The Cosby Ruling: Some Legal Analysts Dispute the Court’s Reasoning

The court decision that reversed the sexual assault conviction of Bill Cosby has prompted an unusual level of legal debate about the appropriate parameters of appellate review.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Bill Cosby’s conviction has opened an unusually vigorous debate among the legal community in that state, and beyond, with critics suggesting the justices had overstepped their bounds in reversing findings of fact embraced by the trial court. Since being freed from prison last month, Cosby, 84, has tried to portray the decision as a full exoneration. But the court did not find Cosby to be innocent of charges he had drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004.