Shortly after a New York appeals courtroom overturned Harvey Weinstein’s conviction on rape fees in Manhattan, a protection legal professional within the disgraced film mogul’s Los Angeles case stated the identical ought to occur in California.
If Weinstein’s lawyer Mark Werksman has any doubts about whether or not the identical authorized technique will work in each states, he didn’t betray them in his feedback after Thursday’s victory for his shopper.
“We confronted the identical elementary unfairness within the Los Angeles case, the place the decide let the jury hear about 4 uncharged allegations of sexual assault,” stated protection legal professional Mark Werksman. “Harvey was subjected to a firehose of uncharged and unimaginable allegations which destroyed his proper to a good trial on the fees within the indictment. The case right here must be reversed for a similar causes the New York case was reversed.”
Not all authorized consultants are as satisfied.
In its 77-page resolution, the New York appellate courtroom dominated {that a} Manhattan decide robbed Weinstein of a good trial when he let prosecutors put three ladies on the stand who accused the Miramax co-founder of intercourse crimes that he had not been charged with. These witnesses included a lady L.A. prosecutors had charged Weinstein with assaulting.
In Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial — the place he was indicted on 11 counts of rape and sexual battery — prosecutors took the same strategy, calling 4 ladies to the stand who accused him of uncharged assaults in New York, London, Puerto Rico and Toronto.
Dozens of ladies got here ahead to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct in 2017, ruining his profession and touchdown him in jail. The New York resolution marks a uncommon triumph since his downfall, however consultants stated it’s unlikely he’ll be capable of overcome his California conviction on related grounds.
A 1996 change to California proof legislation broadly permits uncharged victims to testify in intercourse crimes instances if their allegations may also help show a sample of habits or propensity to commit a criminal offense, stated Dmitry Gorin, a former L.A. County sex-crimes prosecutor.
“The California case is impartial of the New York verdicts that had been overturned,” Gorin stated.“The legislation on admitting prior sexual assault proof in California may be very broad, and the decide’s resolution to let that proof in will be challenged as an abuse of discretion.”
Gorin added that Weinstein’s possibilities of a profitable enchantment in California had been “slim to none.”
Los Angeles Superior Court docket Decide Lisa Lench, who oversaw Weinstein’s 2022 trial in downtown L.A., did place important limits on the variety of so-called “prior dangerous acts” witnesses referred to as by prosecutors. That quantity at one level was within the double digits, earlier than Lench restricted prosecutors to 4.
Over the past three many years, a motion has grown to calm down the legislation in sexual assault instances, in keeping with Daniel Medwed, a professor of legislation and prison justice at Northeastern who was once a prison appellate legal professional in New York. Courts have gotten extra open to introducing different proof of sexual assault, he stated, permitting prosecutors to construct instances in opposition to suspected repeat offenders.
“If somebody does this a few times, it’s seemingly they’ve accomplished it a variety of occasions,” Medwed stated.
Whereas New York’s legislation could also be out of step with evolving pondering on guidelines governing testimony in sexual assault instances — the place usually victims don’t come ahead in opposition to their accusers till lengthy after the statute of limitations on such crimes has run out — Medwed stated the state’s guidelines present a wanted layer of safety for a defendant’s civil rights.
“It’s a conventional view, perhaps it’s a lingering civil libertarian view that the jury punishes somebody not for who they’re alleged to be, however what they’ve accomplished on this case,” he stated. “Loosening the principles of proof may very well be a slippery slope to an erosion of all our rights.”
The Los Angeles County district legal professional’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon what, if any, impression the New York ruling had on the L.A. case.
Weinstein has denied all wrongdoing in each states and has filed a discover of enchantment in California, although a short outlining the precise parameters of his enchantment in L.A. has not been made public.
That submitting is predicted in late Might.
