Cornell Law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on the television mini-series, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” which tells the story of Bill Cosby as both beloved celebrity and shadowy rapist. Professor Colb praises the mini-series but suggests that it would have been even better if it had also featured a psychiatrist explaining that all the sweetness and warmth and wit that made America fall in love with Cosby was not the “good” in a cost/benefit analysis of his life, but the bait that allowed him to carry out his career of serial rape on unsuspecting women.

Cornell Law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Bill Cosby’s conviction for the sexual assault of Andrea Constand. Professor Colb makes clear that the court’s actions in that case do not exonerate Bill Cosby; rather, it remains true that a jury of his peers convicted him of sexual assault based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Marci A. Hamilton, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and CEO of CHILD USA, comments on the recent decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturning Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction. Professor Hamilton argues that the decision illustrates the need for states to reform both civil and criminal statutes of limitations (SOLs) to give sexual assault and abuse survivors their day in court.

Marci A. Hamilton, the Fox Professor of Practice and Fox Family Pavilion Resident Senior Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, explains why Bill Cosby’s retrial for the sexual assault of Andrea Constand will likely go differently from the first one, which ended in a mistrial. Hamilton describes the changes in public awareness and understanding of sexual assault over the past year, as well as some procedural differences between the first trial and the retrial.

Cornell University law professor Sherry Colb discusses the role of Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 404 in the criminal trial against Bill Cosby. Colb argues that the rule against character evidence serves a specific purpose in “whodunit” cases (where the perpetrator is unknown) but that it may serve a different purpose in “what was done” cases, such as the present case against Cosby.