You’re missing the point. “Guilty” and “Innocent” both have very specific, defined legal meanings, which don’t necessarily have anything to do with whether a defendant committed the crime in question. You’re arguing something different than @Northern_Piper- it’s like saying “It’s blue!” , and @Northern_Piper saying “Blue means a range of 450-495 nanometers. Since it’s 440 nanometers, it’s actually Indigo”, and you saying “Well, it looks blue!”
In this case, Cosby is legally innocent, because as has already been said, the process that had found him guilty was proven to be flawed. Did he do it? Almost certainly. Is he guilty in the legal sense? No.
If, in return for the promise, the Defendant gave testimony he did not have to give, then yes. It is not so much the promise here, it is the deal.
A promise of immunity from prosecution in return for testimony is a critical part of American jurisprudence.
You catch a small fish, and make a deal so he rolls over on the big fish so that big fish can be convicted. Then you can’t go back and prosecute the small fish.
To be fair… that sounds exactly the case here. I do agree that a lot of people use it as a synonym for a trivial procedural rule. However, in this case, the prosecutors completely failed here and “failed judicial system” is not a bad way to describe it.
The issue, of course, and you already seen it happening is people saying this vindicates Cosby and all the accusations are lies. The ‘got off on a technicality’ does have the effect of pushing back on that narrative even though it wasn’t some trivial procedural rule that Cosby ‘took advantage of’
Is it moral for a state prosecutor, charged to prosecute fairly and impartially, to go back on the committment that office had previously made?
Is it moral for that prosecutor to go back on that committment, contrary to state law?
Is it moral for that prosecutor to institute charges, relying on evidence that would not exist, but for the commitment previously made by that office?
Is it moral for that prosecutor to prosecute, using evidence that would not exist if the accused had been able to rely on the protections of the federal and state constitutions, but couldn’t because of the commitment given by the office?
Is it moral for a prosecutor to use the power of the state to get a conviction in spite of all these constitutional and legal protections for every accused person, designed to protect us from state power?
I read through the court’s opinion (but only once), and I’m not seeing a real federal issue.
The Fifth Amendment issue is clearly federal, but it’s not controversial. A witness can be given immunity from prosecution which, in turn, prevents him from invoking the Fifth Amendment in a civil (or some criminal) context. But no one is contesting that. The question is when does a state prosecutor effectively provide that immunity, and that seems to be based on state law: some statute, some contract principles, some equity. There’s reference to due process, but it doesn’t strike me as really being a constitutional case.
It doesn’t imply that, even if in this case it’s not accurate.
The conviction was overturned on appeal. The case relied on fruit from the poison tree and as such, could not be allowed to stand.
“Got off on a technicality” is generally used when someone thinks that despite obvious evidence, someone is free because of a minor, petty mistake that had no bearing on the case. It isn’t typically used (or at least shouldn’t be used) when there are basic, fundamental flaws in the prosecutions case. Literally, it is true; all reasons are technicalities. But that’s not how it is used in practice.
On the other hand, Crosby is scum and I wouldn’t be opposed to prosecuting him on other crimes if there is unrelated evidence and/or testimony.
Yeah, “he got off on a technicality” is what the loose cannon cop mutters disgustedly in a Reagan-era vigilante flick after the namby-pamby ACLU lawyer uses a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo to spring the child murderer from prison, forcing him to take the law into his own hands.
Yeah. Somewhere there is an article about someone interviewing Justice William Douglas (in my memory William Buckley but that is likely wrong) and the interviewer said something about someone getting let off on a technicality. Douglas corrected him saying it wasn’t a technicality, it was the Constitution.
Would it be moral for a prosecutor to adhere to a unilateral commitment by a predecessor if it was given in violation of that very duty to prosecute fairly and impartially?
Was it against state law until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said it was?
No, but is it moral to dismiss a criminal case altogether and prevent any chance of conviction on any evidence, when a more tailored and balanced remedy would be to exclude from the trial the particular evidence that would not exist?
Would it be moral for a prosecutor to dispense immunity from the power of the state not pursuant to constitutional protections for every accused person, nor in adherence to an agreement with respect to those protections where each side gives up some things and gains others, but to make a unilateral gift of immunity for his own idiosyncratic and possibly self-serving reasons?
It is legally correct. “Not guilty” is a finding by a jury, because a jury cannot find a person innocent; innocent is the state of all people until a jury finds them guilty. “Not guilty” means a person remains innocent.
Everyone else was using “innocent” in the sense of law, not as a moral judgment. Your own country’s Constitution says that you are “presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” and that is clearly not in a “moral” sense. You surely knew that. The presumption of innocence, in the legal sense, is a bedrock legal concept in American law, affirmed and reaffirmed in many court rulings. You are aware of the concept of the presumption of innocence, and how that differs from the other definitions of “innocent” in English, and not one single person in the thread was implying Bill Cosby is morally innocent.