Bill Cosby's effort to erase his conviction for sexual assault goes before a Pennsylvania appellate panel Monday for a hearing expected to focus on whether the trial judge made prejudicial errors or properly allowed testimony about Cosby's "decades-long pattern" of sexual misconduct.
There is a lot riding on this hearing for Cosby: Under Pennsylvania law, the only guaranteed appeal venue for a defendant is with the Pennsylvania Superior Court in the state capital of Harrisburg.
The hearing will be before a three-judge panel and it could be short: Typically, each side gets about 15 minutes to make its case – but that counts the questions the judges may ask. Interruptions can be expected, shortening even more the time each side has to argue.
Cosby, 82, will be represented by his appellate team, Kristen Weisenburger and Barbara Zemlock, according to his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt.
The Commonwealth, specifically Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, will be represented by Robert Falin, chief of the district attorney's appellate unit.
The judges will not issue a decision that day, and there is no telling when they will.
If the decision goes against Cosby – meaning the three-count guilty verdict and the three-to-10 year sentence is affirmed – then Cosby stays in his prison cell near Philadelphia and his lawyers can try to persuade the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear his appeal.
But the high court doesn't have to take the case and there is no guarantee.
The stakes also are high for the prosecution side, which includes #MeToo movement and anti-rape activists, who hailed Cosby's conviction as retribution for the five-dozen other women who have accused him of sexual misconduct dating back to the mid-1960s. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the conviction.
The Cosby case is frequently referred to as the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era: Although his first trial in June 2017 took place before the movement surged in November 2017, his second trial took place nearly a year later.
The Cosby appeal, however, will focus on something more nuts-and-bolts legalistic, one that comes up in scores of non-celebrity criminal cases: Was his trial in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, conducted properly or were there mistakes that produced an unfair result that should be overturned?
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Trial Today Bill Cosby Seeks To Erase His Sex Convictions. injustice 2 tome 4 | |
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