VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Another dramatic day in court as two Bill Cosby accusers took the stand to tell their stories for the very first time yeah one described the 80-year-old as a quote serial rapist the other tearfully confronted the comedian over a decades-old allegation now one of the women sobbed uncontrollably as she testified meantime Cosby’s defense team once again urged jurors to ignore the other women accusing Cosby of sexual assault saying the allegations are irrelevant to the current case joining us now is our legal analyst Enrique Latoison
Enrique let’s start right there the jury is hearing from the witnesses who also accused Cosby of assaulting them they weren’t allowed to testify last time so why are they allowed to testify this time around and how big of an effect could they have on the jury?
Well, I think this time the judges made a decision that he’s gonna allow a lot of evidence in the first trial he only allowed one other woman to testify other than constant in this case now this time he’s allowing five other women to testify. now in Pennsylvania law there’s a there’s a thing concept in the law that says that you’re allowed to present evidence even though he’s not being charged with crimes against those other women he’s still allowed to present this evidence to say that this is a common scheme this is how Mr. Cosby does things this is how he commits a crime and you’re allowed to compare what happened to these other women even though he’s not on trial for what they’re accusing him of but you’re allowed to compare that to constant story and evaluating whether or not he committed the crime against Ms. Constand.
Enrique three of the witnesses had outburst during court the defense asked for a mistrial denied but is that the strategy here find a way to get the charges thrown out before it even reaches the jury and how successful could that be?
Well, the defense of this case has to preserve the record so you must ask for the mistrial if you want to later have an issue where you want to raise this on appeal so you have to pull it out and say listen I’m asking for this case did we have a mistrial based on what happened. now in this particular case with these particular outbursts at the time of closing the defenses will be allowed to come out and say you know look how these women acted or look what they did and one particular witness that had the outburst she actually had a former conviction for false statements so in this particular case you know they’re going to do this and it’s against the rules but the defense in the end are allowed to bring that up and to say that you know they didn’t do what they were supposed to do and if their credibility in this particular case can be weighed based on that.
We interesting to see how this all plays out Enrique Latoison live for us there at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown thanks Enrique.
Contact Enrique Latoison
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