Harvey Weinstein's 2020 Rape Conviction Overturned, Judge Explains Reason Why
Harvey Weinstein‘s 2020 rape conviction has been overturned.
The decision was made today (April 25) by the New York Court of Appeals. He will still remain in prison due to his conviction for rape in a 2022 Los Angeles court case.
Keep reading to find out more…
In 2020, Weinstein was found guilty of sexually assaulting Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley at his apartment in 2006 and was also convicted of the rape of another woman, Jessica Mann, in 2013. The case was appealed and New York State’s highest court heard the case in February.
Weinstein‘s lawyers argued that the judge in the 2020 trial allowed three women to testify against him at the time whose allegations were not related to the case at hand.
The judge today ruled that a new trial must now take place for this 2020 conviction.
Judge Jenny Rivera said in today’s ruling (via THR), “Under our system of justice, the accused has a right to be held to account only for the crime charged and, thus, allegations of prior bad acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality. Nor may the prosecution use ‘prior convictions or proof of the prior commission of specific, criminal, vicious or immoral acts’ other than to impeach the accused’s credibility. It is our solemn duty to diligently guard these rights regardless of the crime charged, the reputation of the accused, or the pressure to convict.”
The Judge continued, “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. 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.”