two women renew Bill Cosby sexual abuse allegations in Newsweek interviews

I only watch Ashley Judd movies so I wouldn't know

I did not know there was a 1999 Double Jeopardy and now feel betrayed by my countryman

Reading over and over how an actress I respect like Rashad reacts as if suffering from Stockholm syndrome is a downer.

harbl, thoughts on this? (the initial tweet and the response)? Tend to think the ex-prosecutor makes more sense here.

As a former prosecutor, have to disagree. It’s a question of detrimental reliance. If Cosby relied on a promise - even if. It an enforceable one- government can be held to it. Estoppel. It’s a fact question re reliance. But makes sense.

— peter zeidenberg (@przeidenberg) June 30, 2021

yeah i think the initial tweet is completely wrong and it's annoying how confident he is about it! it's not a question of whether the immunity was valid. it's saying it would be unfair to let the prosecutor make someone believe they are immune, have them act on it, then turn around and prosecute them. i read kind of fast but it sounded like the trial court said it wasn't valid immunity so he shouldn't have relied on the promise not to prosecute.

thanks harbl - that was my thought, that the person you're promising isn't a legal expert and is under the impression of immunity which will still lead them to act in a different way than they would have had they known they did not have this protection.

ok

pic.twitter.com/UqiGznSkiJ

— Howard University (@HowardU) July 1, 2021

Got halfway through We Need to Talk About Cosby at my sister's, but I'm back home tonight and won't be able to finish it until I can get some access somewhere. I was, simultaneously, watching The Ted Bundy Tapes on Netflix--also halfway through, but I will be able to finish that--and the similarities between the two of them in terms of how they presented themselves to the world are eerie.

I don't think we need to talk about Cosby ever again. Fuck him. I hope he dies a slow, painful death in well-deserved obscurity.

another travesty from what we laughingly call the justice system

The film is really good--anxious to finish it.

(In other words, if the suggestion is that the documentary should never have been made, couldn't disagree more. Three or four of Cosby's victims are interviewed in depth.)

the response to Jimmy Savile in the UK was very much to investigate and prosecute individuals, then sweep their entire work under the carpet and never mention them again, which was a complete abdication of responsibility from the establishment/system/culture which enabled them throughout and has still not even started to face up to its mistakes.

I think a conversation about how "the system" failed so spectacularly in the Cosby case, not only in the outcome of the criminal process but in the decades that his behavior was an open secret, is essential. However, as far as Cosby the man is concerned, he should rot.

of course nobody should advocate for Cosby or his like to be rehabilitated in any sense, but we need to hear from the victims and examine how we/they* let this happen. I remember when he was first charged, there was a great deal of pro-Cosby posting on many websites.

*obviously there are multiple wes and multiple theys here

I suppose I was being reactive. Like a lot of people, I revered Cosby in the 70s and 80s. His downfall was spectacular and took far too long. Asking why it took so long, and how he was able in the end to avoid the worst legal consequences for his actions, are of course questions that need to be asked.

something about how the system didn't fail this is just how it works

I thought this was great work btw, definitely the best thing Bell has ever done

"We want to be able to say we can identify these dangerous people. And the really scary thing is you can't identify them. People don't realize that there are potential killers among them. How could anyone
live in a society where people they liked, loved, lived with, worked with, and admired could the next day turn out to be the most demonic people imaginable?"

Not from the Cosby documentary, but the last lines of The Ted Bundy Tapes (spoken by Bundy himself).