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      Supreme Court Will Not Review Decision to Overturn Bill Cosby’s Conviction

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      Prosecutors had appealed a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which had overturned the conviction on due process grounds.The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the bid by prosecutors in Pennsylvania to reinstate Bill Cosby’s conviction for sexual assault, a decision that ends the criminal case that had led to imprisonment for the man once known as America’s Dad.In an order issued Monday, the court said, without elaborating, that it had declined to hear the appeal filed by prosecutors last November.The Supreme Court’s decision leaves in place a ruling issued by an appellate court in Pennsylvania last year that had overturned Mr. Cosby’s 2018 conviction on due process grounds, allowing Mr. Cosby, 84, to walk free after serving nearly three years of a three-to-10-year prison sentence.Mr. Cosby had been found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia, though his lawyers argued at trial that the encounter, in 2004, had been consensual.The case, one of the first high-profile criminal prosecutions of the #MeToo era, drew widespread attention, in part because of Mr. Cosby’s celebrity and in part because dozens of women had over a period of years leveled similar accusations of sexual abuse against the entertainer. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last June that Mr. Cosby’s due process rights had been violated when the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office pursued a criminal case against him despite what the appellate court found was a binding verbal promise not to prosecute given to him by a previous district attorney.The former district attorney, Bruce L. Castor Jr., who said he believed Ms. Constand but was not sure he could win a conviction, said he had agreed years ago not to press charges against Mr. Cosby to induce him to testify in a civil case brought by Ms. Constand. He said the substance of his promise was contained in a news release he issued at the time that said he found insufficient credible and admissible evidence. But he held out the possibility of a civil action “with a much lower standard of proof.” Ms. Constand later received $3.38 million as part of a settlement in her civil case against Mr. Cosby.During the civil case, Mr. Cosby acknowledged giving narcotics to women as part of an effort to have sex with them, a statement that was later introduced as evidence at Mr. Cosby’s trial.Understand Bill Cosby’s Sexual Assault CaseBill Cosby was released from prison June 30, 2021, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction for sexual assault.Why He Was Released: Here’s a breakdown of the issues surrounding the ruling to overturn the conviction.What Legal Analysts Think: The court’s decision opened an unusually vigorous debate among the legal community.His Uncertain Future: Experts say it’s unlikely the ruling will change the public perception of the former star.The Aftermath: The Times critic Wesley Morris looks at what to do with our fondness for “The Cosby Show,” and W. Kamau Bell’s documentary series contextualizes his legacy.Following Mr. Cosby’s conviction in 2018, an intermediate appeals court in Pennsylvania found that no formal agreement never to prosecute had ever existed, a position that aligned with what the trial court had ruled.But in a 6-to-1 ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Mr. Cosby had, in fact, relied on Mr. Castor’s assurances that he wouldn’t be prosecuted, and that charging Mr. Cosby and using his testimony concerning drugs at the criminal trial had violated his due process rights.Prosecutors had argued that such a promise had never been made. They said that no one else in the district attorney’s office at the time had been made aware of it and that a news release could not be the basis of a formal immunity agreement.A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, welcomed the decision Monday, saying in a statement that the entertainer and his family “would like to offer our sincere gratitude to the justices of the United States Supreme Court for following the rules of law and protecting the Constitutional Rights of ALL American Citizens.”Ms. Constand and her lawyers released a statement Monday that criticized the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling, in particular faulting the panel for assuming “there was a valid agreement not to prosecute, which was vigorously disputed in the Habeas proceedings, and determined by the trial judge not to exist.”Andrea Constand and her lawyers have consistently taken issue with the reasoning of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in overturning Mr. Cosby’s conviction.Angela Lewis for The New York TimesThe Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, released a statement in which he expressed his appreciation to Ms. Constand and described petitioning for Supreme Court review as “the right thing to do,” even though there was only a small chance the court would take up the case.“All crime victims deserve to be heard, treated with respect and be supported through their day in court,” the statement continued. “I wish her the best as she moves forward in her life.”Mr. Cosby was first accused in 2005 of having molested Ms. Constand, then an employee of the Temple University basketball team for whom he had become a mentor. The case was reopened in 2015, and Mr. Cosby went through two trials, the first of which ended with a hung jury. The second ended in April 2018, with a jury in Montgomery County convicting Mr. Cosby of three counts of aggravated indecent assault.Both cases were closely watched by many of the women who came forward with similar accusations but statutes of limitations in their cases made further prosecutions unlikely.Mr. Cosby has consistently denied the accusations that he was a sexual predator, suggesting that any encounters were completely consensual.Patricia Leary Steuer, who accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in 1978 and 1980, said in an interview on Monday that she felt “a little let down by the decision” but that “it does not change anything for me and the other survivors” since, she said, public sentiment is on their side.“The survivors did what we were supposed to do which was to come forward and tell the truth and that’s what we did,” she said. “The rest is out of our hands.”Legal experts had predicted it would be unlikely that the Supreme Court, which denies the vast majority of petitions for review, would take up the Cosby case. For one thing, they said, the case involved a unique set of circumstances that did not necessarily raise far-reaching constitutional issues.Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer and former prosecutor who has followed the case, said the Supreme Court typically “looks to determine whether there are compelling issues of constitutional law about which the courts across the country need additional guidance, especially if the case is capable of repetition.”Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, said the Supreme Court likely considered whether its ruling would have the potential for broader significance outside the parameters of this case. “It’s a very unique set of circumstances,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely to be repeated.” More

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      Jussie Smollett Found Guilty: What Comes Next?

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      The actor who was found guilty of falsely telling the police he was the victim of a hate crime faces a possible sentence of up to three years, but experts disagree on whether the judge is likely to incarcerate him.The discussion in the case of Jussie Smollett, the actor convicted on Thursday of falsely reporting he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack, has turned to whether the actor will receive prison time when he is sentenced in several weeks.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, said on Friday that he had not yet decided on what recommendation he would make to the judge but again emphasized how serious he thought the case was. Mr. Webb has pointed in several settings to the social damage caused by faking a hate crime, about the waste of police resources spent on the case and about the consequences of lying to a jury, which found Mr. Smollett guilty after he spent seven hours on the witness stand standing by his account.“It’s fair to say Mr. Smollett is not repentant at all,” Mr. Webb said. “And he doubled down during our trial. I will emphasize those matters as I should.”But some experts said they would find it surprising if Mr. Smollett were to be imprisoned because he was convicted of the lowest level felony offense and has no prior felony convictions.Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, a former prosecutor who said his client planned to appeal the verdict, echoed that sentiment on Thursday.“I’ve never seen a case like this where the person got jail time,” he said. “And he shouldn’t because he’s innocent.”Mr. Smollett’s lead lawyer, Nenye Uche, speaking to reporters after the verdict on Thursday, surrounded by other members of his defense team.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressMr. Smollett was convicted of five counts of disorderly conduct, which carry a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Even Mr. Webb has acknowledged that those charges don’t typically lead judges to incarcerate people.But he said: “There’s never been a case like this. I don’t know any case in Illinois that involves this criminal misconduct and deceiving police for weeks on end about a hate crime and then compounding it by lying to a jury.”Judge James B. Linn, who is presiding on the case, has the option of sentencing the defendant to just probation or a shorter period of prison time. He agreed on Thursday to release Mr. Smollett while he awaits sentencing.“What I could see happening is probation with a ton of community service hours,” said Michael O’Meara, a criminal defense lawyer who has also worked as a prosecutor, “and just to sting him a bit, maybe some jail time.”The judge will certainly consider Mr. Smollett’s prior criminal infraction, though it was 14 years ago and relatively minor. He was convicted in California of misdemeanor driving under the influence, making false statements to the police and driving without a license. (Mr. Smollett pleaded no contest.)In this instance, it was Mr. Smollett who reported a crime, an attack by two assailants who he said beat him up, yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him, placed a rope around his neck and poured bleach on his clothing in an early morning assault on a frigid day in 2019. But two brothers told the police that Mr. Smollett had directed them to carry out the attack, and he was ultimately charged by a grand jury with lying to the police, a hoax that prosecutors argued had been orchestrated for publicity.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      Jussie Smollett Found Guilty of Reporting a Fake Hate Crime

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      Mr. Smollett was convicted of filing a false police report in 2019 claiming he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack. The jury deliberated for more than nine hours.A jury in Chicago found the actor Jussie Smollett guilty on Thursday of falsely reporting to the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic assault in 2019, an attack that investigators concluded was a hoax directed by the actor himself.With its finding, after more than nine hours of deliberation, the 12-person jury indicated it had chosen to believe the accounts of two brothers who testified that Mr. Smollett had asked them to mildly injure him as part of a publicity stunt.Mr. Smollett, wearing a dark gray suit and a blue shirt, sat upright in his chair, hands clasped, staring directly at the jury just after the verdict was read.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case, said afterward that Mr. Smollett only made matters worse by continuing to stand by his account at trial.“This jury worked so hard,” Mr. Webb said, “and for Mr. Smollett to come up before them and lie for hours and hours and hours — that really compounded his misconduct.”Jussie Smollett, an actor in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire,” was found guilty of filing a false police report after staging a hate crime against himself.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressThe case dated back to the frigid early hours of Jan. 29, 2019, when Mr. Smollett — known then for his role in the Fox music-industry drama “Empire” — told the police he had been the victim of a hate crime near his apartment building in Chicago. Mr. Smollett said one of his attackers had even yelled, “This is MAGA country.”His account captured the attention of a politically polarized nation concerned with rising hate crime reports and the persistent threat of racism. But public support for Mr. Smollett quickly evaporated when investigators came to the conclusion three weeks later that he had staged the attack on himself.Chicago officials, upset at the amount of police work that was spent on the case, have sued Mr. Smollett to recoup some of the city’s costs. They were similarly critical in 2019 when the office of the city’s top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, who early on had recused herself from the case, citing a potential conflict, quietly dropped the charges in exchange for Mr. Smollett’s agreement to forfeit his $10,000 bond and perform community service.The case was later revived by Mr. Webb, who reviewed that decision and ultimately announced that a grand jury had charged Mr. Smollett with six counts of felony disorderly conduct. Mr. Smollett was convicted on five counts on Thursday, relating to conversations he had with the police just after the attack. He was acquitted on the sixth count, which related to a follow-up conversation with an investigator two weeks later.The actor faces up to three years in prison. The judge did not set a sentencing date and released him on bond.His defense team said Mr. Smollett would appeal.“We remain confident that we’re going to come back and he’s going to be vindicated,” said Nenye Uche, one of the actor’s lawyers.Prosecutors argued in court that Mr. Smollett had instructed two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, on all of the details of the attack, specifying that they should punch him only hard enough to create a bruise, pour bleach on his clothing and place a rope around his neck like a noose. The prosecutors faulted Mr. Smollett for not cooperating adequately with the investigation by balking at turning over evidence like his cellphone.“Mr. Smollett didn’t want the crime solved,” Mr. Webb said during his closing argument on Wednesday. “He wanted to report it as a hate crime; he wanted media exposure; but he didn’t want the brothers apprehended.”Mr. Webb told the jury that Mr. Smollett staged the attack because he had received a death threat in the mail and was upset by the muted response of the producers behind “Empire,” the television show on which he starred.The defense came forward with a sharply different account of Mr. Smollett’s attitudes and behaviors. The actor had not been upset by the TV studio’s response to the letter, his lawyers said, and had, in fact, turned down its offer to have security drive Mr. Smollett to and from the set. They said the Osundairo brothers were liars who had attacked Mr. Smollett to scare him into hiring them as bodyguards, and who concocted a story to avoid prosecution themselves.Mr. Smollett’s lawyer Mr. Uche argued that prosecutors had not established that the actor had a clear motive for any scheme, and that, in fact, his client had every reason not to have faked an attack.“His lack of motive is pretty obvious: Media attention, he doesn’t like it,” Mr. Uche said. What is more, he said, Mr. Smollett had a music video shoot coming up and could not afford his face getting bruised.Mr. Smollett, 39, took the stand and testified for more than seven hours in an effort to counter the narrative of the brothers, who had detailed how Mr. Smollett planned the attack. He said his interactions with the brothers in the days and hours leading up to the attack had been harmless. A “dry run” in his car that the brothers had described to the jury as a planning exercise two days before the attack was really an aimless drive through Chicago smoking marijuana.But the jury chose to believe the brothers. Abimbola Osundairo, 28, a fitness aficionado who had appeared on “Empire” in minor roles, testified that the planning began when Mr. Smollett, whom he was helping train for the music video, texted him for help with something “on the low.”“He said he wanted me to beat him up,” Mr. Osundairo said of their meeting. “I looked puzzled, and then he explained he wanted me to fake beat him up.”Mr. Osundairo said he agreed to the plan because he felt “indebted” to Mr. Smollett for getting him a role as a stand-in on “Empire.” Olabinjo Osundairo, 30, who had also appeared on “Empire” in minor roles, said he participated to “curry favor” with Mr. Smollett.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More

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      The jury has reached a verdict in the Jussie Smollett trial.

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      A jury in Chicago has reached a verdict in the trial over charges that the actor Jussie Smollett lied to the police about being the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime in 2019.The New York Times has a reporter in the courtroom and will be filing updates on Thursday as soon as the jury returns to the courtroom to report its decision.The jury’s deliberations followed six days of testimony, which included Mr. Smollett taking the witness stand for more than seven hours on Monday and Tuesday. He decided to testify to counter a narrative put forward by two brothers who testified that Mr. Smollett directed them to mildly assault him as a publicity stunt.Mr. Smollett is charged with six counts of disorderly conduct related to what investigators said was his filing of a false police report.In January 2019, he told the police that he had been returning to his apartment at about 2 a.m. after a late-night run to Subway when he was attacked by two men who beat him up, yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him and put a rope around his neck like a noose.Less than a month after he made the report, Mr. Smollett himself became a suspect — and was accused of having staged the attack — but he has maintained his innocence throughout, accusing the police of a rush to judgment. More

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      In Bill Cosby Case, Supreme Court Is Asked to Toss Ruling That Freed Him

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      The prosecutors who brought the 2018 sexual assault case are appealing the decision in June by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that overturned the jury verdict.Prosecutors who say Bill Cosby belongs in prison are asking the United States Supreme Court to throw out an appellate court ruling earlier this year that overturned his 2018 conviction for sexual assault on due process grounds.Mr. Cosby walked free from prison in June after serving less than three years of a three-to-10-year sentence.His release followed a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that Mr. Cosby’s rights had been violated when the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office pursued a criminal case against him despite what the appellate court found was a binding “non-prosecution agreement” given to him by a previous district attorney.It was a dramatic reversal in one of the first high-profile criminal convictions of the #MeToo era.The petition for review, filed last Wednesday by the district attorney’s office but only made public Monday, challenges that decision, arguing that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court erred in its ruling.The Pennsylvania high court’s decision came in the case of Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee to whom Mr. Cosby had become a mentor. He was arrested in 2015 on charges that he had drugged and sexually assaulted her at his home in a Philadelphia suburb 11 years earlier.The arrest came at a time when dozens of other women had already come forward to accuse Mr. Cosby of sexual assault or misconduct.A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, released a statement that referred to the decision to seek Supreme Court review as “a pathetic last-ditch effort.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“In short, the Montgomery County D.A. asks the United States Supreme Court to throw the Constitution out the window, as it did, to satisfy the #metoo mob,” the statement said. “There is no merit to the DA’s request which centers on the unique facts of the Cosby case and has no impact on important federal questions of law.”A lawyer for Ms. Constand, Bebe H. Kivitz, said Ms. Constand “is gratified that the District Attorney’s Office is appealing. This appeal demonstrates the prosecutors’ confidence in the verdict, and attempts to seek justice on behalf of all of Cosby’s victims.”The accusations against Mr. Cosby, and his eventual conviction on three charges of aggravated indecent assault, painted a disturbing portrait of a man who for decades had brightened America’s living rooms as a beloved entertainer and father figure.Mr. Cosby has consistently denied the accusations that he was a sexual predator, suggesting that the encounter with Ms. Constand, and those with other accusers, had been completely consensual.It is by no means certain that the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to hear the case. The court denies the vast majority of petitions seeking review.The justices only consider cases that involve federal law, and they rarely hear cases merely to correct erroneous rulings. Instead, they generally agree to hear cases in which lower courts have reached differing conclusions or ones involving legal issues of great public importance.Some legal experts had not expected prosecutors to file an appeal to the Supreme Court, seeing the case as a matter of state rather than federal law, and one that involves a specific set of circumstances that do not involve far-reaching constitutional issues.For the appeal to succeed, the justices would have to decide that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision relied on and misinterpreted a federal law or constitutional provision, experts said.“The district attorney’s office really strains in its petition to make this into a precedent-setting issue — it’s not,” said Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who has followed the case. “The unique facts make it highly unlikely that it would ever arise again.”Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have 30 days to respond, though they may seek an extension.Mr. Cosby’s appeal to Pennsylvania’s highest court had argued, among other issues, that the entertainer had relied on a previous prosecutor’s statement in 2005 that Mr. Cosby would not face charges in the case.The district attorney at the time, Bruce L. Castor Jr., had said he made the non-prosecution agreement verbally to Mr. Cosby’s lawyer, after determining there was insufficient evidence to win a prosecution on sex assault charges. He has pointed to a news release he issued announcing the end of the criminal investigation as evidence that an immunity agreement existed. He has subsequently testified that the agreement was intended to compel Mr. Cosby to testify in any civil suit that Ms. Constand might file by removing Mr. Cosby’s ability to exercise his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.Shortly after the criminal investigation was dropped, Ms. Constand did sue Mr. Cosby, and settled in 2006 for $3.38 million.During testimony in the civil suit, Mr. Cosby acknowledged giving quaaludes to women he was pursuing for sex — evidence that played a key part in the criminal prosecution later brought by Mr. Castor’s successors.As the criminal case proceeded, the trial court — and an intermediate appeals court — found that no formal non-prosecution agreement ever existed.But in its 6-1 ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Mr. Cosby had, in fact, relied on Mr. Castor’s assurances that he wouldn’t be prosecuted and that the subsequent decision by a successor to charge Mr. Cosby violated the entertainer’s due process rights. The court barred a retrial, though two of the judges who voted in the majority dissented on that remedy.“Petitioning to ask the High Court for review was the right thing to do,” Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said Monday in a statement, “because of the precedent set in this case by the majority opinion of Pennsylvania Supreme Court that prosecutors’ statements in press releases now seemingly create immunity.”The district attorney’s office referenced an argument put forward by one of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices, Kevin Dougherty, who said in an opinion that no district attorney had the “power to impose on their successors — in perpetuity, no less — the kind of non-prosecution agreement that Castor sought to convey to Cosby.”In their 33-page filing, the prosecutors also tried to counter the argument that Mr. Cosby had a right to rely on what Mr. Castor said was a promise not to prosecute him further, asserting that “a reasonably prudent person would have been reckless to rely on a supposed guarantee that the prosecutor did not clearly convey and may not have had the power to grant.”Since being freed, Mr. Cosby, 84, has portrayed the decision as a full exoneration. The chief justice of the Pennsylvania high court, Max Baer, has said, though, that the court’s ruling did not find Mr. Cosby innocent, only unfairly prosecuted.Patricia Steuer, 65, who has accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in 1978 and 1980, said that although she appreciated the effort to appeal what she viewed as a flawed decision, she was not optimistic about the outcome.“It never occurred to me that they’d petition to the U.S. Supreme Court,” she said. “I’m grateful for that, but I don’t have a lot of hope that he’ll end back in prison.”Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. More

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      Judge Rules to End Britney Spears's Conservatorship

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      The pop star had called the arrangement, which governed her life for nearly 14 years, exploitative. A judge ruled it was “no longer required.”Nearly 14 years after a Los Angeles court deemed the pop sensation Britney Spears unable to care for herself, stripping the singer of control in nearly every aspect of her life, a judge ruled on Friday to end the conservatorship that Ms. Spears said had long traumatized and exploited her.“The conservatorship of the person and estate of Britney Jean Spears is no longer required,” Judge Brenda Penny said, making her ruling less than half an hour into the brief hearing. “The conservatorship is hereby terminated.”The judge added that further psychological assessments of Ms. Spears were unnecessary, because the conservatorship was technically voluntary. But Judge Penny said that the current conservator of the singer’s estate would continue working to settle ongoing financial concerns related to the case.James P. Spears, Ms. Spears’s father, who is known as Jamie, first petitioned the court for authority over his adult daughter’s life and finances in early 2008, citing her very public mental health struggles and possible substance abuse amid a child custody battle. What began as a temporary conservatorship was made permanent by the end of the year.Since then, the conservatorship has governed both the big business of Britney Spears and the day-to-day reality of the woman at its center, covering her medical care and personal life while putting her back to work as a lucrative performer in Las Vegas and beyond.Once called a “hybrid business model” by the former estate conservator who worked alongside Ms. Spears’s father for years, the setup entered into professional contracts on behalf of the pop star; vetted her friends, visitors and boyfriends; dictated her travel; and logged her every purchase down to a drink from Starbucks.Hundreds of #FreeBritney supporters cheered and danced outside Los Angeles Superior Court.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressIt also drew questions from Ms. Spears’s increasingly invested fans and outside observers, who asked why an active global celebrity and working musician was in an arrangement typically reserved for people who cannot feed, clothe or shelter themselves.Ms. Spears, in her first extended public comments on the conservatorship at a court hearing this summer, said its authority went too far, claiming that those in charge forced her to take medication, work against her will and use a birth control device. She called for them to be investigated and jailed, pointing to Mr. Spears, 69, as “the one who approved all of it.”“I shouldn’t be in a conservatorship if I can work. The laws need to change,” Ms. Spears, 39, said at the time, explaining that her previous silence had been the result of embarrassment and fear. “I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive. I don’t feel like I can live a full life.”The singer was not present in court on Friday. But ahead of the hearing, she was seen in a video posted to Instagram by her fiancé, Sam Asghari, wearing a T-shirt that read #FREEBRITNEY above the phrase “It’s a human rights movement,” while her song “Work Bitch” played in the background.A large number of Ms. Spears’s fans decried the conservatorship, and worked to rally public opinion to her side. Chloe Pang for The New York TimesA lawyer for Ms. Spears, Mathew S. Rosengart, repeated some of the singer’s recent comments about the conservatorship in court on Friday at her behest, he said.“I just want my life back,” Mr. Rosengart told the judge, quoting Ms. Spears.Ms. Spears responded to the ruling on social media Friday evening. “Good God I love my fans so much it’s crazy,” she wrote, adding some emojis. “I think I’m gonna cry the rest of the day !!!! Best day ever … praise the Lord … can I get an Amen.”Any notion that Ms. Spears was content to be in the conservatorship — her father and his representatives had routinely called it both necessary and voluntary — crumbled on June 23 when she spoke about it extensively in public for the first time.After requesting to address the judge directly, Ms. Spears made a shocking, emotional call into court, speaking for more than 20 minutes. And while the great majority of the hearings in the case had happened behind closed doors, with Ms. Spears appearing rarely and speaking only in private when she did, the June hearing was streamed live online because of Covid-19 protocols. Ms. Spears insisted that her remarks be heard by all who were tuning in.Already, Ms. Spears had begun seeking substantial changes to the conservatorship, starting in 2019, when she also announced “an indefinite work hiatus.” But the singer was at first required to use the same court-appointed lawyer she had since 2008, when she was found at the outset of the case to be mentally incapable of hiring her own counsel.Behind the scenes, Ms. Spears had routinely bristled at the strictures of the arrangement, according to reporting and confidential documents obtained by The New York Times. Having objected to her father’s role from the start because of his turbulent and intermittent presence in her life since childhood, she continued to question Mr. Spears’s fitness as conservator, citing his drinking and calling him “obsessed” with controlling her.But little would change for years.In 2016, Ms. Spears told a court investigator that the arrangement was oppressive and that she was “sick of being taken advantage of,” according to the investigator’s account of the conversation. Still, the investigator’s report concluded that the conservatorship remained in Ms. Spears’s best interest based on her complex finances, susceptibility to undue influence and “intermittent” drug issues, even as it called for “a pathway to independence” and eventually, termination.In 2019, Ms. Spears told the court that she had felt forced into a stay at a mental health facility and that she was made to perform while sick, according to a transcript of the closed-door hearing. She said later that she did not feel like she had been heard.In her comments at the June hearing, Ms. Spears said she did not know that she could file to end the arrangement altogether. Her lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, soon resigned, as did a wealth management firm that was set to take over as the co-conservator of the estate. Outside the conservatorship, the singer’s longtime manager, Larry Rudolph, also stepped down. Judge Penny allowed Ms. Spears to select a new lawyer the next month..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor who has worked extensively in Hollywood, took over the case, calling for an extensive re-examination of the entire arrangement and pushing for Mr. Spears’s immediate suspension as estate conservator; that was granted in September. Ms. Spears had said previously that she was afraid of her estranged father, even as he remained the steward of her nearly $60 million fortune, and would not return to performing with him in charge.In an abrupt about-face in September, ahead of his own suspension, Mr. Spears moved to end the conservatorship entirely. Mr. Rosengart argued that the turnaround was designed so that Mr. Spears, who earned a salary as conservator and commissions from his daughter’s career, could avoid legal discovery and being deposed under oath about his earnings and financial management of her estate.Mathew Rosengart said that “what’s next for Britney — and this is the first time that this could be said for about a decade — is up to one person: Britney” after a judge in Los Angeles ended her conservatorship.Mike Blake/ReutersMr. Rosengart has sought to investigate Mr. Spears’s dealings with the estate’s former business manager, Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, along with a security firm that monitored the singer, including secretly capturing audio recordings from her bedroom and accessing material from her phone, according to a documentary on the subject by The Times.Mr. Spears’s new legal team, hired after his removal, has said he stands by his record as conservator and “supports, indeed encourages, a full and transparent examination.”Lawyers for Tri Star denied in court filings that the company’s employees had any control over Ms. Spears’s security protocols, including hidden electronic surveillance, and said that its financial dealings with the estate were approved by the court before the firm’s resignation from the conservatorship last year.But even as the battle continues in court — with subsequent hearings scheduled to address the outstanding financial issues and investigations tied to the conservatorship — both sides came to agree that the arrangement should end.In addition to Ms. Spears and her father, the singer’s personal conservator, Jodi Montgomery, also consented, according to court filings, and worked with Mr. Rosengart on a “termination care plan” that was filed with the court under seal. (Ms. Montgomery took over those duties from Mr. Spears on an ongoing temporary basis in September 2019, when he resigned citing health issues.)Still, Mr. Rosengart said in court on Friday that Ms. Spears wanted a financial and personal “safety net” even after the conservatorship was terminated.John Zabel, the certified public accountant who took over the estate in September, would retain “limited administrative powers,” the lawyer said, including the ability to execute estate planning and transfer outside assets into an existing trust for Ms. Spears. Ms. Montgomery, too, would be there for Ms. Spears if she needed help, her lawyer, Lauriann Wright, said.The parties, Mr. Rosengart said, had “engaged in an orderly transfer of power.”Ms. Spears had insisted that the arrangement end without her having to undergo further psychological assessments, which judges typically rely on when considering whether to restore independence to someone under a conservatorship.“I don’t think I owe anyone to be evaluated,” Ms. Spears told the court in June. Mr. Spears later agreed in his own court filings, and Judge Penny ultimately concurred.But several experts said they had expected the judge to require a mental health evaluation, and that it was highly unusual for her to end the conservatorship without one.“Based upon the information on the public record, and the history of alleged mental health issues, I am shocked that the conservatorship was terminated without a current mental health evaluation,” said Victoria J. Haneman, a trusts and estates law professor at Creighton University. “I had no doubt that a clear path to termination would be agreed upon, but I did not think in a million years that it would all end today.”In this case, the singer’s extensive résumé as a conservatee seemed to be enough.One of the best-selling artists of all time, Ms. Spears released four of her nine studio albums while under the conservatorship, including, most recently, “Glory” in 2016. She appeared on television, serving as a judge on “The X Factor” in 2012, and even toured internationally, though most of her performances were part of a strictly controlled Las Vegas residency.Beginning in 2013, “Britney: Piece of Me” ran for four years at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, grossing a reported $138 million across nearly 250 shows. A follow-up Vegas show, “Britney: Domination,” was canceled in 2019.The millions Ms. Spears amassed in her career will continue to be pored over in minute detail as the many lawyers and other professionals who have been involved in the conservatorship proceedings seek approval by the court to be paid.Up to this point, all expenses incurred in the case — including the legal fees of those fighting against Ms. Spears’s wishes — have been billed to the singer’s estate. Mr. Rosengart has made a formal objection to a request for fees by former lawyers for Mr. Spears, calling the totals — some related to “media matters” in defense of the conservatorship — “outrageous and exorbitant.”Others seeking payment include Mr. Rosengart; Mr. Ingham, Ms. Spears’s former court-appointed lawyer; another firm he brought on board for litigation assistance; Ms. Montgomery and her lawyers; and lawyers for Lynne Spears, the singer’s mother and an “interested party” in the conservatorship since 2019. Additional hearings in the case are scheduled for Dec. 8 and Jan. 19.Outside the courthouse, amid cheering fans, Mr. Rosengart said that Ms. Spears’s conservatorship had shined a light on potential abuses in the wider system. “If this happened to Britney, it can happen to anybody,” he said.When asked whether Ms. Spears would ever perform again, the lawyer added that, for the first time in years, “it’s up to her.”Joe Coscarelli reported from New York, and Julia Jacobs from Los Angeles. Lauren Herstik, Douglas Morino and Graham Bowley contributed reporting. More

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      Experts Say It's Unusual to End a Conservatorship Without an Evaluation

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      Several experts said Friday that while they personally supported ending Britney Spears’s conservatorship, they thought it unusual that the Los Angeles probate court did so without requiring the pop star to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.“I’m surprised,” said Robert Dinerstein, a disability rights law professor at American University. He said that persuading judges to overturn a conservatorship in the first place is unusual.But when they do, he said, they typically require a psychological evaluation.“Within the relatively rare number of cases where a conservatorship is terminated, it’s even more unusual to do that without proof they had capacity,” Professor Dinerstein said.Judge Brenda Penny, who terminated the conservatorship, said that further psychological assessments of Ms. Spears were unnecessary, because the conservatorship was technically voluntary.Victoria Haneman, a trusts and estates law professor at Creighton University, said California probate code does not require a mental health evaluation for the conservatorship to be terminated. She said the underlying diagnosis explaining why Ms. Spears was put in conservatorship is unavailable because the record is sealed, making it tough to determine what sort of evaluation might have been required to show that the guardianship was no longer needed.Nevertheless, mental issues seemed to be a part of the reason, and so she had expected that an assessment would have been required to answer whether those problems were now in the past, she said.“I am extremely surprised that this conservatorship is ended without an evaluation,” she said.The experts stressed that they were not commenting on Ms. Spears’s mental health status, of which they are not informed — only on the process as they have experienced it.Typically in deciding whether to end a conservatorship, the experts said, a judge will consider whether the conservatee has regained “capacity,” using a psychological assessment and other factors to determine cognitive ability and decision making.This includes whether they can weigh risks and benefits regarding things like medical care, marriage and contracts. The person’s ability to feed, clothe and shelter themselves may also be examined.The purpose of an assessment is to determine whether the conditions that led to the imposition of the conservatorship in the first place have now stabilized or are in the past.Ms. Spears’s case has been considered extremely unusual because while viewed as unable to care for herself by the court, she continued to work extensively as a performing musician and global celebrity, bringing in millions of dollars.The singer herself had insisted that the arrangement end without her having to undergo an additional mental evaluation, and her lawyer had noted that lawyers for her father had agreed that no mental or psychological evaluation was required under California probate court.Zoe Brennan-Kohn, a disabilities rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said though typically some kind of psychological evaluation is part of the process of ending a conservatorship, it “makes sense that there would be no evaluation because everyone agreed.”“If everyone in the picture thinks this person does not need to be in this invasive situation,” she said, “we don’t want courts to be second-guessing that. Everyone said you should end this. I think it’s appropriate that the judge said, ‘Let’s end this.’” More

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      At Britney Spears’s Hearing, This Twitter Feed Scooped the World

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      With a deft plan, @BritneyLawArmy kept everyone outside the courtroom abreast of developments in a crucial moment in the singer’s conservatorship.LOS ANGELES — More than 50 members of the media took their seats Wednesday afternoon in Courtroom 217 of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse here, all agreeing to abide by restrictions set by the court to govern a highly anticipated hearing regarding the conservatorship that controls Britney Spears’s life.No laptops in the courtroom. No phones visible during the proceedings. No attempts in real time to communicate with others outside the courtroom. Violators would be swiftly ejected.For those anxious to witness and understand whether Ms. Spears’s father would be removed as her conservator, as the singer had asked, it appeared the afternoon would be a frustratingly long wait to hear what had happened inside.But, then, just minutes after the Los Angeles Superior Court clerk finished his roll call, snippets, seemingly from inside the room, began trickling out on the @BritneyLawArmy Twitter account.For the next hour, the Twitter feed became a source of real-time information during the pivotal hearing, tracked both by mystified media outlets unable to talk to their own reporters inside and hundreds of Free Britney fans outside.How did they manage to pull it off?In interviews Thursday, members of the Britney Law Army described how the group, five friends all committed to seeing Ms. Spears enjoy freedom, plotted their judicial Ocean’s 11: a well-orchestrated “buddy system” that allowed them to disseminate as much information as quickly as possible without running afoul of the court’s very strict rules.“It definitely would not have worked without all five of us,” said Marilyn Shrewsbury, 32, a lawyer who focuses on civil rights cases in Louisville, Ky.The army, consisting of Ms. Shrewsbury; two other lawyers, Angela Rojas, 30, and Samuel Nicholson, 30; a legal assistant, Raven Koontz, 23; and Emily Lagarenne, a 34-year-old recruiting consultant, all from in and about Louisville, had flown into Los Angeles on Tuesday. That evening they sat outside, planning final logistics as they ate street tacos, drank beer and chain smoked.Britney’s Law Army, from left: Raven Koontz, Angela Rojas, Marilyn Linsey Shrewsbury, Samuel Nicholson and Emily Lagarenne.Laura Partain for The New York Times“We are from Kentucky,” Ms. Shrewsbury said.All four women identify as lifelong Britney fans, but Mr. Nicholson was the driving force.“From a civil rights litigation perspective, Sam really sparked my interest,” Ms. Shrewsbury said.The New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears” galvanized the group to rectify what they saw as a lack of consistent information available to the public about what they described as Ms. Spears’s “horrific treatment” inside the conservatorship.On Wednesday, they arrived at the entrance to the courtroom at 7:30 a.m. in hopes of securing five of the 11 seats allotted to members of the public on a first come first served basis. Another 54 seats had been reserved for members of the media. Only one person, a New York Times reporter, arrived before them.At 11 a.m. they were given red raffle tickets that ensured them spots in the courtroom when the hearing began at 1:30 p.m. Members of the public were told they would have to turn off their phones in front of deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and then put them in magnetic locked bags, which could be opened when they left.“I’ve never been so nervous for a court hearing I wasn’t an attorney on,” Mr. Nicholson said.The plan: Each of the five would take copious notes, leave the hearing one at a time, in 15-minute intervals, get their phones out of the bags and tweet out as much as possible, as quickly as possible.The one hiccup:“We were in the worst spot in the courtroom,” Mr. Nicholson recalled. “Far right corner, not anywhere near the aisle at all. The clerk obscured our view.”Some of them couldn’t see the judge or the screen for remote appearances. It didn’t matter. The doors closed, and the plan went into action.Mr. Nicholson, measuring time on his watch, cued the others one at a time to run out of the courtroom. Information flowed, and followers hung on every word.After an hour or so, Mr. Nicholson was the only Army member in the room. Judge Brenda Penny announced her ruling: Mr. Spears would be suspended as conservator of the estate, effective immediately. Reporters tried to leave the room to report the news to the outside world, but Judge Penny stopped them, saying she would let everyone out for a recess shortly.Mr. Nicholson couldn’t leave either. His phone stayed locked up. The feed went dark. Out on the street, over one hundred #FreeBritney protesters waited in near silence. Ms. Shrewsbury and Ms. Rojas joined Ms. Koontz and Ms. Lagarenne outside.When Judge Penny released the courtroom, the tweets started flying.“Judge Penny: My order suspending Jamie Spears shall remain in full force and effect until a hearing on removal,” Mr. Nicholson wrote.The other four members of the Army were with the crowd as it erupted.“Literally the moment Sam tweeted Jamie was suspended, everyone started screaming about it,” Ms. Shrewsbury said. “We were in shock for a full 45 seconds.”Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. More