The choice by New York’s prime court docket on Thursday to overturn the conviction of Harvey Weinstein on intercourse crime prices raised many thorny authorized questions. Maybe chief amongst them: Will it bolster his possibilities of a profitable attraction in an analogous case in California?
Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer in California, Jennifer Bonjean, plans to file that attraction subsequent month, and has stated she believes the New York resolution helps her possibilities of successful. In each instances, prosecutors supplied witnesses who stated they’d been assaulted by Mr. Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, regardless that their accounts weren’t tied to felony prices.
Prosecutors in sexual assault instances typically use such witnesses to ascertain a sample of habits, however it may be a dangerous transfer as a result of defendants are sometimes purported to be judged solely on the crimes with which they’ve been charged.
The tactic was on the coronary heart of the 4-to-3 resolution on Thursday by New York’s Court docket of Appeals, which concluded that the choose who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case in 2020 had disadvantaged him of a good trial by permitting these witnesses to testify.
Mr. Weinstein is predicted to look in State Supreme Court docket in Manhattan on Wednesday for a procedural listening to that is step one for prosecutors to restart the felony case to attempt him once more.
New York and California regulation differ on the essential challenge of witnesses. The workplace of the Los Angeles district legal professional, George Gascón, stated that California’s regulation, not like New York’s, permits proof, at a choose’s discretion, that exhibits a defendant’s “propensity” to commit sexual assault.
“Though we have no idea what arguments the protection will elevate on attraction, we’re assured that our convictions will stand up to appellate scrutiny,” Mr. Gascón’s workplace stated in a press release. “Our workplace stands able to see that Mr. Weinstein faces the intense penalties of his deplorable conduct.”
Gloria Allred, who represented three of the victims concerned in Mr. Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial, stated the “prior unhealthy acts” witnesses admitted at that continuing have been allowed underneath a state regulation that allows testimony from these witnesses whether it is used to show motive, alternative, intent, preparation or a plan to commit a criminal offense, or whether or not the defendant might have fairly believed an alleged sufferer consented.
In distinction, Ms. Allred stated, New York courts see such testimony as “extra prejudicial than probative.”
Within the California case, through which Mr. Weinstein was convicted of raping an Italian actress in 2013, the choose allowed 4 witnesses whose accusations weren’t tied to felony prices. Testimony from accusers, whether or not their allegations are tied to prices or not, could be emotional and elicit sturdy reactions.
When Jane Doe 1, the actress Mr. Weinstein was convicted of raping, recounted graphic particulars of the crime at trial, her palms trembled. She paused typically and took sluggish, deep breaths. The choose ended the day early when she broke down sobbing.
Ms. Allred, who has additionally represented intercourse crime victims in New York, stated she doesn’t imagine the New York resolution would have an effect on Mr. Weinstein’s conviction in California.
In New York, testimony and proof associated to uncharged crimes have to be used “to point out a cloth component to the prosecution’s case,” stated Douglas H. Wigdor, who represented two ladies who testified at Mr. Weinstein’s Manhattan trial and whose allegations weren’t tied to the crimes at challenge there. That meant making an attempt to ascertain that Mr. Weinstein knew his accusers had not consented to sexual exercise, Mr. Wigdor stated.
“That’s why the extra proof of different ladies who he did this to is essential, to point out that there wasn’t a mistake on his half, that he knew, that he is aware of, when somebody’s not consented,” Mr. Wigdor stated.
In California, judges have a lot higher discretion in figuring out whether or not to confess such proof to talk to the individual’s character, he added.
Mr. Weinstein, 72, was sentenced to 16 years in jail within the California case. The jury deadlocked on prices associated to accusations by two different ladies, and acquitted Mr. Weinstein of 1 depend of sexual battery involving a therapeutic massage therapist.
Ms. Bonjean, Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer in California, stated that the witnesses have been solely certainly one of a number of points she may elevate in her attraction; others included proof that was excluded at trial and the jury’s being knowledgeable of Mr. Weinstein’s New York conviction. She stated she would additionally contest the size of his sentence, which was elevated due to the prior conviction in New York.
Within the New York case, Mr. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in jail after he was convicted of forcibly performing oral intercourse on a TV and movie manufacturing assistant in 2006, and of third-degree rape for an assault on an aspiring actor in 2013. He was acquitted on essentially the most severe prices — two counts of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape.
Mr. Weinstein has been imprisoned in upstate New York, and Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district legal professional, has vowed to retry him. Mr. Weinstein has maintained his innocence.
Cynthia Godsoe, a professor at Brooklyn Regulation College and a former public defender, stated so-called Molineux witnesses — a time period utilized in New York for individuals who testify about uncharged crimes — are sometimes used with nice restraint. She stated the argument utilized in Mr. Weinstein’s New York attraction was much less possible to reach California due to the completely different legal guidelines.
She added that she had lengthy believed utilizing the Molineux witnesses within the New York case was a mistake, arguing that bringing in proof that prejudices a jury towards a defendant is basically unfair.
“Like when you might have somebody like Harvey Weinstein that you simply’re like, ‘OK, he’s so horrible, and there’s so many uncharged assaults that we wish to make sure that he’s locked away ceaselessly,’” she stated. “However that makes a extremely unhealthy precedent for many accused individuals.”
Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.