"Without a doubt, a mistrial is a good development for Cosby, but he still has to face another trial," Slotnick said. "It is not time for Cosby to pop the champagne, but a mistrial makes the prosecutor’s case harder to prosecute."
"They fought hard on every witness, every document, every report, on Cosby's words — his defense was vigorous," Stanley says "Five minutes and one witness does not mean he was not fully represented. Their case started the minute the jury sat down in the box, in the way they carried themselves, in their aggressive and powerful opening statements.
Gloria Allred, the women's rights attorney who represents 33 Cosby accusers, told the media outside the courthouse after the mistrial, that she hoped next time more accusers will be allowed to testify. “The court only allowed one such prior bad act witnesses,” she said.
It happened in Cosby's trial. His team called one witness when it came time to present his defense on Monday, and he finished answering a few questions in a little more than five minutes. "The defense rests," lead defense attorney Brian McMonagle said. And that was it.
In response, current Montgomery County Kevin Steele, who prosecuted Cosby, released a statement Wednesday saying, "He was found guilty by a jury and now goes free on a procedural issue that is irrelevant to the facts of the crime.
Jennifer BonjeanJennifer Bonjean, his appeals lawyer, said the Supreme Court had proven it was “impervious to the court of public opinion” and that Cosby should never have been prosecuted in the first place.
Mistrial declared June 17: The sexual assault trial of Cosby ends in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict.
Jurors deliberated for 52 hours but said they were hopelessly deadlocked. After the mistrial was declared, Montgomery County, Pa., District Attorney Kevin Steele immediately announced that he would retry Cosby.
Monique Pressley is a skilled trial attorney, television legal analyst/contributor, crisis manager, radio host, noted speaker, adjunct law professor, certified leadership trainer and ordained minister.
UPDATE (3/7/22): The Supreme Court has turned down an appeal of the decision to overturn Bill Cosby's 2018 sexual assault conviction and release him from jail. The court, as is customary in these instances per The Associated Press, didn't issue any comments or opinions to accompany the decision.
Judge Steven O'NeillMontgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill found Castor not credible after a two-day hearing in February 2016, and sent the case to trial. He ultimately sentenced Cosby to three to 10 years in prison after a jury convicted him in a 2018 retrial of drugging and molesting Constand in 2004.
June 5, 2017May 25, 2017 Jury selection ends two days after it began. The jury, which was selected from Allegheny County residents, consists of seven men and five women. June 5, 2017 Cosby's criminal trial begins. He arrives in court arm in arm with his former "Cosby Show" co-star Keshia Knight Pulliam.
A retrial is a new trial of a case to re-examine some or all of the matters from the concluded trial.
And what comes next? The outcome of the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial is that there isn't one: On Saturday morning, Judge Steven O'Neill declared a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on any of three counts of aggravated indecent assault of accuser Andrea Constand, following 52 hours of deliberation over five days.
"The defense rests," lead defense attorney Brian McMonagle said. And that was it. The trial was over in the courtroom in six days.
O'Neill allowed Steele to introduce as evidence Cosby's own words about his encounter with Constand, in a 2005 police interview and in a deposition he gave for her 2005 civil lawsuit against him. The latter contained damaging admissions that he acquired drugs to give to women he sought for sex.
Cosby was not found guilty and was not acquitted. A jury of seven men and five women could not reach a unanimous verdict — required by law — for either, thus resulting in a hung jury, thus resulting in the declaration of a mistrial. Why did a mistrial happen?
Instead, Steele was allowed to call just one other accuser, Kelly Johnson , to testify that Cosby drugged and assaulted her in a Los Angeles hotel in 1996. ...
The defendant doesn't have to testify, and Cosby did not, preferring not to open himself up to cross-examination about the five-dozen other women who have accused him of drugging and/or raping them in episodes around the country dating back decades (and thus too old to prosecute).
Steele told the judge he intends to retry the case. He elaborated later at a press conference, saying Constand "deserves a verdict" on the charges. He said he was disappointed about the mistrial but insisted he has no doubts about the state's case and that the trial had meaning for victims of sexual assault everywhere.
A Norristown, Pennsylvania, judge declared a mistrial in a court case that accused entertainer Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting a former employee of his alma mater in his home in 2004. Cosby, 79, could have been convicted of three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault that carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Advertisement.
She testified that Cosby molested her at his home near Philadelphia in 2004 when she was incapacitated from three pills that the comedian gave her and said would help her relax. Constand reportedly stood alongside four other women Saturday who’d accused Cosby of assault, some of whom wept after the decision.
Judge Steven O’Neill declared the mistrial Saturday morning after the jury of seven men and five women failed to reach a unanimous consensus after 52 hours. Cosby said through a spokesman that he felt good about the outcome, and journalist Dana DiFilippo documented his reaction:
On Thursday, Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt argued that the deadlocked jury proved jurors were “conflicted about the inconsistencies.”. In recent years, 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, but the statute of limitations had expired in most of those cases. Only Constand’s claims led to criminal charges.
Cosby did not testify in his defense, and his lawyers called only one witness before resting their case on Monday. Their strategy instead focused on pointing to discrepancies in the version of events provided by Constand and other prosecution witnesses during cross-examination.
The actor’s wife, Camille Cosby, meanwhile, slammed the prosecution and the Judge O’Neill in a written statement, which a Cosby spokesperson read aloud. Camille called O’Neill “overly arrogant in collaborating with the district attorney,” and described Steele as “exploitatively ambitious.”.
For instance, Constand admitted that she and Cosby had been alone on occasions prior to the night in question , contrary to what she told investigators more than a decade ago.
Wyatt told ABC News that Cosby has hired attorney Joseph P. Green Jr. to represent him going forward. Corey Perrine/AP. Bill Cosby, center, leaves with publicist Ebonee Benson, left, and spokesperson Andrew Wyatt for the day from his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse, April 18, 2018, in Norristown, Pa.
Comedian Bill Cosby has fired all seven attorneys on his legal team just months ahead of his September sentencing, replacing them with a single Pennsylvania criminal-defense lawyer.
Cosby, who has been married for decades, has said repeatedly through representatives that any sexual encounters he has engaged in were consensual. Despite scores of accusations dating back to the 1960s, only Constand's claims were reported within the statute of limitations on sexual assault prosecutions.
Yale Law School professor Steven Duke said that hiring Green is likely just the first step in building a whole new defense team ahead of Cosby's sentencing. Duke said that replacing seven lawyers with one "makes no sense at all unless it is a step in a plan to produce a new team.".
It's not the first time Cosby has parted ways with a legal team. Cosby was represented during his first jury trial in 2016 on the same sexual assault charges by attorneys Brian McMonagle, Angela Agrusa and others. That trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial.