The Cosby Trial: A Sign of Justice or Mob Rule?

If you have been following the Cosby trial (and how can you avoid it), you know by now that after a hung jury, Bill Cosby has been found guilty on all charges of sexual assault in the Andrea Constand case:

NORRISTOWN, Pa. –Bill Cosby was convicted Thursday of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, completing the spectacular late-life downfall of a comedian who broke racial barriers in Hollywood on his way to TV superstardom as America’s Dad.

Cosby, 80, could end up spending his final years in prison after a jury concluded he sexually violated Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. He claimed the encounter was consensual.

The esteemed J. Christian Adams recently wrote a post here at PJ Media called “The Brighter Side of Cosby’s Conviction”:

Cosby’s conviction may be welcome in an unexpected way.

These days, many Americans wonder if the law applies to the rich and powerful. They read stories of powerful people lying under oath, multiple times, while holding positions of power inside government, and nothing happens.

Those are real concerns, and it may be that the wheels of justice turn slowly. Or, the wheels might not turn at all for the politically powerful. Time will tell.

But in one case at least, someone who was perhaps the most beloved and trusted celebrity of his time was held accountable by the law. That means something, especially these days.

Cosby’s lawyers had a different take on the retrial:

Cosby’s retrial took place against the backdrop of #MeToo, the movement against sexual misconduct that has taken down powerful men in rapid succession, among them Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and Sen. Al Franken.

During closing arguments, Cosby’s lawyers slammed #MeToo, calling Cosby its victim and likening it to a witch hunt or a lynching.

Rather than serving as a positive case for justice, maybe the Cosby case tells all men that if Cosby can go down, so can they. Right or wrong, innocent or guilty, or somewhere in-between, it leaves the average man feeling that interactions with women can come with terrible consequences for which they may be punished or even land in jail. Kyle Smith at the New York Post captures the feeling of men in response to the #MeToo movement:

Men are scared, and feminists are delighted. But the urge to call out and punish male sexual transgression is bound to clash with an inescapable truth: We’re all in this together, men and women.

Consider what’s happening in the capital of Florida. Female staffers and lobbyists have found “many male legislators will no longer meet with them privately,” reported the Miami Herald. “I had a senator say, ‘I need my aide here in the room because I need a chaperone,’ ” lobbyist Jennifer Green told the paper. “I said, ‘Senator, why do you need a chaperone? . . . Do you feel uncomfortable around me?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘anyone can say anything with the door shut.’ ”…

Companies are firing perverts and sexual harassers, which is great, but those who can’t find any bad behavior to punish are casting around angrily, looking for random things to attack…

Those “random things” may just be you if you happen to be male and get on the wrong side of a “woke” woman. The #MeToo movement sees the Cosby trial as a win for justice, but the real message here is not just that they got Cosby, but that they are coming for you.

Is that justice or mob rule? You decide.