Bill Cosby brought an all-star cast to defend him against sexual assault charges at his retrial in Montgomery County. But his lawyers' attempts to discredit Cosby's multiple accusers did not get very far with the jury, which found the comedian guilty on all counts Thursday.

Cosby's lawyers included Tom Mesereau, best known for getting Michael Jackson acquitted of child molestation charges, and Kathleen Bliss, who runs her own small firm after previously leading the white-collar practice at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith. Also on the lineup were Becky James, a former federal prosecutor who has led appellate practices at multiple firms, including Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, and local counsel Lane Vines, a commercial litigator at Berger & Montague.

The defense team tried to inject doubt in jurors' minds in multiple ways, but the dominant theme was an attack on the credibility of Cosby's accusers.

That strategy may not work so well anymore, lawyers said.

“It's not that it's dead, but it's losing effectiveness,” said Steven Fairlie, a defense attorney and former Pennsylvania prosecutor. “These cases are starting to turn on policy reasons instead of the facts of the particular case.”

A backdrop for Cosby's retrial was the #MeToo movement, which had not yet emerged when jurors in the first trial failed reach a verdict last June.

Lisa Linsky, a former New York prosecutor who now practices at McDermott Will & Emery, called the retrial “in some ways the first very public statement of the impact of the #MeToo movement.” She noted the defense's closing argument, when Bliss told jurors, “When you join a movement based primarily on emotion and anger, you don't change a damn thing.”

“I respectfully disagree,” Linsky said. “Thousands of women and others would also beg to differ.”

Wesley Oliver, a professor at Duquesne University School of Law, said the defense Cosby's lawyers used has become outdated as people come to accept allegations against high-profile men.

“The idea that we have to immediately suspect a person lying in this context is not the first thing that comes to people's heads anymore,” Oliver said.

Tide of Witnesses

It wasn't just a social media phenomenon that impacted how jurors saw Andrea Constand's allegations, lawyers said.

Former Pennsylvania prosecutor Dennis McAndrews of McAndrews Law Offices said he's reluctant to say the #MeToo movement directly affected deliberations.

“What I do think jurors are inherently concerned about is people of wealth and prominence escaping justice,” McAndrews said. “They want everybody to be treated just like they'd be treated.”

But the increased national conversation about sexual assault may have motivated more women to come forward with allegations about Cosby, McAndrews said, which gave prosecutors a greater number of potential prior bad acts witnesses. Two of the five witnesses who testified under Rule of Criminal Procedure 404(b) were not proposed by the prosecution at Cosby's first trial.

“This case offered the most extensive array of potential 404(b) cases that I've ever seen by far,” McAndrews, who attended the trial as an observer, said. And those witnesses were preceded by Barbara Ziv, a forensic psychologist who discussed the effects of sexual assault on the victims and their behaviors.

“That testimony was essential and it was critical that it be introduced right up front,” McAndrews said. “It was the topic sentence for the testimony of all the women that testified that Cosby assaulted.”

Fairlie said that kind of evidence, which became allowed at trial in recent years, under a change in Pennsylvania's judicial procedure statute, “greatly increases the likelihood of conviction.” He noted that the testimony must be found relevant in order to admit it, so even with changes in law, “it's something judges are thinking long and hard about.”

Until recently, Linsky said, “Many jurors or potential jurors had a hard time getting their heads around the fact that these crimes really happened. Even though they promised to do those things, their inherent biases toward wanting to disbelieve the victim came very much into play.”

Because of that, defense lawyers were able to create enough doubt for an acquittal just by challenging the credibility of the alleged victim.

Now, “the public has a greater awareness of this is what the defense lawyers do in these cases,” Linsky said.

Appellate Issues

After the verdict was announced Thursday, Mesereau told reporters “the fight is not over.” Cosby is expected to appeal.

Linsky said the five prior bad acts witnesses will no doubt be central to Cosby's appeal. But she doesn't think the likelihood of a reversal on that element of the case is likely, she said.

Oliver said an appeals court could take issue with that aspect of the case, particularly since only one prior bad acts accuser was allowed to testify at Cosby's first trial, but he said it was unlikely to threaten the verdict because of the strength of the case otherwise.

McAndrews agreed. Because there were so many accusers to choose from—prosecutors vetted more than 50 and asked to admit 19—the fact that Judge Steven T. O'Neill only allowed five to testify shows that he took care in considering the prejudicial effect, McAndrews said.

But Fairlie noted that on a couple of occasions, prior bad acts witnesses spoke out of turn in the courtroom. Cosby's team moved for mistrial multiple times as a result of those events.

“As the testimony was coming in from them, it was maybe more inflammatory than the trial judge thought it might be when he admitted it,” Fairlie said. “If an appellate court is tempted to find that allowing these five witnesses was reversible error, that might tip them over the edge.”

A spokesman for Cosby's legal team did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Cosby has already tried to appeal O'Neill's ruling allowing the five prior bad acts witnesses to testify, but the Pennsylvania Superior Court refused to consider it as an interlocutory appeal.

“Either way, really, how this turns out on appeal … I believe this will give both prosecutors and defense lawyers even greater incentive to thoroughly and comprehensively investigate these cases with a view toward determining whether there are any other alleged victims,” Linsky said.