Summary: Accusations are being leveled at Cosby for rape or sexual assault by more than 40 women. What will ultimately happen to him?
When Bill Cosby’s media savvy lawyer Monique Pressley was interviewed by the liberal leaning Huffington Post, you can believe that news-source would be critical of “rape culture” and Cosby’s relation to it. Nevertheless, the magazine noted that “Pressley is media-trained; she’s poised and she deftly side-stepped Lamont-Hill’s most damning questions.”
The news-source also lamented that “Bill Cosby will most likely never see the inside of a jail cell,” but extolled public opinion, and what amounts to public gossip, to bring justice where justice in the legal sense may remain lacking.
“I believe that people are innocent until they’re proven guilty. And if you can’t prove them guilty in court through prosecution, then you don’t get the option of persecution instead,” said Pressley.
The Huffington Post apparently supports the poetic justice of popular slander, ignoring that the logic of gossip is that a person is guilty until proven innocent, and even then they are still really guilty.
Nevertheless, the Post has a solid point that “when more than 40 women come forward with stories that are consistent, in a society that systematically shames victims of sexual abuse,” this is tell tale if anything is.
Somehow, justice is always served, and if the legal system can’t nail an offender, the public sentiment must somewhat compensate – this is true.
When Pressley said that alleged victims in this case are suspiciously speaking up “10, 20, 30, 40 years later,” and “there’s not any testimony or any accusation from any of these women that Mr. Cosby bound them, gagged them, prevented them from coming forward and saying whatever their truth was at the time,” this plays on to the difficult business of addressing sexual assault charges against a known and formidable celebrity.
As to what could motivate such heavy accusations, she said “They earn themselves a seat in a chair on the front of a magazine. They get interviewed over and over.”
The writer from the Huffington Post naively asks, “When people dream of “fame” does anyone really think that being (in) famous as a victim of sexual assault is the goal?” Actually, yes, though perhaps that is not the case here.
The writer is right in saying that Cosby’s dethronement as moral figure and the ideal father does offer some sort of justice, even if the court systems will be unable to make the charges stick.
News Source: The Huffington Post
It’s a fallacious argument to extrapolate from “innocent until proven guilty” to saying the public can have no opinion that’s not sanctioned by the law. Bzzzt, wrong.
I noticed that, too. That was actually amusing when she said that. She knows better.
I believe they’re sending Pressley out there to shore up popular support. I’m pretty sure the PR hacks have a data profile on the type of logic Cosby’s supporters use to prop him up in social media. Hers is exactly the type of statement that would appeal to the “innocent until proven guilty” crowd who would like legal standard of conviction to apply even in court of obvious reality. In other words, we’re not to talk bad about him and/or supporters shouldn’t listen.
Yes, there is a brand of lazy and cantancerous person who will say “No opinion until he’s legally charged.” Problem with these people is they never question the law, which is another point. i.e. nothing to think or say here till the final word comes down from the judge. But public opinion is what eventually crafts laws in this world. And when, in this case, there are the number of women who say this about Cosby, it is only reasonable to make some deductions. The other folks don’t want to think….and they get a kick out of ignoring what evidence there is. They may even be misoginistic. Etc. But they aren’t reasonable. Lazy and too cowardly to examine themselves and life in general.
Innocent until proven guilty means less; when Mr. Cosby has appealed even giving a deposition; all of the way to the State Supreme Court. In my opinion; an innocent party should cooperate with the legal system in order to give their case, and exonerate themselves.