New York’s highest court docket on Thursday overturned the felony intercourse crimes conviction of the infamous Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, a staggering reversal of a bedrock case within the #MeToo period that prompted numerous victims of sexual harassment and assault to come back ahead as accusers.
In a bitterly contested 4-to-3 choice, the New York Court docket of Appeals discovered that the choose who had presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case disadvantaged him of a good trial in 2020 by permitting prosecutors to name witnesses who mentioned Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — however whose accusations weren’t the idea for any of the costs in opposition to him.
Responding on Thursday, the Manhattan district legal professional, Alvin L. Bragg, introduced that he would search to prosecute Mr. Weinstein once more.
“We are going to do every little thing in our energy to retry this case, and stay steadfast in our dedication to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg’s workplace mentioned. The case was initially prosecuted by his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
For Mr. Weinstein, 72, the rapid affect of the ruling may quantity to little greater than a change of surroundings. He’s more likely to be transferred from the jail in Rome, N.Y., the place he has been held since 2020, to a facility nearer to New York Metropolis, the place he’ll await the submitting of latest fees. However the opinion additionally raised questions on whether or not a separate conviction in California — on rape and sexual assault fees — can survive the same authorized problem.
That case, which noticed Mr. Weinstein sentenced to a different 16 years in jail in 2022, additionally relied partially on witnesses whose accusations didn’t result in fees. Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer within the California case mentioned she deliberate to file an enchantment subsequent month.
A consultant of the Los Angeles County district legal professional’s workplace mentioned it was “saddened by the information out of New York.”
“Our workplace had representatives in New York through the trial, and we’re conscious of the intense difficulties the victims confronted whereas testifying in regards to the traumas that Mr. Weinstein precipitated them,” the consultant mentioned, including: “We’re assured that our convictions will stand up to appellate scrutiny.”
The choice to overturn the New York conviction, whereas surprising to many, had been anticipated in authorized circles. The felony case in opposition to Mr. Weinstein had been considered as fragile for the reason that day it was filed, and prosecutors had been believed to have taken dangerous, boundary-pushing bets to see it by way of. Nonetheless, the ruling was met with expressions of shock and anger by a few of Mr. Weinstein’s accusers.
Ashley Judd, the primary actress to come back ahead with allegations in opposition to Mr. Weinstein, known as it “unfair to survivors.”
“We nonetheless dwell in our fact,” Ms. Judd mentioned on Thursday. “And we all know what occurred.”
Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, mentioned his consumer discovered of the choice when he was handed a information report on a slip of paper by somebody within the jail facility.
“He mentioned thanks extra instances than I can rely,” mentioned Mr. Aidala, who spoke to Mr. Weinstein by telephone Thursday morning. “Harvey was very gracious, very grateful.”
The previous producer’s well being has been steadily declining lately. He has diabetes, eye issues and coronary heart points, has used a walker and was housed in a medical unit on the jail, the Mohawk Correctional Facility.
“He has been going by way of bouts of problem,” mentioned a spokesman, Juda Engelmayer.
Mr. Weinstein had been a sharp-elbowed titan within the movie trade, rising to energy within the Nineteen Nineties behind a stream of critically lauded, blockbuster motion pictures beneath the Miramax label. His downfall after lurid accusations emerged from dozens of actresses and former colleagues turned a primer for a way the world considered and handled many once-powerful males who used their positions for intercourse.
Mr. Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct by greater than 100 girls. However in New York he was convicted of raping an aspiring actress, Jessica Mann, and assaulting a tv manufacturing assistant, Miriam Haley, and sentenced to 23 years in jail. Thursday’s choice didn’t low cost the credibility of the accusations in opposition to him. Moderately, it discovered fault with the admission of the testimony of ladies whose descriptions of abuse fell exterior the felony case.
Prosecutors in sexual assault and different instances typically search to make use of them to determine a sample of conduct. However doing so dangers unfairly influencing the jury as a result of the defendant is meant to be judged solely on the crimes he’s charged with. For that motive, judges search to restrict such testimony, and the choose in Mr. Weinstein’s case, Justice James M. Burke, didn’t allow the prosecutors to name as a lot of these witnesses as they’d hoped to. However he did enable a handful to testify.
The appeals court docket mentioned that he shouldn’t have.
“It’s an abuse of judicial discretion to allow untested allegations of nothing greater than unhealthy conduct that destroys a defendant’s character,” Decide Jenny Rivera wrote on behalf of the bulk, “however sheds no mild on their credibility as associated to the felony fees.”
Donna Rotunno, Mr. Weinstein’s lead trial lawyer in New York, praised the ruling on Thursday.
“They had been prosecuting him for sins, not crimes,” she mentioned. “This speaks to our justice system as a complete. The court docket ruling says to prosecutors: Successful in any respect prices shouldn’t be your job. Your job is to placed on a good trial.”
The Court docket of Appeals additionally faulted the trial choose for allowing prosecutors to query the producer about uncharged allegations — spanning again a long time — if he determined to take the stand. He didn’t testify.
Daybreak Dunning, one of many girls who prosecutors known as to the stand though Mr. Weinstein had not been charged with assaulting her, mentioned on Thursday that she had no regrets.
“I’m nonetheless proud that I testified and confronted that convicted rapist,” Ms. Dunning mentioned in a press release, including: “I’m a stronger individual for having performed so, and I do know that different girls discovered power and braveness as a result of I and different Weinstein survivors confronted him publicly.”
“The tradition has modified,” she added, “and I’m assured that there isn’t a going again.”
In 2022, after a vigorous debate by the justices, a decrease appeals court docket upheld Mr. Weinstein’s conviction. They wrote that the testimony from the extra witnesses had been instrumental in displaying that the producer didn’t see his victims as “romantic companions or mates,” however that “his aim always was to place the ladies in such a method that he may have intercourse with them, and that whether or not the ladies consented or not was irrelevant to him.”
In a quietly dramatic twist, this February, when New York’s highest court docket heard the producer’s newest and last enchantment, 4 of the seven judges had been girls, and Thursday’s majority ruling included three feminine judges.
Their choice landed with stinging dissents. “Basic misunderstandings of sexual violence perpetrated by males recognized to, and with vital energy over, the ladies they victimize are on full show within the majority’s opinion,” Decide Madeline Singas wrote.
The choice to overturn promised to launch contemporary debate in regards to the floor guidelines for felony convictions in sexual misconduct instances.
“The #MeToo motion confirmed how necessary it’s to have accounts from a number of accusers,” mentioned Deborah Tuerkheimer, a former Manhattan prosecutor who’s now a professor on the Northwestern College Pritzker Faculty of Regulation. However witness guidelines — that are strict for a motive — can remodel courtrooms into an “alternate universe during which proof related to intercourse crimes is commonly saved from the jury.”
“There’s a pressure on the coronary heart of it,” she mentioned, “and prosecution within the #MeToo period will proceed to cope with this dilemma.”
Jodi Kantor, Hurubie Meko, Maria Cramer, Nate Schweber, Maia Coleman and Katherine Rosman contributed reporting.
