This month’s induction is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who have thrown out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor's agreement not to charge Cosby. Cosby, now 83, has served more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence after being found guilty of drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era. Cosby was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic's damaging deposition testimony in a lawsuit brought by Constand — brought charges against him days before the 12-year statute of limitations ran out. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby. There was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing. Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the former prosecutor’s decision not to charge him when the comedian later gave his potentially incriminating testimony in the Constand’s civil case. The court said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.” WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE HE DRUGGED AND RAPED? WHERE’S THEIR REMEDY? Oh yeah that’s right. Federal court. And those punk judges better overrule the state courts for the right reasons and not just because he’s black. The last thing we need is for this to become a civil rights case.
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