Update, June 17: The judge in the Bill Cosby sexual assault case declared it a mistrial Saturday morning. According to NPR, after six days and 52 hours of deliberations the jury — five women and seven men — could not come to a unanimous decision regarding Cosby's guilt or innocence.
According to the Washington Post, the prosecutor announced in court that he will retry Cosby on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault. CNN reported that attorney Gloria Allred, who represents many of Cosby's accusers, said she hopes the court will allow other "prior bad act witnesses" to testify at the next trial. "If the court allows more accusers to testify," she said, "it might make a difference. In other words, it's too early to celebrate Mr. Cosby."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
This story was originally published on June 15.
On June 5, Bill Cosby officially went on trial for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University, in 2004. However the jury, who has been deliberating since Monday, has yet to reach a firm conclusion. CBS News reports that as of Thursday morning, the sequestered jury is deadlocked — meaning they can't come to a firm decision regarding Cosby's guilt or innocence. The judge has instructed them to keep deliberating.
Over the course of 30 hours, the jury paused six times to take a second look at evidence, some of which included the actor's previous admissions that he had groped Constand after giving her pills.
"This is an incredible jury that has just acted with incredible dignity and fidelity," Judge Steven O'Neill said, according to CBS. "I don't have any higher praise. You have taken your task so seriously."
As it stands, the former Cosby Show actor is charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault, each carrying a maximum of ten years in prison. While the 79-year-old did not stand trial, his previous depositions in 2005 and 2006 claim that Constand was not negatively affected by the Benadryl pills he gave her, and that she never objected to his behavior. Constand claims she was paralyzed by the pills and unable to stop Cosby from assaulting her.
"In my head, I was trying to get my hands to move or my legs to move, but I was frozen," the 44-year-old testified on June 6. "I wasn't able to fight in any way...I wanted it to stop."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
As of today, close to 60 women have accused the star of some type of sexual assault or misconduct. Now, we wait.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT