Bill Cosby Asks Supreme Court to Turn Away Appeal in Sexual Assault Case

Bill Cosby’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court on Monday to deny an appeal brought by a Pennsylvania prosecutor after the state’s top court overturned his sexual assault conviction.

Cosby argued that the justices should decline to review the ruling by Pennsylvania Supreme Court that led to his release from prison, The Hill reports. 

“The narrowly tailored decision of the Cosby court is not at odds with any other case and is so factually unique that it fails to present any question that is likely to arise in the future with any regularity,” Cosby’s lawyers wrote in a 19-page filing.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in a 4 to 3 decision that the evidence used to secure Cosby’s 2018 conviction violated his due process rights after prosecutors subjected him to what the court said amounted to a bait-and-switch. 

The district attorney for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania appealed to the Supreme Court in November. The district attorney’s office played a central role in Cosby’s sexual assault case.

The current dispute traces back to a 2005 decision by then-Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor that there was insufficient evidence to convict Cosby for the assault. Castor then promised not to charge Cosby if he agreed to testify in a civil suit brought by his alleged victim, Andrea Constand. 

However, Castor’s successor, Risa Vetri Ferman, did not honor the agreement. Instead, Ferman filed charges against Cosby and used his own testimony against him to help secure a guilty verdict. 

By a bare majority, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that denying Cosby the benefit of Castor’s decision would be an “affront to fundamental fairness.” 

Current district attorney Kevin Steele told the Supreme Court that Castor‘s determination not to prosecute Cosby should not carry the legal equivalent of creating “immunity.”