“What does an 81-year-old man do in prison?” defense attorney Joseph Green asked on day 1 of the sentencing hearing for Bill Cosby. That question, can now be answered as Cosby, once known as “America’s Dad” begins his sentence of 3 to 10 years in prison for sexual assault.
The Cosby case “really raised awareness of the pervasiveness of … sexual misconduct against subordinates and against women of relatively less power,” said Daniel M. Filler, JD, dean of Drexel University’s Kline School of Law.
Filler is a nationally recognized legal scholar with deep expertise in the areas of capital punishment, juvenile justice, and sex crimes. He told the Associated Press after the sentencing, “For jurors, I think the #MeToo movement inherently changed the credibility of the accusers.”
Filler anticipated a sentence in-between Cosby’s defense team’s call for house arrest and the prosecution’s request for 5-10 years behind bars. Filler predicted the sentencing would fall somewhere in between the two outcomes. “That’s the most likely outcome,” he told the Associated Press. “Because the case has mitigating factors and aggravating factors.”
The trial began with the defense condemning Cosby’s classification as a sexually violent predator – to which Filler told the Associated Press “You can bet, especially in crowd-sourced things, everything’s going to begin with ‘he’s a sexually violent predator.’ It’s like a slogan. He has a tag now.”
Media interested in speaking with Filler should contact Emily Storz, at 215.895.2705 or els332@drexel.edu.
