Cosby appeal a test case for #MeToo
When three Pennsylvania Superior Court judges gather to hear Bill Cosby’s appeal of his sexual assault conviction, more than his freedom may be at stake.
As the first celebrity convicted in the #MeToo era, the court scrutiny of the case could cement — or threaten — the movement itself.
“If it’s reversed, I worry that it’s going to play into the narrative that stories of people subjected to genderbased violence are not going to be believed,” said Professor Margaret Johnson, who teaches gender law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “I’ve been struck by . . . the power of the backlash against #MeToo.”
Just recently, a lawyer for actor Cuba Gooding jnr, accused of grabbing a woman’s breast at a New York nightclub, challenged her mental state as the case was sent to trial. The lawyer, Mark Heller, said he was starting the “Not Me Movement”.
Cosby, charged over a 2004 encounter, first went on trial in June 2017, months before accusations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein would unleash the #MeToo era. Prosecutors asked to call 13 other women to bolster the account of Cosby accuser Andrea Constand.
Judge Steven O’Neill allowed just one, and the suburban Philadelphia jury deadlocked after six days of deliberations.
Cosby, long beloved for his TV role as Dr Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, left the Montgomery County Courthouse triumphant while his lawyers delivered a scathing attack on the judge and prosecutor written by his wife, Camille Cosby.
Ten months later, the #MeToo movement in full force, District Attorney Kevin Steele doubled down, asking to call 19 of the scores of Cosby accusers at the retrial. O’Neill settled on five, whose accounts of being drugged and molested by the powerful star echoed Constand’s. Chelan Lasha, in her testimony, recalled seeking him out as a 17-yearold aspiring model and actress, only to be violated.
Accuser Heidi Thomas called the acclaimed entertainer and arts patron “a serial rapist”.
The second jury took just 14 hours to convict Cosby of all three felony sex-assault charges, finding that he drugged and violated 30-year-old Constand when she went to his home for career advice.
“Not once were race or the #MeToo movement ever discussed, nor did either factor into our decision,” the jury said in a statement, referencing defence suggestions that racism and #MeToo tainted the case. Instead, they said, they found Constand “credible and compelling”.
The appeals court will consider more than a half-dozen alleged trial errors, including the defence claim that Cosby had a promise from a former prosecutor that he would never be charged in the case. That promise, they said, led Cosby to give deposition testimony in Constand’s 2005 lawsuit that prompted his arrest when it was unsealed in 2015.
The defence is also challenging O’Neill’s decision to let the jury hear portions of that testimony.
Cosby turned 82 last month in jail, where he is serving a 3- to 10-year term. Whatever the outcome of his criminal appeal, his insurance company, to his dismay, has quietly settled at least nine pending defamation lawsuits filed by women accusers.