The New York state Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — has overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction. The court argues that a number of the witnesses brought by the prosecution — primarily accusers whose crimes were not part of Weinstein’s criminal charges — unfairly biased the jury and should have been excluded. Weinstein, 72, has been serving a 23-year prison sentence in Mohawk Correctional Facility since his conviction, but winning this appeal doesn’t mean he will be out of jail and walking free. In 2022, Weinstein was also convicted of rape in California, in a separate case that is not subject to the New York Court of Appeals’s jurisdiction.
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It is not immediately clear whether Weinstein will be remanded to California, or whether he will remain at Mohawk Correctional Facility while the new trial takes place. There is no clear indication of exactly when the new trial will begin.
“Defendant was convicted by a jury for various sexual crimes against three named complainants and, on appeal, claims that he was judged, not on the conduct for which he was indicted, but on irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts,” Judge Jenny Rivera ruled. “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose. The court compounded that error when it ruled that defendant, who had no criminal history, could be cross examined about those allegations as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light. The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless.”
Rivera, a Democrat, was named to the court by former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who himself left office in disgrace after sexual misconduct charges came to light in 2021.
While it is generally not allowed for witnesses to testify on supposed crimes not involved with the case at hand, exceptions are often made for offenses or alleged offenses that help establish a pattern of behavior relevant to the case. This ruling likely weakens the case for those kinds of witnesses in future New York criminal cases.
“We all worked very hard and this is a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York,” said Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala.
Prosecutors objected to the ruling, so it’s unlikely they will decline to retry Weinstein.
“Courts routinely admit evidence of other uncharged acts where they assist juries in understanding issues concerning the modus operandi or scheme of the defendant,” Wigdor said. “The jury was instructed on the relevance of this testimony and overturning the verdict is tragic in that it will require the victims to endure yet another trial.”
