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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

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      What's Next? Britney Spears's Next Hearing Is in November

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      The court set a hearing for Nov. 12 to decide whether to terminate altogether the conservatorship that has dominated Britney Spears’s life for 13 years.The hearing was set after Judge Brenda Penny suspended Ms. Spears’s father, James P. Spears, as her conservator. A lawyer for Ms. Spears, Mathew S. Rosengart, had sought Mr. Spears’s immediate suspension, and asked for the next hearing to discuss terminating the conservatorship.Mr. Rosengart told the court he would be submitting a termination plan so there could be an orderly transition. “My client wants, my client needs, my client deserves an orderly transition,” he said.A lawyer for Mr. Spears, Vivian Lee Thoreen, had sought to terminate the conservatorship right away instead of suspending Mr. Spears, while Mr. Rosengart had asked the judge to wait so he could further investigate Mr. Spears’s conduct.It is unclear whether Ms. Spears will appear at the termination hearing.The Nov. 12 hearing is also expected to resolve any formalities around Mr. Spears’s suspension. Ms. Thoreen had asked questions about the possibility of an appeal.The judge set a second hearing date for Dec. 8 to resolve outstanding financial matters, including over a million dollars in legal fees billed to the estate. More

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      Britney Spears's Supporters Cheered the Conservatorship Ruling

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      The crowd of Britney Spears supporters seemed to being holding its breath as one in the moments before the news broke that James P. Spears had been suspended as her conservator after 13 years.Robert Bordelon, 25, of Los Angeles was the first to tell the crowd the decision had been made, before instantly falling to his knees, sobbing.“They thought we were crazy,” he said through tears. “They thought she was crazy.”The crowd erupted, jumping and cheering. Many fans embraced, seeing it as vindication for the #FreeBritney movement.Arthur Avitia, 30, clutched his black fur stole as he took in the news.“I’m so relieved,” he said, breathless. “This is what Britney has wanted for 13 years, and it’s about damn time.”The news also interested activists who are seeking to advance the cause of ending conservatorship abuse, including Angelique Fawcette, 51, who helped organize today’s “unity rally.”“This is vindication on many levels for many people,” she said after being told the court’s ruling.“It means so much for the hundreds of thousands of people who are locked into conservatorships — both legal and illegal,” she said.As heart rates slowed and the tears stopped flowing, the crowd huddled in small groups, parsing what it means for the conservatorship going forward.Kevin Wu, 37, a data analyst from Los Angeles, has been a fixture at courthouse protests since 2019.“While Britney’s case has garnered attention all over the world, it’s not unique,” he said. “Nothing’s going to change without public awareness.”Mathew S. Rosengart, Ms. Spears’s lawyer, thanked her supporters on her behalf. “She’s so pleased and she’s so thankful to all of you,” he told them outside the courthouse. More

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      Andrea Constand on Her Memoir and Cosby's Overturned Conviction

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      The call came just before noon.Andrea Constand had returned to her downtown Toronto apartment after walking her dog Maddy in a nearby park, when the Montgomery County district attorney’s office rang. Stand by, she was told, a ruling on Bill Cosby’s appeal could be handed down soon by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.By this day, June 30, Constand, the woman whose account of sexual assault had led to the conviction of the man once known as America’s Dad was finding ways to move past the trauma that the trial had brought to her daily life. She had sold her apartment, was moving to the countryside north of the city and preparing to publish a memoir, “The Moment,” to detail her singular experience with Cosby and the criminal justice system.Though more than 50 women had accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, including assault, prosecutors had — for a variety of reasons — only successfully brought criminal charges in her case. And now Cosby was in prison far away, serving a three- to 10-year sentence in Pennsylvania after having been found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault.He had already lost an appeal. The dust once kicked up by the trial, by the verdict, by the media attention, by the focus on her case as a breakthrough “moment” for the #MeToo era, had largely settled.About an hour later, the phone rang again.“Andrea,” said Kate Delano, the district attorney’s director of communications, “the Supreme Court has vacated his conviction.”It is perhaps an understatement to say that for Constand, and many others, the decision came as a shock. Cosby would not only be freed: The court also ruled he could not be tried again. Constand said she found it deeply unsettling that Cosby, still a man of means and influence, was out of prison, unconstrained and able to contact her and others.“I had a lump in my throat,” Constand, 48, said in a rare in-depth interview last month near her new home north of Toronto. “I really felt they were setting a predator loose and that made me sick.”Bill Cosby with his lawyers outside his home in a Philadelphia suburb after being released from prison.Mark Makela/ReutersConstand’s reaction to the court decision and her long experience with the case are detailed in the memoir, which is to be released Tuesday.Within minutes of the second call, Constand drove off, heading with her 22-year-old niece to her sister’s home outside Toronto, a trip that had been planned before the afternoon became untethered by the ruling. From the car, she spoke by phone with the two former prosecutors who had helped lead the case against Cosby, Stewart Ryan and Kristen Gibbons Feden. They explained that Cosby would no longer be officially designated as a sexually violent predator, a status that requires lifetime public registration and community notification — something that had afforded Constand special comfort.Andrea Constand said she has no regrets about pursuing the case, despite the court’s decision. “Society paid attention,” she said. Angela Lewis for The New York TimesAt her sister’s house, she watched on television as Cosby got out of a car at his home near Philadelphia, the mansion where, she had testified, Cosby assaulted her after giving her a sedative in 2004. From her sister’s back porch, she worked over the phone with her two lawyers, Bebe H. Kivitz and Dolores M. Troiani, to put out a statement expressing their disappointment.Her phone was otherwise blowing up with calls from friends and other women who had accused Cosby of sexual assault. Kevin R. Steele, the district attorney who had overseen the prosecution, had called earlier to say the decision did not take away from what she had achieved.Still she worried, she said, that other women might find it too hard to come forward now. “It was not just me,” she said, “it was the message that it would send to the rest of the world and other survivors, to say, why should I fight for justice, when it ultimately gets stripped down. It won’t matter.”The first trial in her case had ended with a hung jury. Cosby’s defense team insisted his encounter with Constand had been consensual. For the second trial, prosecutors were allowed to introduce testimony from five additional women who, like Constand, said that Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them.When the jury in the second trial found him guilty in 2018, many thought that, were there to be any appellate ruling, it would likely focus on whether it had been prejudicial to allow the women from other incidents to testify — evidence that prosecutors said showed a pattern of abuse.The book is being released on Tuesday.Penguin Random HouseBut the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on different grounds, finding that the district attorney had been bound by what a predecessor had called a promise he made never to charge Cosby in the case. The predecessor said he had made the promise to persuade Cosby to testify in a subsequent civil action, which Cosby settled by paying Constand $3.38 million. During his testimony in the civil case, Cosby acknowledged giving women quaaludes as part of an effort to have sex with them, a statement that the June ruling said had been unfairly introduced at the 2018 trial.Constand does not mince her words when it comes to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. She blames it for undoing all the work she and others had done to bring Cosby to justice and for “putting him on the street.”“After a few deep breaths, I just felt this is not my problem,” she said. “Now it made me feel the shame is on the Supreme Court. It’s not on me anymore.”The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in its decision that it was upholding an important safeguard: Cosby’s due process rights had been violated. Its ruling was meant to prevent dangerous prosecutorial overreach.Constand said that for days after the decision she fielded emails, texts and phone calls from people who were irate about the ruling. Many were from women who say they too were assaulted by Cosby and who had viewed the 2018 guilty verdict as justice for themselves. Some were now her friends. “They were devastated, they were so angry,” she said.The book, just weeks from its release date, had to be updated. A publisher’s note described the ruling and said Cosby’s conviction had been overturned “on a procedural issue.”Constand and supporters celebrated after Cosby was found guilty in April 2018.Pool photo by Mark MakelaThe statement Constand had devised with her lawyers was added as were about 400 words to describe her reaction to the court’s decision.“We cannot let moments of injustice quiet us,” she wrote. “We must speak up again and again and again — until we arrive at a moment of real change.”The case accounts for roughly two-thirds of the 240-page book. Constand takes readers inside her tussles with defense attorneys, who cast her as a disappointed lover in the first trial and a gold digger in the second. She describes the connections she felt with jurors, the long stays in hotel rooms, the stress and the sacrifices her family had to make.She got through it, she writes, with the help of her poodles, her spirituality and tattoos that give her strength. (The word “truth” is displayed across the top of her chest, a large phoenix on her back.)The book spends some time on her childhood in Canada, her years as a basketball player at the University of Arizona and playing professionally in Italy. It also delves into her relationships and coming out as gay.The memoir discusses other parts of Constand’s life, such as her success as a high school and college basketball player.Ron Bull/The Toronto Star, via Associated In the memoir, Constand describes herself as “wearied and weathered by what happened to me” and writes that Cosby had robbed a joyful young woman, the product of a nourishing family and happy childhood, of her smile. During an interview with The New York Times, she credited her faith for sustaining her and talked of starting a new chapter of her life.Constand started the book, helped by a co-writer, Meg Masters, more than a year before the court’s June decision, at the start of the pandemic lockdown, as a way to get closure.“The healer in me knew I had to dive back into everything again and really try to remember and it was really chilling for me at times,” she said. “Trauma is not wired for you to remember. It’s wired for you to forget.”During the writing, she got Covid-19 and was sick on her couch in Toronto for six weeks with “an elephant on my chest.” The experience, the encounter with her own mortality, propelled her to finish the book.“I thought it was important to write the story for other survivors who had stories, too,” she said. “I wanted to be a symbol of hope to them. That their stories matter. And their stories are important.”Despite the court’s decision, she said the years of hard work were by no means wasted. Cosby, now 84, served nearly three years in prison, she pointed out. Publicity from the case helped change attitudes. Women were encouraged to come forward. People believed them when they did. Several of the Cosby accusers helped with successful legislative efforts to extend or eliminate states’ statutes of limitations in sexual assault cases.“There were so many victories along the way,” she said. “Society paid attention.”In her memoir, Constand writes that Cosby had robbed a joyful young woman, the product of a nourishing family and happy childhood, of her smile. Angela Lewis for The New York TimesSince the court’s decision, Cosby has said he wants to re-emerge as a truly public personality, which Constand would have to contend with. He has taken to social media to proclaim the ruling a vindication of his innocence, an overstatement of the decision, which found he had not been given a fair trial, but did not exonerate him.But he still has 3.2 million Twitter followers, and the day after the decision he posted a clip of Constand talking about the night she said she was assaulted. It was paired with a statement that took issue with media reporting on his case.Constand said the posting showed a man emboldened by his new freedom who was trying to use it to damage her reputation.On the same day, she retweeted a post from her sexual abuse support foundation that said “Bill Cosby is not innocent.”But, otherwise, after a modest amount of publicity associated with her book, she said she intends to regain her privacy. She is not planning a book tour and said she wants to focus on her massage therapy business, which was hurt by the pandemic, and a nonprofit foundation she started, Hope Healing and Transformation. It provides resources for survivors of sexual assault, such as a library to help understand trauma, connections to lawyers and a platform for writing their stories. Some of the proceeds from her memoir are going to the foundation.She says it was her destiny to take on Cosby, in what was a “David and Goliath situation.”But would she do it again?Prosecutors are examining the possibility of appeal. If they won, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to block a third trial could be overturned. And Constand said she might put herself through another trial if asked, but it would be a difficult decision and she would have to consult her family.“Yeah, I would do it all over again,” she said. “If it was to do the right thing. I would do anything, as long as it was for the right reason.”Whatever happens, she says, the fact that Cosby walked free should not change what the case achieved.“I hope it doesn’t deter anybody,” she said. “I hope people will still find their voices. I hope that they don’t look at his freedom as a reason not to come forward. Quite the contrary, I hope they feel if Andrea can do it, I can do it.” More