Good morning. Welcome to Exxios today. Can you believe it's July 1st? I'm Naila Boudou.

Here's what we're watching today. Missed cancer screenings take a toll. Plus, Dr. Iberam

X-Kendi on overlapping movements for civil rights. But first, today's one big thing. Why Bill

Cosby is now free. Bill Cosby was released from prison yesterday after the Pennsylvania Supreme

Court overturned his sexual assault conviction. The Justice has cited an existing agreement with

a prosecutor, which should have barred Cosby from being charged. I know I have a lot of questions

about this as you probably do, and we have our resident legal scholar Harvard Law Professor

Noah Feldman here with some answers. Hi, Noah. Hey, Naila. Thanks for having me. Noah, what happened

here? What happened here is that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Bill Cosby,

not because Cosby was not guilty, but because the prior prosecutor in the case before the case

was brought against Cosby had promised that he would not charge Cosby in a criminal charge.

Subsequent to that, Bill Cosby testified at a civil trial, and he was unable to invoke his

right against self-incrimination because the prosecutor had said he wouldn't be charged.

Then, the next prosecutor came and brought a criminal charge against Cosby. At that moment,

they were able to take advantage of testimony that he had given in the civil trial. The Pennsylvania

Supreme Court said that whole process is not okay, that violates due process. If a prosecutor says

we're not bringing charges, and then after that the person against whom no charges are brought

has to testify, then the government can't change its mind, bring criminal charges, and rely on

the testimony that was given in the civil case. So how could the trial even happen to begin with?

The reason the trial happened is that the prosecutor who made this agreement, whose name was Bruce

Caster, was no longer the district attorney at the time when the criminal charges were brought

against Cosby. The subsequent prosecutors simply said they did not consider themselves bound

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