James Cohen was quoted in a WUSA article regarding the Bill Cosby trial.
In a he-said-she-said case such as this, the complaining witness — Constand — will be the key witness. The prosecution sought to call 13 other accusers to testify to Cosby’s alleged “prior bad acts,” but Judge O’Neill has allowed only one to testify — known by the pseudonym “Kacey” — after ruling that her story (similar to Constand’s in some details) can be heard by the jury because its “probative” value outweighs any potential for unfair prejudice.
So the jury won’t hear the stories under oath of the other dozen witnesses, let alone all those who have accused Cosby. “(The judge) gave the defendant a big break — it was a compromise weighted in favor of the defense and against the prosecution,” says James Cohen, a law professor at Fordham University in New York.
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District Attorney Steele was elected in November 2015 after promising to pursue Cosby under Pennsylvania’s unusually lengthy statute of limitations for sexual assault.
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Still, Steele is going to have a tough time, Cohen predicts. “He has to rely on the second witness (“Kacey”), and he has to rely on all the other accusers, whom he can’t mention unless the door is opened by accident, and then that’s a potential problem for Cosby,” Cohen says.
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Those are all “powerful pieces of evidence” that “argue strongly not just for consent but reasonable doubt,” says Cohen.
