One of the court cases for sexual crimes against ousted Hollywood mogul and jailed producer Harvey Weinstein was overturned today by a New York Court of Appeals decision.
The Supreme Court of New York requested a retrialarguing that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial.
For the specific case, which concerned the rape of a woman and the sexual assault of a second one, Mr Harvey Weinstein six 23 years imprisonment in a New York prison after his conviction 2020.
However, with a decision of 4 votes in favor and 3 against, the court decided that the judge had he is wrong allowing accusers to testify testimonies from women who claimed Weinstein assaulted themeven though what they argued was not included in the indictment.
The high court ruled that the judge allowed Weinstein to appear with a “very biased” way. “The remedy for these impermissible errors is a new trial.”
The decision, of course, does not mean that the 72-year-old Weinstein, who is being held in a New York prison, is now free.
Weinstein, however, will not be released from prison, since in 2022 he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in Californiaafter being found guilty of raping a woman in his hotel Beverly Hillsand will now be sent to California to serve his sentence for his convictions there, according to his representative.
THE Arthur AidalaWeinstein’s lawyer, speaking to the NYT, praised the appeals court “for upholding the most basic principles that a criminal defendant should have in a trial.”
In a statement, a spokesman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said: “We will do everything in our power to review this case and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault.”
Mr. Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 100 women and in New York he was convicted in 2020 of assaulting two of them.
In its report, the New York Times comments that Thursday’s decision highlights the difficulty of the US legal system in offering atonement to those who report that they have been victims of sex crimes.
Reports that Mr. Weinstein had sexually assaulted women appeared in the New York Times in the fall of 2017. Their stories sparked what would become known as the MeToo movement.
The NYT reports that the reversal of the conviction may seem shocking, but the criminal case against Weinstein was from the beginning fragile. The prosecutors proceeded with a risk and moving to the limits. New York judges, many women among them, had voiced their objections. “I’m not shocked,” said the former Manhattan district attorney Deborah Twerkheimerwho is now a law professor at Northwestern.
Overwhelming evidence
The evidence of Weinstein’s sexual misconduct is overwhelming.
The revelations were started in 2017 by the New York Times. Almost 100 women have come forward with testimonies of pressure and manipulation by Mr. Weinstein. Their stories sparked the #MeToo.
But while the complainants could fill a entire courtroomnot all of them could be the focus of a New York criminal trial.
Many of the complaints involved sexual harassment, which is a civil offense, not a criminal one. Many were from other states, especially from California. Other cases exceeded the statute of limitations. One of the original accusers withdrew from the trial amid allegations of police misconduct.
Manhattan prosecutors, under pressure for not bringing charges sooner, took a number of risks.
Firstlyproceeded to a trial based only to two victims, which accused him of sexual assault, but also admitted to having consensual sex with him on other occasions. According to many experts, this combination is too much complex to lead to convictions.
To convince jurors, lawyers turned to a controversial strategy which would eventually lead to reversal of conviction.
Additional women with testimonies of abuse by Mr. Weinstein – the so-called witnesses – brought to the stand Molineux.
In the wake of MeToo , Weinstein has had to deal with a wave of allegations from many women. “I did it for all of us,” she said Don Dunning, a witness at trial. “I did it for the women who couldn’t testify. I couldn’t help it.”
The move, however, felt like balancing on a tight legal tightrope, as it appeared to violate a basic rule of criminal procedure: Defendants must be tried only for the acts they are accused of.
That argument formed the basis of Mr. Weinstein’s repeated appeals against his conviction.
For years, his lawyers argued that the trial was fundamentally unfair, because it included witnesses unrelated to the indictment. In addition to the alleged victims of sexual assault, prosecutors called witnesses who spoke about the defendant’s character and introduced Mr. Weinstein. as a capricious, cruel figure.
The 2022a New York appeals court had upheld his conviction, after a heated debate among the judges.
They wrote that the testimony of the additional witnesses was crucial in showing that the producer did not see his victims as “romantic partners or girlfriends“, but that “his goal at all times was to get the women in such a state that he could have sex with them, and whether the women consented or not was irrelevant to him».
Last year Februarywhen the supreme court of new york reviewed the last appeal, the process did not attract much attention. But it had a dramatic impact as seven of the state’s chief justices, the four womendebated whether the man whose actions became a cornerstone of the MeToo movement had treated fairly in court.
Today the court decided, with a majority in which they participated three female judges, to set aside the conviction and order a new trial. “We conclude that the trial court erred in admitting testimony about alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the crimes at issue,” the justices wrote in their decision Thursday.
“It was a heartbreaking decision”
The decision was heartbreaking for Mr. Weinstein’s accusers and supporters of the MeToo movement.
THE Jane Manningdirector of the program Women’s Equal Justicecalled it “a shocking and heartbreaking day for survivors of sexual assault” and said it “shows how much more work we all have to do to advance the ideals of the MeToo movement.”
The judge Madeline Singas accused the court of making it difficult for victims to seek justice. “Men who routinely sexually exploit their power over women – particularly the most vulnerable groups in society – will reap the benefits of today’s decision.”
