Hey, Hey, Hey . . . It's Bill Cosby, Serial Rapist!

[BoSoxGal]

Does Pennsylvania follow the common law doctrine of abatement ab initio? Not sure . . . many states do not.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I remember that Ken Lay of Enron died before all his appeals were completed; so he was in effect declared not guilty (that is probably not the correct legal statement) so his wife got to keep the ill-gotten gains he had been expected to have to hand over in restitution. Is this a state-level thing then? It would seem to be that something as basic as that would be in US law.

[RayThom]

Does Pennsylvania follow the common law doctrine of abatement ab initio? Not sure . . . many states do not.

You are correct. I found this and to the simple layman, me, it appears that it's not an accepted defense motion in PA -- or in many other states, for that matter.

B. The Development of the Abatement Doctrine
1. Origins
The origins of the abatement doctrine are unclear. There is little historical writing about the doctrine before the nineteenth century. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the earliest American cases dealing with the question generally treated abatement as the obvious course of action when a defendant died. In List v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the defendant had died and ordered abatement and dismissal of the writ of error. Its sole rationale was that "it appear ... that this is a criminal case."...

http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewco ... ontext=flr (Page 7 of 39)

[rubato]

I want him to disappear. I want everything he ever did to disappear forever and not be seen again (apologies to Robert Culp and Sheldon Leonard et al.). I want every record of his time on earth wiped out forever.

I feel the same way about Bob Brozeman (you have to know about music to have heard of him). Scum should be bleached and flushed away forever.


yrs,
rubato

[Bicycle Bill]

I find it hard to believe that some of you people feel that there is nothing that is too bad to happen to Bill Cosby ——

"I want him to disappear. I want everything he ever did to disappear forever and not be seen again. I want every record of his time on earth wiped out forever."

.... but let me voice my opinion in support of capital punishment for especially heinous crimes and the swift implementation of same once someone has been found guilty and sentenced by a legitimate court of law, and I'm the one who is seen as extreme and vindictive.

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

There's a big difference between saying that someone should become a nobody whose work is never seen or referenced again, and saying that someone's person should be snuffed out.

[Lord Jim]

What Scooter said...

Gee me, Scooter and rube all on the same page...



ETA:

In fact, I don't wish Cosby dead at all...

I hope he gets convicted in this case, gets a 20 year prison sentence, and lives to serve every day of it...

[oldr_n_wsr]

"I want him to disappear. I want everything he ever did to disappear forever and not be seen again. I want every record of his time on earth wiped out forever."

I don't want him to dissapear and all traces removed. Need to remember the past, lest it gets repeated.

[Big RR]

I agree oldr; if nothing else it shows how a guy who many loved and respected (even worshipped) can be a sleaze. It's a good cautionary tale for those who look for role models so hard, that they don't look at them once they settle on one.

[oldr_n_wsr]

[RayThom]

Here's The Cos as he left the courthouse yesterday after his accuser's testimony. Once a comedian, always a comedian. A real class act.
http://www.nbcnews.com/widget/video-embed/961626179635

[RayThom]

Rock solid reasoning from Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable":

... I'd go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped."

Case dismissed.

[Lord Jim]

I am not stopped.

The drugging probably helped with that...

[Big RR]

And the requisite question is not whether one is "stopped"--clearly all rapists are not "stopped", but whether consent was given or not. If someone says "no", not being able to physically stop the assault is immaterial.

Add to that the drugs and their effects on the victim and her ability even object, and I cannot see any possible dismissal because he was "not stopped".

[Sue U]

Yeah, um, Cos, let's get this straight: Consent is not "failing to stop me" or even "not rejecting my advances." Consent requires an affirmative agreement. You are a raping rapist who rapes incapacitated women, and you need to go to prison immediately, the end.

[BoSoxGal]

Brava!

& Ditto!

[Lord Jim]

The trial's moving pretty quickly:

Prosecutors rest their case at Bill Cosby's trial

Prosecutors wrapped up their case against Bill Cosby on Friday, saving until practically the very end the comedian's damaging, decade-old testimony about giving quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.

The prosecution called 12 witnesses over five brisk days of testimony in the sexual assault case that could send the 79-year-old TV star to prison for the rest of his life. The defense will begin presenting its side on Monday.

Testifying under oath in 2005, Cosby said he obtained several prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s and offered the now-banned sedatives to others, "the same as a person would say, 'Have a drink,'" according to the deposition read to the jury.

"When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" the comic once known as America's Dad was asked.

"Yes," he said.

Cosby is on trial on charges he drugged and sexually violated former Temple University women's basketball team employee Andrea Costand, now 44, at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He has said it was consensual.

In the deposition, which became public nearly two years ago, Cosby said he gave Constand three half-tablets of the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl. Prosecutors have suggested he gave her something stronger — perhaps quaaludes, a highly popular party drug in the 1970s that was banned in the U.S. in 1982.

Prosecutors evidently saved the quaalude testimony until the end for maximum effect. Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle, clearly wanting to move past Cosby's talk about giving drugs to women, asked no questions about it on cross-examination.

The final prosecution witness, toxicologist Dr. Timothy Rohrig, testified that wooziness and other effects Constand described could have been caused by Benadryl or quaaludes.

Cosby smiled as he walked out of court at the end of the day, raising his wooden cane to salute well-wishers who yelled, "We love you, Bill Cosby!" and "Hey, hey, hey!," the catchphrase from his "Fat Albert" TV show. He then waved from the back of an SUV.

The comedian gave the deposition as part of a lawsuit filed by Constand and later settled for an undisclosed sum. His testimony was sealed for years until portions were released by a judge in 2015 at the request of The Associated Press.

The release of the sensational testimony spurred Pennsylvania prosecutors to reopen their investigation and arrest Cosby a decade after the district attorney who originally investigated Constand's complaint decided the case was too weak to bring charges.

For the jury, the deposition could be the closest it comes to hearing from Cosby himself, since he said recently that he did not intend to take the stand.

In his testimony, Cosby said he apologized to Constand's mother over the telephone for the sexual encounter with her daughter because he was afraid she thought of him as "a dirty old man."[You're far too modest Bill...actually, you're one of the most prolific sexual assaulters in US history...that's a little more than being "a dirty old man"]

"I apologized to this woman. But my apology was, my God, I'm in trouble with these people because this is an old man and their young daughter and the mother sees this," he said.

Cosby also recounted offering to pay for graduate school for Constand. She turned him down.

Hoping to blunt one of Cosby's main lines of defense, prosecutors put on the stand a psychologist who testified that victims of celebrities are often afraid to come forward because of the possible backlash. Constand did not go to police until a year after the alleged assault.

"If it's a well-known person, the victim takes on a lot of responsibility for that person's reputation, especially if that person is well-liked or beloved," Veronique Valliere testified.

Cosby's lawyers asked for a mistrial, complaining that Valliere was offering observations about Cosby even though she was only allowed to testify generally about victim behavior. The judge rejected the request.

In a barrage that all but destroyed Cosby's good-guy reputation, some 60 women have come forward to say he sexually violated them, but the statute of limitations for prosecution had run out in nearly every case. Constand is the only woman whose allegations have resulted in criminal charges against the "Cosby Show" star.

During a break Friday, Cosby's spokesman dangled the possibility the comic might testify after all. Cosby and his lawyer wouldn't comment on that, and the defense has not disclosed its strategy or the witnesses it intends to call during its portion of the case.

Testifying would carry enormous risk for Cosby, exposing him to cross-examination about some of the lurid things in his deposition.

Cosby's wife, Camille, has yet to be seen in court. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt said the TV star told her stay away so that she wouldn't have to endure the "media circus."

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wir ... x-47931123

[Lord Jim]

Bill Cosby may testify at sexual assault trial

Less than a month after Bill Cosby told a radio host he would not testify at his sexual assault trial in suburban Philadlephia, the embattled comedian may be having a change of heart.

His defense team is not ruling out putting the 79-year-old Shelburne resident on the stand at the Montgomery County courthouse in Norristown, Penn.

"Nothing is ever off the table in a trial of this magnitude," publicist Andrew Wyatt told The New York Times during a break in testimony on Friday. "You have to look at all your options. In a ballgame, things change and players are taken out and sometimes the star player plays and sometimes he doesn't."

In a May 16 interview on SiriusXM, Cosby said he did not want to take the stand, adding "When you have to deal with examination, cross-examination, etcetera, etcetera more than two sides to every story, sometimes it's four or five. And what people want to say and want you to say and how they maneuver, and, yes, I do have lawyers protect me - 'objection,' 'sustained.' But I just don't want to sit there and have to figure out what I believe is a truthful answer [People who are telling the truth don't generally have to do that; they just, you know, tell the truth...] as to whether or not I'm opening a can of something that my lawyers are scrambling."

Cosby, is accused of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand, 44, at his Pennsylvania home in 2004.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/ ... exu_1.html

On it's face, it would seem absolutely crazy for Cosby to take the stand...

Way too many things that could go wrong; way too many doors that could be opened...

But apparently, the trial has not been going well for Bill...

I haven't followed it closely, but my understanding is that Constand made a very compelling witness, and she stood up well under seven hours of direct and cross examination...


Add to this the fact that the only evidence the jury has heard in Cosby's "voice" are the damning taped excerpts from his earlier deposition, I can see where he and his legal team might conclude that their best hope to avoid a conviction is to "throw the long ball" , have him go on the stand and pray that he'll be able to use his personal "Cosby charm" to create reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror...

[RayThom]

Classic sociopathic behavior.

Dr. Cosby has to talk just like Lord Dampnut has to text.

[Lord Jim]

Well Cosby didn't testify, in fact the defense went with an extreme minimalist strategy, resting after only six minutes...

The jury deliberated for four hours yesterday, and they've resumed today...

I hope to be proven wrong, but it seems to me that the longer the deliberations go on, the more likely it is that he will skate with a hung jury; this is a pretty simple three-count case; there aren't dozens of charges to sort through...

I found an article with a pretty good summary of what the dirt bag could be facing:

The jury in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial will resume deliberations on Tuesday.

Jurors were sent back to their hotel late Monday night after deliberating for about four hours on the sixth day of the trial.

Cosby is accused of drugging and violating a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in January 2004. Cosby's lawyers have argued that the encounter was consensual.

The 79-year-old comedian is charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault.

A look at the sexual assault charges against Cosby and the punishment he could face if convicted.

———

WHAT IS COSBY ACCUSED OF?

He is accused of drugging and sexually violating a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. Andrea Constand says Cosby gave her pills that made her paralyzed and unable to fight him off as he groped her breast and genitals. His lawyers said they were in a romantic relationship and what happened was consensual. The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

———

WHAT IS HE CHARGED WITH?

Three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault, each covering a different aspect of the alleged crime.

Count 1 alleges that Cosby didn't have consent when he penetrated Constand's genitals with his fingers.

Count 2 alleges she was unconscious or semi-conscious at the time and could not give consent.

Count 3 alleges all this happened after he gave her an intoxicant that substantially impaired her and stopped her from resisting.

———

HOW MUCH TIME COULD HE FACE?

Each of the three counts carries a standard sentence range of 5 to 10 years in prison, but that doesn't mean Cosby could be facing up to 30 years.

Legal experts say the sentence for each count should run concurrently under Pennsylvania law since they all cover the same incident and conduct.

That means a conviction would put Cosby in prison at least until he is 84 years old, based on state sentencing guidelines.

———

WHAT'S THE WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR COSBY?

Pennsylvania law allows sentencing judges to consider uncharged conduct. In Cosby's case, that means the more than 60 other women who have accused him of assaults dating to the 1960s.

Duquesne University law professor Wes Oliver says those allegations could compel Judge Steven O'Neill to sentence Cosby closer to the 10-year maximum.

———

WOULD HE HAVE TO REGISTER AS A SEX OFFENDER?

Yes. If he is convicted, prosecutors say, Cosby would also have to register as a sex offender and face an assessment to determine if he is a sexually violent predator.

———

WOULD COSBY BE HAULED OFF IN HANDCUFFS RIGHT AWAY?

If convicted, Cosby could remain free until sentencing unless O'Neill revokes his $1 million bail.

Philadelphia defense lawyer Alan Tauber says that's less likely in Cosby's case because his fame makes him an unlikely flight risk.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wir ... y-47998922