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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 310-1 Filed 07/02/21 Page 64 of 80

“this decision” is possible only when this sentence is read in isolation.25 The court ignored
what came before and after, omitting all relevant and necessary context. The entire
passage reads as follows:

Because a civil action with a much lower standard for proof is possible, the
District Attorney renders no opinion concerning the credibility of any party
involved so as to not contribute to the publicity and taint potential jurors.
The District Attorney does not intend to expound publicly on the details of
his decision for fear that his opinions and analysis might be given undue
weight by jurors in any contemplated civil action. District Attorney Castor
cautions all parties to this matter that he will reconsider this decision should
the need arise. Much exists in this investigation that could be used (by
others) to portray persons on both sides of the issue in a less than flattering
light. The District Attorney encourages the parties to resolve their dispute
from this point forward with a minimum of rhetoric.

Id. (emphasis added).

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25 There is no doubt that there are two decisions at issue: the decision not to
prosecute and the decision not to discuss that choice in public. The dissent would
endorse the trial court’s selective interpretation of D.A. Castor’s language in the press
release, finding at a minimum that D.A. Castor’s assertion that he would reconsider the
“decision” is ambiguous. But a plain reading of the release belies such a construction.
Like the trial court’s interpretation of the relevant paragraph of the press release, the
dissent’s finding of ambiguity can result only when one overlooks the context and
surrounding statements quite entirely. D.A. Castor stated that he did not intend to discuss
the details of his decision not to prosecute. In the very next sentence, D.A. Castor stated
that he would reconsider “this decision” if the need arose. In context, “this decision” must
naturally refer to the decision not to discuss the matter with the public. This is so because
announcing that particular decision was the very purpose of the immediately preceding
statement, and the subject sentence naturally modifies that prior statement. D.A. Castor
already had stated earlier in the press release that he had decided not to prosecute
Cosby. Thus, when D.A. Castor referred to “this decision” in the particular paragraph
under examination, he was referring not to a decision addressed much earlier in the press
release but rather to the decision that he had stated for the first time in the immediately
preceding sentence. Even more compelling is the fact that the entirety of the paragraph
relates to D.A. Castor’s concern about the potential effect that any public statements that
he would make might have on jurors empaneled in a civil case. Nothing at all in that
paragraph pertains to the decision not to prosecute Cosby. As noted, D.A. Castor already
had addressed the non-prosecution decision. There is no support for the notion that D.A.
Castor was referring to his decision not to prosecute Cosby in the middle of a paragraph
directed exclusively to: (1) the potential impact that any public explication by D.A. Castor
might have upon the fairness of a civil case; and (2) D.A. Castor’s derivative decision not
to discuss the matter publicly in order to avoid that potential impact.

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