Is that you, Legal Eagle?
I’ll look forward to Devin Stone’s take on this clusterfuck.
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No need to apologize, I understand being frustrated, if not disgusted, with this ruling. One can be frustrated and disgusted with this ruling and still recognize that it is correct, and to hold otherwise would be damaging to the rights and protections afforded criminal defendants.
Believe me, I totally understand the difficulty people have with this ruling. Your comment gets to the heart of a lot of what I explain to people regularly: it’s pretty easy to insist on the rigorous application of civil liberties and constitutional protections for “innocent” people. It’s very easy to be upset at those innocent people sitting in jail. What’s not as easy is to insist on the rigorous application of civil liberties and constitutional protections for EVERYONE, regardless of whether they are “innocent” or not. Because unless those protections apply to the least sympathetic among us, they apply to no one.
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Interesting phrasing.
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I appreciate your interest. What the phrasing means is that the protections need to apply to people like Bill Cosby, i.e. the least sympathetic among us, or they don’t apply to anyone. Bill Cosby is a monster who hurt dozens of people, and the deal Castor struck with him was fundamentally unjust, in addition to being stupid. I understand and share the frustration and disgust with this ruling, and I also believe it to be correct.
What I was getting at with the person above is that I understand why it’s much, much easier to be upset at “innocent” people having their rights violated than when “guilty” people have those same rights trampled.
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I’m sure.
Your… sympathy is noted, as is the use of unnecessary scare quotes.
Though implying or outright stating that you “know” how total strangers online feel is a bit… presumptuous.
Just fyi.
Welcome to the BBS, btw.
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They DON’T! That’s my WHOLE point. They very obviously DON’T! Even someone who has no experience inside the criminal justice system like me except for some jury duty and traffic tickets can see the evidence of that!
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“We must protect the rapists or none of us are safe!”
Weird flex but OK.
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Indeed.
I am under no illusions about the the fact that as a Black woman in this country, I have less standing under the law than any White counterpart or any male counterpart; no matter what is actually written down ‘on the books.’
As money only has as much value as we give it, so do concepts like ‘law and order’ - if those tenets only apply to and bind a certain sect of the population, then we don’t truly have rule of law at all.
We have a caste system, and far too many people are okay with that…
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This seems incredibly difficult to understand from people who are working within the criminal justice system, even when they claim to believe in justice. Our system is not delivering justice. It’s reinforcing this caste system. For evidence of that, we just have to look at the actual outcomes of our criminal justice system.
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Nah, there’s no trickle down civil rights. Rich people, famous people and politically connected people getting a maximal reading of rights doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t get a minimal one. Murderers deserve the same civil right as everyone else, they don’t deserve Civil Rights+™ if they are rich. And rapists don’t deserve getting let off easy because people in power don’t think women are real.
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Oh, it’s not that they don’t think we are real; it’s that they think we don’t fucking matter - in their minds, women ‘only exist’ to facilitate and edify the needs and wants of men.
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YES, rapists have rights, even when convicted, just less of them than non-convicts. And YES, it is important we retain those rights for the accused and/or convicted among us, no matter how obviously guilty they may be. This isn’t clear to you…? Notably, the Constitution is utterly clear on this, your opinion aside.
The fact that our justice system is horrifyingly flawed doesn’t obviate this. Rather the opposite, in fact! Marinate on this: How many black men do you think have been convicted under false rape charges? Don’t try to pretend this doesn’t happen even now, much less in the past; “Black men are gonna rape all the White women” is an ancient libel in this country. It’s even largely why marijuana was illegal for so long – “Black men are gonna get high and rape all the White women!” – for heaven’s sake.
Let me ask you directly: Is it OK for prosecutors to lie to the accused about a deal to attain a conviction? Do you honestly think that won’t be abused in the most vile ways possible, if it becomes actual, formalized law de jure, as opposed to merely de facto? If not, you have WAY more faith in the justice system than I do, for sure o.o’ .
This topic is actually about a Black man who raped white (and Black) women.
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And? Do accused criminals have zero rights?
Is it OK for prosecutors to lie to defendants to gain an advantage?
Was I incorrect?
Nope. And that is VERY topical here. It’s especially important, considering something like 90+% of cases are resolved though plea deals!
Yes, Cosby is totally guilty. Yes, the prosector lied to get a conviction. No, that’s not OK. And I didn’t miss the fact that you completely avoided answering my questions.
No, nobody is saying that it is all right for prosecutors to do this. If you read up on the specifics of this case and the decision, you will see that the court relied on an extremely strained interpretation of what constitutes a plea deal. The whole thing hinged on a press release from the DA’s office.
There is a process for plea deals, and it requires the court to sign off on it. That never happened. The court nevertheless ruled that it was “in effect” a plea deal because of the way things played out.
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No, not quite.
From a surprisingly well-written article on Cracked
- The Decision to Overturn Cosby’s Conviction Had To Do With A 2005 Deposition
The mid-2010’s court cases were not the only instances Cosby and Constand faced off in the legal system. In 2005, roughly a year after the alleged assault took place, Constand reported the incident to authorities in her home province of Ontario, Canada, who ultimately passed it to police in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. After investigating the matter with then Montgomery County District attorney, Bruce L. Castor Jr., the officials ultimately decided not to file charges against the once-beloved actor, concerned the allegations wouldn’t stand in a court of law. However, they still wanted to do right by Constand.
"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,” reads the court document discussing the decision to overturn Cosby’s conviction.
No longer having the Fifth Amendment to protect him from self-incrimination, Cosby recounted what happened during four days of depositions, in which he “made several incriminating statements,” according to the aforementioned document. Cosby and Constand eventually settled for $3.4 million in 2006.
However less than a decade later, after dozens of women came forward speaking about the sexual abuse they allegedly endured at the hands of the star, Castor Jr’s successor, Kevin Steele decided to arrest Cosby on charges relating back to the 2004 assault days before the 12-year statute of limitation was set to expire, citing unsealed evidence from the star’s damning deposition. Cosby was ultimately found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and assaulting Constand in April 2018.
This Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned this conviction due to the fact that evidence from the deposition was used, despite the fact that Cosby spoke freely on the incident under the pretenses that he would not be charged with a crime. “In light of these circumstances, the subsequent decision by successor D.A.s to prosecute Cosby violated Cosby’s due process rights,” the decision reads, a rationale that Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt echoed in a statement.
In other words, the prosecution decided to renege on a deal, that simple. Their attempted excuse for doing so was that it was never signed by a judge, so it was never valid.
What’s maddening about this, in my opinion, is that they most likely would still have won without resorting to using that deposition, and Cosby would still be in jail. It was objectively a dumb thing to do, as well as freaking horrible precedent for prosecutorial behavior in general. No, it IS NOT OKAY to let prosecutors lie in any kind of plea deal! Considering the vast majority of court cases (truly guilty or not!) are resolved with plea deals, you’re not going to be able to minimize this.
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I think that you are missing a key detail here.
The prosecutor who offered Cosby immunity is not the same as the prosecutor who reneged on the “deal.” The question here then becomes, not did the prosecutor lie (no because it’s a different person), but was the immunity actually established? The court ruled that it was, but the issue is not as cut and dry as “the prosecutor lied to him!” There are reasons to argue both ways (I think that the court probably should have gone with a retrial), but what you are suggesting is not the same as what happened.
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Back onto the actual topic:
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That’s precisely my point. Murderers, rapists, and anyone else guilty of horrible crimes should get a maximal reading of civil rights. Because to do otherwise is to erode them for everyone.
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