[ad_1]
Broken emails
Receive alerts and special reports. News and stories that matter, delivered in the morning on weekdays.
The sentencing process for Bill Cosby begins Monday in a courtroom outside of Philadelphia, and the punitive fate of the artist could be clear by Tuesday.
Cosby, 81, was convicted in April of three counts of indecent assault against 45-year-old Andrea Constand, who claimed to have drugged and assaulted her home in Pennsylvania in 2004.
Each leader counts 22 months to 10 years behind bars, but it is possible, given his age, that Cosby's defense team advocates for house arrest. The judge could also match the possible penalties, so that a maximum of 10 years would be the case for the whole case.
Cosby's lawyers said that they plan to appeal, no matter.
"I still think that an older defendant will argue that given his age, he should be allowed to stay out of the call," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in an email. . "However, I do not think it's a certainty, and although Cosby is not a risk of flight, he does not seem to have a clear winner for his call."
The factors that act against the comedian include the lack of public remorse, no excuses and no criticism of the judge in the case, Steven T. O'Neill, who was the subject of explicit reviews of the showman. And Camille Cosby said last week in a state ethics complaint that the judge had a bias against her husband.
Cosby settled Constand's civil claim in 2006 for $ 3.4 million. We do not know if this could weigh for or against him.
Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents three of the five accusers allowed to testify in the lawsuit, argues that nothing less than the time spent in jail for Cosby will be considered a "celebrity justice".
"He should not get a pass," she said. "And I do not think he should be released while waiting for his call."
Catharine A. MacKinnon, a law professor at the University of Michigan, who helped develop a scholarship on harassment at work, said testimony in the two-day process could be instrumental for the result. More than 60 other women have made allegations ranging from trial and error to rape, and many have claimed that Cosby drugged them.
O'Neill has ruled that additional accusers can not weigh during sentencing. It is unclear whether the five women who testified against Cosby during the trial will be eligible to speak.
"Whoever testifies at the sentencing hearing should be watched carefully," MacKinnon said by e-mail. "The charges are real, said the jury, and the sentence should take into account all relevant factors and be proportionate."
With a verdict of 2018 coming up the year following the departure of the #MeToo social media movement, Cosby could be considered a pernicious pioneer of the consequences of sexual assault in Hollywood.
The move was relaunched online last year with claims that film producer Harvey Weinstein would have paid money to the accusers, and he now faces his own lawsuit in New York on the basis of allegations of rape.
Weinstein's story seems to have cast a wider shadow, but Cosby is by far the most recognizable figure, an artist who has become "America's Dad" for his impartial reign over the Huxtable family at the time. Cosby Show "aired from 1984 to 1992.
"We encouraged, released and made the #Me Too movement," said Victoria Valentino, 75, who accused Cosby of drugging and raping her in Los Angeles in 1969. "We are grandmothers of this movement. "
MacKinnon said the sentence could be considered an indicator.
"This fits in the #MeToo story," she said, "because many women have been totally ignored and reported to have been sexually assaulted by a powerful man."
"I would say it's huge," said Allred, who travels to Pennsylvania for the conviction. "Women are understood in a way they did not know before."
Source link