The once-celebrated film producer Harvey Weinstein is well-remembered. Not so much anymore for his movies but for his hand in sparking the #MeToo movement. Right before the pandemic, his reputation quickly turned from famous to infamous after numerous sexual misconduct allegations surfaced in 2017. After his criminal prosecutions and convictions in New York and California, he has been behind bars for several years.
But all is not quiet on the Weinstein front. His legal team has been working on appealing his convictions. New York’s highest state court recently gave him a major victory by overturning his convictions in that state and ordering a new trial. How did we get here, and what can we expect to come? Let’s take a moment to rewind and refresh on the long and winding road to justice for Weinstein’s victims.
Investigating Injustice
While details weren’t widely public, rumors of Weinstein’s inappropriate behavior toward women circulated within the industry for years. While the first public accusations appeared in October 2017, it’s believed Weinstein’s history of misconduct stretched back much further, with some allegations dating back to the 1980s. Several alleged assaults and sexual harassment occurred between 2010-2015 involving actors on Weinstein projects. Among the women who came forward with their own stories of sexual abuse from Weinstein were fashion model Cara Delevingne (famous for being the face of Burberry) and actor Lupita Nyong’o (who won an Academy Award for 12 Years a Slave).
In 2017, after receiving a tip that Weinstein sexually assaulted actor Rose McGowan, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey spent months meticulously investigating. The investigation expanded to include similar allegations, including those by actress Ashley Judd. That October, the Times published Kantor and Twohey’s exposé, which detailed numerous allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein spanning several decades.
Just three days later, Weinstein was fired from his own eponymous company. A couple of days later, Ronan Farrow published a similar investigative report in the New Yorker. It included allegations of rape and other forms of sexual assault by multiple women, including notable actors.
Four days later, the “Academy” (the people who give out Oscars, among other things) expelled Harvey Weinstein — a decision by the Academy’s board of governors, which at the time included such notable Hollywood figures as Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Whoopi Goldberg. This action was significant because Weinstein had been a prominent figure in Hollywood, with his films receiving numerous Academy Award nominations and wins. It was one of the first major institutional responses to the allegations against Weinstein and indicated a broader shift in how the entertainment industry was beginning to address issues of sexual misconduct and abuse of power.
The news reports and public expulsion shattered the silence surrounding Weinstein’s behavior, revealing a pattern of abuse spanning decades. Emboldened by the public news, many more women came forward with their own allegations against Weinstein. This led to the widespread use of the #MeToo hashtag on social media and the birth of the iconic movement that encouraged victims of sexual harassment and assault to share their stories.
Prosecuting a Predator
Fortunately, the #MeToo Movement wasn’t just the next big fad on social media; it led to some real action by authorities. It created immense public pressure on authorities to investigate Weinstein.Law enforcement agencies, facing public outcry and a growing number of accusations, pursued charges against Weinstein. The following year, Weinstein was arrested and charged in New York with rape and several other counts of sexual abuse of two separate women in 2004 and 2013. He pleaded not guilty. It would be another two years before his trial got underway.
In early 2020, Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault trial began in New York City. After five days of deliberations, the Manhattan jury found him guilty of sex assault (of former Project Runway production assistant Mimi Haleyi) and rape in the third degree (of former aspiring actor Jessica Mann). But while those convictions were a win for the #MeToo movement, it was not a complete victory.
A man with deep pockets, he’d hired the self-described “bulldog” defense attorney, Donna Rotunno of Chicago, to represent him. Weinstein was acquitted of the most serious charges he faced, predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape of Mann. While those charges were enough to put him in prison for life, Weinstein was ultimately sentenced to 23 years in prison on the guilty verdicts he received.
New York’s Highest Court Chimes In
Weinstein had been serving that sentence for over four years in a prison in upstate New York while his legal team continued to work to do something about it. They first appealed his conviction to the New York’s appellate courts, but they confirmed the trial court ruling.
Undeterred, Weinstein’s lawyers took the issue to New York’s highest court. (Perhaps confusingly, the state of New York calls its highest court — which most states call their “Supreme Court” — the “Court of Appeals.” For purposes of clarity, in this article, we will refer to it as “the supreme court,” in lowercase.) Weinstein’s attorneys claimed that he was judged, “not on the conduct for which he was indicted, but on irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts.”
The supreme court, in what came as a shock to many, agreed. It said that the trial court messed up in a number of ways. For one thing, the trial court admitted testimony that it shouldn’t have let come in. It also messed up by letting Weinstein be cross-examined.
The Molineux Rule
States make their own laws about what evidence can or can’t be admitted before the jury in a trial, which can be different for criminal versus civil trials. In the Weinstein trial, a major issue was over whether a New York evidentiary rule called the Molineux rule was applicable. This rule generally prevents using evidence of a defendant’s prior bad acts in a trial solely to show their criminal character or propensity to commit the crime charged. It allows such evidence only under specific exceptions, like proving motive or opportunity.
The prosecution had asked the trial court to grant them an exception to the Molineux rule. They wanted to admit certain testimony of Weinstein’s uncharged crimes and miscellaneous bad acts. They said that they wanted to use this only to show that Weinstein knew what he was doing (his “intent”) and that he understood that his alleged victims were not consenting to his sexual advances. In other words, they wanted to use the fact that he’d allegedly been in similar situations before to show that it wasn’t an innocent mistake on his part.
The trial court allowed this testimony in as an exception to the Molineux rule. As a result, three different witnesses were allowed to testify before the jury about what Weinstein had allegedly done to them. The supreme court did not think this was okay. It pointed out that a person cannot be convicted of one offense based on evidence that they committed another. It’s much easier to find a defendant guilty if you know or suspect they’ve done something else similar in the past. However, the criminal justice system does not charge defendants for their character or reputation for criminality. Instead, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed a specific crime at a specific time and place.
The supreme court felt that the testimony the trial court admitted did not qualify for any of the exceptions. To qualify, the testimony must “logically be connected to some specific material issue in the case” and “directly relevant” to something other than the defendant’s propensity to commit the crime charged. The supreme court said that there was essentially no need to use this to prove the “consent” issue because, based on other testimony (like the fact that Haleyi and Mann clearly said “no”), no reasonable juror would believe Weinstein didn’t understand that they weren’t consenting. Regarding the “intent” issue, the supreme court said that the prosecution did not need to prove that Weinstein intended to commit a crime or sexual offense. It was enough just to show that he intended to have sex with them — and that was already clear from other testimony.
Trial Court’s Error Was ‘Harmful’
The supreme court found that the trial court erred in allowing the prosecution to cross-examine Weinstein, even though he’d chosen not to take the stand and testify. This only happened because the Molineux evidence was (wrongly) allowed in. As a result, Weinstein had to answer all kinds of questions from the prosecutors about the improperly admitted testimony. It is every criminal defendant’s right to not take the stand in their own trial. By allowing cross-examination, the trial court undid his right not to take the stand. The supreme court reasoned that this was likely to make him seem even more suspect to the jury. In sum, the evidence in question served no good purpose. It served only to make Weinstein look bad in front of the jury and bolster the prosecution’s credibility.
Mistakes happen in every trial, both criminal and civil. This, by itself, isn’t enough to overturn a verdict. The error must be serious enough to have harmed the defendant. Here, the supreme court determined that the trial court’s errors were serious enough to have affected the outcome of the case. The trial court’s mistakes weren’t “harmless” to the defendant.
What Next?
The supreme court said that the only remedy was to order a new trial. For now, it has overturned the two guilty verdicts. The New York DA plans to retry his case in the fall, so it looks like Weinstein will be getting a Molineux mulligan.
In the meantime, Weinstein’s legal team seems poised to take a similar approach to his California conviction. Los Angeles prosecutors brought similar charges of rape and other crimes against him in 2020, and he was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Weinstein’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said they’ll likely appeal the LA conviction next month. In any case, it looks like a lot of top-dollar lawyers on both coasts will be busy, as the jury is still out on what will come of Harvey Weinstein.
Related Resources:
The #MeToo Movement, Time’s Up, and the Law (FindLaw’s Learn About the Law)
Preventing Sexual Harassment at Your Business (FindLaw’s Small Business Law)
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (FindLaw’s Learn About the Law)
The post How Harvey Weinstein’s Conviction Was Overturned appeared first on .