Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Manuel Roig-Franzia.
This week, ahead of the March 29 jury selection and April 2 retrial, O’Neill ruled that five accusers can be called as witnesses. The prosecutors had asked for 19. The judge didn’t specify which accusers can provide testimony at Cosby’s retrial.
Instead, he gave prosecutors the option of selecting five women from a portion of a list of the 19 they’d submitted as possible witnesses. The judge’s ruling states that prosecutors can choose five women from among the eight making the most recent allegations, dating back to 1982. However, the judge ruled, the prosecutors cannot select women who say they were sexually assaulted before that date.
The decision represents a dramatic shift with the potential to completely reshape the case.
Prosecutors cite ‘doctrine of chances’
Ahead of the retrial, prosecutors mounted an aggressive push to add additional accusers to the witness list, increasing their request from 13 to 19 women.
They cited a legal concept known as the “doctrine of chances.” The doctrine essentially says that the more often the same person is accused of the same crime with the same set of circumstances, the less likely that the accused was innocently involved in those situations.
The doctrine played a small role in a Pennsylvania court ruling last year. In another case, it was cited in a concurring opinion.
The comedian’s defense team argued that there has not been enough of legal precedent. In a contentious hearing earlier this month, Cosby defense attorney Becky James said that allowing a large number of previous accusers to testify would amount to creating a series of “mini-trials” that would unfairly prejudice the jury against Cosby.
Who could testify?
Cosby, now 80, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former Temple University women’s basketball official, at his suburban Philadelphia estate in 2004. Cosby maintains that the relationship was consensual.
At least 60 women have publicly accused Cosby of sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape. But prosecutors have focused on women whose allegations follow a pattern of mentorship, followed by drugging and sexual assault. Constand has testified that Cosby took a special interest in assisting her career.
To determine which five accusers will take the stand, prosecutors will choose from a slate of witnesses whose allegations stretch from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Only one of the witnesses has been identified publicly: Kelley Johnson, a former assistant to Cosby’s personal appearances agent.
However, many of the other potential witnesses are easily identifiable because they have made public statements about their allegations that precisely match the circumstances laid out by prosecutors in their requests to allow testimony from previous accusers. Witnesses could include:
• A Harrah’s Reno bartender who says Cosby sexually assaulted her at a Nevada home in 1982 after insisting that she take two pills.
• A successful model who Cosby flew to Lake Tahoe in 1982, ostensibly to offer career guidance. The woman says she became “immobilized” after taking a blue pill Cosby gave her, and awoke with “a sharp pain in her buttocks.”
• A massage therapist who says she met Cosby at a Las Vegas health club between 1982 and 1984, according to court records. The woman told prosecutors that Cosby insisted that she take a drink at a hotel restaurant. Later, she said, she felt like she was in a “hypnotic dream state.” When they got to Cosby’s dressing room, the woman said, Cosby started raping her, and there was nothing she could do, but lie there “like a rag doll.”
