Back in September, Bill Cosby was sentenced to a jail term that would put him behind bars likely for the rest of his life, but now his lawyers are trying to get him off on a technicality. Cosby, 81, was convicted of one sexual assault in a highly publicized case (recall Kanye's innocence tweet) but there are many more outstanding allegations against him and even an trial for another alleged assault at the playboy mansion.
According to Page Six, Cosby's lawyers are claiming that the judge made 11 mistakes in his trial. They said that “the trial court abused its discretion, erred and infringed on Mr. Cosby’s constitutional rights to Due Process of Law under the Constitution of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in admitting five prior ‘bad act witnesses.'” As far as I've been able to tell, a "bad act witness" is a witness who testifies to the defendant's character, not to a specific crime and so Cosby's lawyers have wedged themselves in. However, the five witness on top of the plaintiff, Andrea Constand, Heidi Thomas, Janice Baker-Kinney, Chelan Lasha, Maud Lise Lotte Lublin and Janice Dickinson, can also be seen as being called to illustrate a pattern of abusive behaviour. The prosecution has 30 days to respond.