Here’s Why Bill Cosby’s Wife May Have to Testify in the Case Against Him
It is among the core perceptions that many Americans embrace about their legal system: Spouses never have to testify against spouses.
But Camille O. Cosby has found out that, whatever the perception, the reality of so-called spousal privilege is considerably more complicated.
Mrs. Cosby, who has been married to the entertainer Bill Cosby for 52 years, has already testified once in a defamation lawsuit filed against her husband. She is now in court trying to block a second session of testimony later this month.
For Mr. Cosby, who has not drawn much support as the sexual assault accusations against him climb, the fact that his wife is being pushed to testify in his case has engendered a smattering of something approaching sympathy on social media — evidence, experts said, of the special place marriage still holds in American society.
“I still think people feel that they should be able to share with a spouse and not have that information subject to being disclosed to the world,” said Josephine R. Potuto, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Nebraska College of Law. “I think there probably still is that feeling that it is a special relationship of trust.”
Mrs. Cosby’s testimony has come in a federal lawsuit filed by seven women in Massachusetts who say Mr. Cosby sexually assaulted them years ago and then defamed them after they came forward.
Lawyers for the women have argued that Mrs. Cosby, who is his business manager and has continued to be a staunch supporter, had information relevant to the case.
Mrs. Cosby’s lawyers vigorously tried to prevent the deposition for various reasons, including that any knowledge she might have about the women’s allegations would have come from confidential communications with her husband.
But a judge ruled against Mrs. Cosby in February, though the court did say she would not have to answer questions about private conversations she had with Mr. Cosby.
Her first deposition, taken that month, appears to have been highly contentious, as she refused, on her lawyers’ advice, to answer 98 of the questions asked. Her lawyers later accused the women’s lawyer, Joseph Cammarata, of asking “a litany of improper and offensive questions, including questions regarding her own sexual relations, her own political commentary, and the death of the Cosbys’ son in 1997.”
Mr. Cammarata said in a telephone interview: “The deposition was conducted in good faith. The questions asked, taken in context, reflect an investigation into matters which are probative of the issues to be tried in this case.”
He is now planning to question Mrs. Cosby again on April 19. But her lawyers will be back in court next week, arguing that the second session should be canceled.
Spousal privilege was born, lawyers say, from a belief in the sanctity of marriage.
