Credit: PA Department of Corrections
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a decision that made international news Wednesday. The decision allows for the release of comedian Bill Cosby, who was jailed after a Montgomery County jury found him guilty of number of sex offenses.
Cosby, whose full name is William Henry Cosby Jr., 83, has been at State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Montgomery County while serving a three- to 10-year state prison sentence. He has already served two years of the sentence.
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The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections said Cosby was released from state custody just before 2:30 p.m.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated Cosby’s conviction in a Wednesday afternoon decision. The ruling was on the basis that former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor’s office said they would decline to charge Cosby in 2005 so he could testify in a civil lawsuit.
“Unable to invoke any right not to testify in the civil proceedings, Cosby relied upon the district attorney’s declination and proceeded to provide four sworn depositions. During those depositions, Cosby made several incriminating statements,” according to the court opinion.
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The mid-2000s civil case and 2018 criminal conviction centered around allegations of sexual assault by Temple University employee Andrea Constand.
Castor, who later served as first deputy state attorney general under disgraced former Attorney General Kathleen Kane and also was a top attorney for former President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial, never charged Cosby with any crimes. Current Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele did file charges against the comedian who lived in the Philadelphia area in the mid-2010s.
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Cosby has been accused of sexual misconduct and drug-assisted sexual assault by multiple women, but none of the other claims were prosecuted because they fell outside statutes of limitations.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices Christine Donohue, Sallie Mundy, Debra Todd joined Justice David Wecht in the opinion that vacated the conviction. Justice Kevin Dougherty concurred in part of the opinion and dissented on another part. Chief Justice Max Baer joined Dougherty, while Justice Thomas Saylor filed a dissenting opinion.
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