Disgraced Bill Cosby’s Release From Prison: The Legal Lowdown Explained

Here is breakdown of the legal issues surrounding a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that abruptly let the disgraced entertainer out of prison By Charlie Savage The disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby walked free this week after three years in prison when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out his 2018 convictions on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, when she was a Temple University employee. The abrupt reversal of the first high-profile sexual assault conviction after the #MeToo movement has attracted particular interest, raising questions such as whether Cosby could still face prosecution over any of the accusations of sexual assault and misconduct that more than 50 women have leveled against him. Here is a dissection of the legal issues Why did the court overturn the conviction? Because prosecutors violated Mr. Cosby’s rights by reneging on an apparent promise not to charge him, the court majority ruled. In 2005, Bruce L. Castor Jnr, who was then the district attorney in Montgomery County, outside Philadelphia, issued a news release saying that he had declined to charge Cosby over the matter.