This week we have seen many women file sexual
lawsuits against Bill Cosby in Nevada.
This comes weeks after Nevada gt
rid of the statutes of limitatis
for civil cases which include sl
assault and it has made some allegations
that are decades old come back to the
surface now. Our legal
analyst Whitney trailer is
here with us this morning.
Give us a better understanding.
Of everything that's happening,
Whitney, good morning.
I want to start with first,
what exactly is happening there in Nevada?
Of course, this is 2 weeks after
the governor there did away with
the deadline to file the charge.
Does that mean there's no
deadline to file charges in the
case like this anymore? Yeah,
that's essentially what it mean.
So a statute of limitations is, is a law
that's both in civil and criminal law.
And essentially it's the time in
which you have to bring the cas.
And the reason they have statute
of limitations is so that.
You know, 30 years later,
you're not trying to pull up witnesses
and documents and things like t.
There's some crimes, though,
like murder and kidnapping, tre.
They don't have a statute of limitations.
So here in Nevada, California,
there were some other states.
They had a statute of limitatios
for two years.
So you had to bring your
claim within two years.
So now this new law says there
is no statute of limitations.
So they can now go back decades later
and and file this this civil cl.
Well, that changes things in a really
big way when you think about it.
How is that going to.
Shape cases like this going for,
at least in Nevada for now.
Well definitely there's going.
I would expect that you're goino
see people who are having claims
of sexual assault sexual miscont
bringing those claims because se
of those people it was they wert
able to bring them because striy
because the statute of limitatis
and it may have been they misset
by a month a week and a lot of s
with these kind of survivors th.
It does take years and years for
it for it to even come out for
them to even acknowledge it.
So let alone then pursue it in a in a
judicial manner so that you're g
to see more of those cases I thk
are other states following
suit or do you think they will?
I think they will and you've seen this.
So California has has passed
a similar similar law.
Nevada here in Colorado we we
passed the law in January of
2022 and so but our law says.
You it can only.
There's no statute of limitatios
now on the sexual misconduct,
which includes assault and rape,
things like that.
But you can only go back to January of
2022 and if your claim was within the
statute of limitations at that ,
but everyone else going forward,
there's not a statute of limitations.
So if somebody is assaulted tod,
they can bring their case 10 years from now.
In Colorado,
it was in some instances just a year.
So it was a really short statute
of limitations on the civil cla.
I apologize for putting you on the spot.
I'm just curious since we have
seen that change here in Colora,
have we seen any cases?
From maybe decades back or that
was without outside of that
statute of limitations come
forward. No, I don't think we h.
But because the law is so new and this
is a really sort of interesting academic
point about our branches of government.
So the legislature creates the ,
they create these statutes and then what
happens is somebody has to go to court
and the courts through the appee
process make their decision and that's how
we form our common law with the cases.
From what the legislature initially did,
so because this is a fairly new,
January of 2022, we haven't seen a lot
of cases in court yet, but we w.
What do you think will happen
in these trials? I mean,
you talked about why these stats
of limitations were even in plae
because now you're going back ten years
or whatever to find witnesses a,
you know, get all the informati.
What do you think is going to happen?
Well, that's going to be a realy
difficult issue because the
plaintiff has the burden of pro.
So these women have the it's a
preponderance of the evidence.
It's not beyond a reasonable do,
but it's still their burden to prove.
So they have to convince
a jury that this happened.
And now you're talking about
some of these were in 1969.
Seventy 589.
So now you have to go back and
essentially tell this jury this
story and say here's the witnes,
here's who I told,
here's the documents that I have
and a lot of the witnesses wille
already passed away and won't remember.
And so that's why we have the
statute of limitations, so.
They're going to go forward,
but it's still a matter of thiss
our judicial system matter of looking
at these witnesses and deciding credibility.
So it is in a lot of ways he sa,
she say.
Now the other interesting thingl
Cosby is I'm not sure his mental
abilities to to even be in a trl
because the last pictures you sw
years ago he looked in failing health.
So that's going to be an issue as well.
But that story we're going to
pay very close attention to,
we appreciate you helping us.
Get a little better understandig
what's happening, Whitney.
Sure. Thank you. Right.