks?

@no1marauder said
If you think the right not to incriminate yourself is a minor "technicality", that's true. However, here's the first three paragraphs of the majority decision:

"In 2005, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor learned that Andrea Constand had reported that William Cosby had sexually assaulted her in 2004 at his Cheltenham residence. Along with his top deputy p ...[text shortened]... ds due process of law in our criminal justice system demands that the promise be enforced."

p. 52

We agree for once.

We should be asking why the court allowed Cosby to be railroaded despite a promise not to prosecute. Would that have happened to a Kennedy? I doubt it.

@moonbus said
So, a rapist and sexual predator is out on a technicality. What a travesty of justice.

In fact the court system is not about justice but about the application of the law.

That that prosecutor made the deal in the first place is a scandal, that his succesor is bound by his word is legally (probably) correct.

EDIT: So it was pointed out before...