Castor said he made the promise to a now-dead defence lawyer for Cosby, and got nothing in return.
The only alleged participant to come forward is Castor, a political rival of Steele’s who went on to represent President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.
They note that Cosby’s lawyers objected strenuously to the deposition questions rather than let him speak freely.Ĭosby himself has never testified about any agreement or promise. The court stopped short of finding that there was such an agreement, but said Cosby thought there was - that reliance, they said, marred his conviction.īut prosecutors call that conclusion flawed. The majority found that Cosby relied on the decision not to prosecute him when he admitted giving a string of young women drugs and alcohol before sexual encounters. Then the seven justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote three separate opinions on it. An intermediate state court upheld the conviction. Two justices on the court, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, were accused of sexual misconduct during their bitterly fought confirmation hearings.Īppellate judges have voiced sharply different views of the Cosby case. Legal scholars and victim advocates will be watching closely, though, to see if the court takes an interest in a high-profile #MeToo case. Supreme Court accepts fewer than 1% of the petitions it receives. Steele’s bid to revive the case is a long shot.
However, defence lawyers say the case should never have gone to trial because of what they call a “non-prosecution agreement.” Instead, they say Cosby had strategic reasons to give the deposition rather than invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, even if it backfired when “he slipped up” in his rambling testimony. They also doubt that Castor ever made such a deal. Prosecutors have also complained that the chief judge of the state’s high court appeared to misstate key facts of the case when he discussed the court ruling that overturned Cosby’s conviction in a television interview.Ĭastor’s successors, who gathered new evidence and arrested Cosby in 2015, say it falls far short of a lifetime immunity agreement. Supreme Court can right what we believe is a grievous wrong,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele wrote in the petition, which seeks a Supreme Court review under the due process clause of the U.S. “This decision as it stands will have far-reaching negative consequences beyond Montgomery County and Pennsylvania. The release included an ambiguous “caution” that Castor “will reconsider this decision should the need arise.” The parties have since spent years debating what that meant. The only written evidence of such a promise is a 2005 press release from the then-prosecutor, Bruce Castor, who said he did not have enough evidence to arrest Cosby. The admissions were later used against him in two criminal trials. Supreme Court to review the ruling that overturned Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction, arguing in a petition Monday that a dangerous precedent could be set if press releases are treated as immunity agreements.Ĭosby’s lawyers have long argued that he relied on a promise that he would never be charged when he gave damaging testimony in an accuser’s civil suit in 2006.