Bill Cosby's release from prison may discourage sexual assault victims who want to hold their abusers accountable, experts say.
Sexual assault advocates and survivors claim the actor's overturned conviction might significantly affect these victims.
Cosby is free after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed his 2018 convictions on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand.
The actor claimed he didn't get a fair trial. The Guardian said the overturned conviction was associated with a previous district attorney's promise in 2015 that Cosby "would not be charged."
More than 60 women accused Cosby of rape or sexual assault. Now he has been cleared on a technicality the realities victims experienced while seeking justice have been put in relief.
Advocates say his freedom should never undermine the progress they have made. Instead, they want to use it as a reminder there is a need for more changes to the criminal justice system.
"This is truly a battle cry for the victim rights movement," Angela Rose, founder and executive director of the advocacy group Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (Pave), told the Guardian.
"There is so much that needs to be done and I hope this is a watershed moment to unite survivors across the country," she continued.
Rose told victims they were not alone and directed them to survivors.org.
According to USA Today, future prosecutions in Pennsylvania against Cosby are prohibited because of the decision.
Prosecutions are unlikely to be brought in other jurisdictions because of statutes of limitations on the offences. New accusations may not emerge. Cosby spent three years in state prison.
However, civil action is a possibility and the comedian's most persistent legal adversary, women's rights attorney Gloria Allred and her client Judy Huth, who filed a sexual battery lawsuit in December 2014 in Los Angeles may be the only existing civil action against Cosby.
Allred represents more than 30 women who have accused Cosby of sexual assault as far back as the mid-1960s. She represented women who had testified against him at his two trials.
