I’ve attached a link to the entire case here.

So a little background and law information is required.

If a person is asked to testify in a lawsuit and there could be information that could incriminate them for a crime they can claim a Fifth Amendment privilege and refuse to testify, but if the statute of limitations has passed or the state makes an agreement that it will not prosecute that individual, that person can no longer claim a Fifth Amendment privilege and can be forced to testify.

What happened in Bill Cosby’s case is that a victim claimed that Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted her in 2004. In 2015 the victim sued Mr. Cosby and the District Attorney agreed to NOT prosecute  Bill Cosby so he would be forced to testify in the civil trial and could not claim a Fifth Amendment privilege. Then armed with Bill Cosby’s deposition in the civil case a different prosecutor charged Mr. Cosby for the 2004 assault.

I am not getting into Mr. Cosby’s guilt or innocence, what I am going to say is that what happened, in this case, was clearly a violation of due process of law.

What I find insane in this case is how this case survived a trial and an appeal, only to be reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after someone has served two and a half years in prison. 

The question to be answered in this case is are criminal defendants in the country entitled to due process of law or is that just a story that is told to school children. If there is still any rule of law in this country then agreements made by prosecutors must be enforced, which is what happened in this case, although it took a trial and two and a half years to force the government to live up to its obligations.