Bill Cosby Mistrial: What's Next?

NORRISTOWN, PA — After more than a decade of speculation and years of legal proceedings, the Bill Cosby case ended anticlimactically over the weekend. With jurors deadlocked, Judge Steven T. O'Neill declared a mistrial, leaving the future of both the case and the former comedian in doubt.

Shortly after O'Neill's ruling, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele announced that the prosecution would be retrying the case. O'Neill in turn said that a new trial date would be announced within the next few months.

Cosby, 79, had faced up to 10 years in prison for aggravated indecent assault of Andrea Constand, 44, a woman he knew while she was a Temple University employee. While Constand is just one of dozens of women who have accused Cosby of similar sexual charges, her case was the first to progress this far in the justice system.

The jurors were deadlocked after 52 hours of hard deliberations which could not result in agreement on either a guilty or innocent plea. Jurors asked several questions of the court during the deliberations, including frequently asking for context and more information regarding Cosby's 2004 testimony, given in a civil suit with Constand.

Both sides appear confident in their chances in a retrial. It's not yet clear what new legal tactics, if any, Steele and the DA's office will try during the new trial.

Cosby's wife, Camille Cosby, had choice words for the prosecution, judge, and media in a statement issued after the trial.

"How do I describe the District Attorney? Heinously and exploitatively ambitious," she said. "How do I describe the judge? Overtly and arrogantly collaborating with the District Attorney. How do I describe the counsels for the accusers? Totally unethical. How do I describe many, but not all, general media? Blatantly vicious entities that continually disseminated intentional omissions of truths for the primary purpose of greedily selling sensationalism at the expense of a human life."

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Supporters of Constand are not giving up. In a statement after the mistrial, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center touted the importance of the justice system while at the same time urging sexual assault victims to seek justice through other means.

“All Americans accused of a crime are entitled to a trial by a jury of their peers," Chief Public Affairs Officer Kristen Houser said. "That right is essential to our criminal justice system, and the standard of evidence that must be met for a criminal conviction is by necessity quite high. In fact, the high standard of evidence required for criminal convictions is one reason why the criminal justice system cannot be the only avenue for sexual assault survivors to seek justice. It remains important for victims to be given the opportunity to tell their stories and for individuals and organizations to better respond to sexual violence and create safer environments."

Houser, along with Steele and the prosecution, reiterated the importance of bringing these kinds of cases into the public light, as they often go unreported.

According to some legal experts, the advantage in the retrial belongs to Cosby. Wesley Oliver, criminal justice program director at Duquesne University Law School in Pittsburgh, told the New York Daily News that because Cosby did not take the stand, the prosecution has limited material they can use against him. That would all change if more of Cosby's accusers are allowed to testify.

The prosecution had pushed for 13 of Cosby's additional accusers to be allowed to take the stand in court, but O'Neill ultimately only allowed one, Kelly Johnson. Johnson was the prosecution's first and arguably one of their strongest witnesses, according to attorney and legal analyst Jill Stanley. If the prosecution is able to convince the court to allow testimony from more accusers, that could tip the scale back in their favor.

No timetable for the retrial has been announced.

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