RadioOnFire.com - A hearing held to sort out matters in preparation for Bill Cosby's upcoming retrial saw a series of developments unfold on Monday, March 5 - including the judge's decision to deny a plea that the case be thrown out. Some disputes went unsettled by the end of the afternoon, with his honor putting the prosecution's bid to have the court allow testimony from six additional accusers on hold to give him more time to consider the request.
Cosby's team made a last ditched attempt at having their famous client's nightmare go away, by presenting a challenge to the credibility of his accuser's claim. Once again, the comedian's attorneys maintained that Andrea Constand's allegations of a sexual assault taking place at the comedian's home in January of 2004 couldn't have happened when she said they did because he wasn't in Pennsylvania at the time.
With Cosby's arrest coming on Dec. 30, 2015, any assault that may have gone down before Dec. 30, 2003, would by law be void due to the state's 12-year statute of limitations. Judge Steven O'Neill was unwilling to scrap the trial, telling the defense that the onus would be on them to prove the claim before a jury.
Meanwhile, Judge O'Neill proved to be non-committal on the prosecution's request that as many as 19 women who have made accusations be given permission to take the stand. At the moment, 13 already have the go to be used by the prosecution, but O'Neill cited the addition of more persons as an "extraordinarily weighty issue," that will require some more time for him to think about.
No comments:
Post a Comment