No verdict from Cosby jury; defense lawyers slammed

Buress was silent on the subject after Thursday’s verdict against Cosby, tweeting out only tour dates, and his representatives didn’t respond to requests for a statement.

Cosby, 80, could end up spending his final years in prison after a jury concluded he sexually violated Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

Cosby spokeswoman Ebonee Benson echoed that sentiment when asked Wednesday about the criticism of the defense approach. Carrie Goldberg is a lawyer.

Our surprise speaks to the heights from which Cosby fell but also to a widespread pessimism about the American justice system’s ability to secure convictions in sex-crime cases.

‘Big big thanks to Hannibal Burress [sic] for getting the Cosby train started, ‘ wrote another user.

CARRIE GOLDBERG: I’m delighted to be here.

But Debra J. Robbin, executive director of Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, said the TV superstar’s conviction yesterday and the #MeToo movement show that society has reached a “watershed moment”.

“No one should ever ever have to suffer what we had to hear and say that there isn’t anything you can do about it”, Lublin said. Is #MeToo biasing the courtroom?

One of Cosby’s lawyers, Kathleen Bliss, had also compared the accusations during her closing argument to a lynching – as well as a witch hunt and McCarthyism. She’s one of than more 50 accusers now feeling some vindication. Did that kind of rhetoric just not work anymore?

“I feel like it’s the right thing for them not to revoke it”, said Paine College student Deismon Arnold.

The Cosby camp also complained about a juror who allegedly said before the trial that he thought the comedian was guilty.

Years later public opinion has shifted for the man made famous for his role as Mr. Huxtable. This isn’t what you’d expect from your attorney.

GOLDBERG: I do think that the verdict does undermine her shaming tactics, and it’s outdated.

Young says, “It’s good to have clear limits set; know what you’re willing to do”. Benson, however, took it a step further when she compared Cosby’s case to Emmett Till’s, the young black boy who was lynched in MS in 1955 after a white woman claimed he whistled at her.

Soon after the first trial, a series of women leveled sexual assault and harassment accusations against men in media, entertainment and politics, giving rise to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that encouraged women go public with personal stories of abuse, in some cases after years of silence. And that is because of bias.

SIMON: The evidence had a lot to do with the verdict too, though, didn’t it? Constand sued Cosby after prosecutors initially declined to file charges, settling with him for almost $3.4 million over a decade ago.

Cosby was prosecuted after rumors of sexual assaults swirled for years. “In a criminal case you have a greater obligation to go after a witness’s credibility because you’re dealing with someone’s freedom”. So if that did impact the jury, then that’s not bias, but that’s a tiny molecule removing bias.

April 29: Top prosecutor Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kristen Feden, in the sexual assault case against U.S. comedian and actor Bill Cosby, said she was “filled with awe” after securing a conviction.