The overturning of Harvey Weinstein’s New York intercourse crimes conviction on Thursday morning might really feel like a stunning reversal, however the felony case towards him has been fragile for the reason that day it was filed. Prosecutors moved it ahead with dangerous, boundary-pushing bets. New York’s high judges, lots of them feminine, have held rounds of pained debates over whether or not his conviction was clear.
“I’m not shocked,” stated Deborah Tuerkheimer, a former Manhattan prosecutor who’s now a legislation professor at Northwestern, in an interview. The difficulty of whether or not Mr. Weinstein’s trial was honest “is a very shut query that might have gone both method.”
Outdoors the justice system, proof of Mr. Weinstein’s sexual misconduct is overwhelming. After The New York Instances revealed allegations of abuse by the producer in 2017, almost 100 girls got here ahead with accounts of strain and manipulation by Mr. Weinstein. Their tales sparked the worldwide #MeToo reckoning.
However whereas Mr. Weinstein’s alleged victims might fill a whole courtroom, few of them might stand on the middle of a New York felony trial. Lots of the horror tales had been about sexual harassment, which is a civil violation, not a felony one. Others fell past the statute of limitations. One of many unique accusers was dropped from the trial due to allegations of police misconduct.
Manhattan prosecutors, below strain for not pursuing prices earlier, made a collection of gambles.
First, they proceeded with a trial primarily based on solely two victims, who accused him of sexually assaulting them but in addition admitted to having consensual intercourse with him at different instances — a mix that many consultants say is too messy to win convictions. To show their case towards Mr. Weinstein, who denies all allegations of non-consensual intercourse, the prosecutors had little concrete proof.
So to influence the jury, the attorneys turned to a controversial technique that may finally result in the conviction’s undoing. They put extra girls with accounts of abuse by Mr. Weinstein — so-called Molineux witnesses — on the stand to determine a sample of predation. The choice appeared apt for the second: In a authorized echo of the #MeToo motion, Mr. Weinstein was pressured to face a refrain of testimony from a number of girls.
The ladies’s testimony was searing, and when Mr. Weinstein was convicted in 2020, after which sentenced to 23 years in jail, it regarded just like the prosecutors had expanded the chances for holding intercourse offenders accountable.
“I did it for all of us,” Daybreak Dunning, who served as a supporting witness within the trial, stated in an interview afterward. “I did it for the ladies who couldn’t testify. I couldn’t not do it.”
However the transfer additionally risked violating a cardinal rule of felony trials: Defendants have to be judged solely on the acts they’re being charged with.
That grew to become the principle foundation for Mr. Weinstein’s repeated appeals of his conviction. For years, his attorneys have argued that his trial was essentially unfair, as a result of it included witnesses who fell outdoors the scope of the fees. Along with the alleged sexual assault victims, prosecutors introduced in character witnesses who portrayed Mr. Weinstein as a capricious, merciless determine.
In 2022, a New York appeals court docket dismissed these issues and upheld his conviction, after a vigorous debate by the judges. They wrote that the testimony from the extra witnesses had been instrumental in exhibiting that the producer didn’t see his victims as “romantic companions or associates,” however that “his aim always was to place the ladies in such a method that he might have intercourse with them, and that whether or not the ladies consented or not was irrelevant to him.”
This February, when New York’s highest court docket heard the producer’s newest and remaining attraction, the proceedings didn’t garner a lot consideration. However they felt quietly dramatic: Seven of the state’s highest judges, 4 of them girls, had been debating whether or not the person whose alleged offenses shaped the cornerstone of the #MeToo motion had been handled pretty in court docket.
At present the court docket determined, with a majority that included three feminine judges, to throw out the conviction and order a brand new trial. Mr. Weinstein stays convicted in California and might be moved to jail there.
“We conclude that the trial court docket erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts towards individuals aside from the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the judges wrote of their determination on Thursday.
“No individual accused of illegality could also be judged on proof of uncharged crimes that serve solely to determine the accused’s propensity for felony conduct,” the opinion continued.
However the determination landed by the slimmest of majorities: 4 to three, with stinging dissents. “Elementary misunderstandings of sexual violence perpetrated by males identified to, and with vital energy over, the ladies they victimize are on full show within the majority’s opinion,” Decide Madeline Singas wrote.
Reached by cellphone a couple of minutes after the court docket shared its determination, Ashley Judd, the primary actress to return ahead with allegations towards Mr. Weinstein, was unwavering in her personal judgment. “That’s unfair to survivors,” she stated of the ruling.
“We nonetheless reside in our fact,” she stated. “And we all know what occurred.”
