NEW YORK — Practically 4 years after Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape and despatched to jail, New York’s highest courtroom appeared torn at oral arguments Wednesday about probably overturning the landmark #MeToo-era verdict.
Weinstein’s attorneys urged the state’s Courtroom of Appeals to dismiss the disgraced film mogul’s 2020 conviction, arguing that the trial decide, James Burke, trampled his proper to a good trial with pro-prosecution rulings that turned the trial into “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”
“It was his character that was on trial. It wasn’t the proof that was on trial,” Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala instructed the seven-member courtroom in Albany.
Weinstein, 71, was convicted of a legal intercourse act for forcibly performing oral intercourse on a TV and movie manufacturing assistant in 2006 and rape within the third diploma for an assault on an aspiring actress in 2013. He was sentenced to 23 years in jail. Final yr, he was convicted in Los Angeles of one other rape and sentenced to an extra 16 years in jail.
A lawyer for the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace, which prosecuted Weinstein’s New York case, instructed the appeals courtroom that Burke’s rulings had been correct and the conviction ought to stand.
Weinstein’s attorneys desire a new trial, however just for the legal sexual act cost. They argue the rape cost can’t be retried as a result of it includes alleged conduct outdoors the statute of limitations. Reversing the decision would reopen a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by highly effective figures. The courtroom is unlikely to rule instantly.
If the Courtroom of Appeals had been to rule in Weinstein’s favor, he would stay locked up due to his California conviction. Weinstein didn’t attend the arguments however was mentioned to be monitoring a livestream from the state jail the place he’s incarcerated, Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany.
Allegations towards Weinstein, the as soon as highly effective and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” ushered within the #MeToo motion. His New York trial drew intense publicity, with protesters chanting “rapist” outdoors the courthouse.
Weinstein maintains his innocence. He contends any sexual exercise was consensual.
His voice booming at occasions, Aidala argued that Burke swayed the trial with two key choices: permitting three ladies to testify about allegations that weren’t a part of the case, and granting prosecutors permission to confront him, if he had testified, about his lengthy historical past of brutish conduct. Aidala additionally took situation with Burke’s refusal to take away a juror who had written a novel involving predatory older males.
Weinstein needed to testify at his trial, however opted towards it due to Burke’s ruling that might’ve meant answering questions on greater than two-dozen alleged acts of misbehavior courting again 4 many years, together with fights together with his film producer brother and an incident by which he flipped over a desk in anger, Aidala mentioned.
“We had a defendant who was begging to inform his facet of the story. It’s a he mentioned, she mentioned case, and he’s saying ‘that’s not the way it occurred. Let me inform you how I did it,’” Aidala argued, including that proof of Weinstein’s prior dangerous conduct, “had nothing to do with fact and veracity. It was all ‘he’s a nasty man.’”
Aidala additionally argued that different defendants within the state had been now liable to having their instances overwhelmed by extraneous proof as a result of “the floodgates have been opened” by the precedent of Burke’s rulings.
The judges listening to Wednesday’s arguments volleyed between skepticism and sympathy for Aidala and his counterpart from the district lawyer’s workplace, appellate chief, Steven Wu.
Choose Madeline Singas recommended that the circumstances of Weinstein’s case — utilizing his energy in Hollywood to have intercourse with ladies looking for his assist — could have warranted Burke’s resolution to permit the opposite accusers to testify.
However Choose Jenny Rivera puzzled if the conduct the ladies described cleared the excessive authorized bar for permitting extra accusers to take the stand, particularly that their testimony is proof of identical motive, alternative, intent or a standard scheme or plan.
“What’s distinctive a few highly effective man attempting to get a lady to have intercourse with them?” Rivera requested.
Betsy Barros, a decrease courtroom decide filling in on the Courtroom of Appeals due to recusals, appeared alarmed by Burke’s ruling permitting prosecutors to confront Weinstein about unrelated misbehavior.
“I don’t assume anyone of their proper thoughts would testify” below these circumstances, Barros noticed. “So how is that this a good trial if you’re not in a position to put in your facet of it?”
Aidala mentioned permitting the extra accusers to testify turned Weinstein’s trial “into three different mini-trials,” burdening jurors with deciding not solely Weinstein’s guilt or innocence on the costs at hand however whether or not he dedicated different alleged offenses that weren’t a part of the case. Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles on fees involving one of many ladies who testified in New York, Aidala mentioned.
Wu countered that Weinstein’s acquittal on essentially the most severe fees within the Manhattan trial — two counts of predatory sexual assault and a first-degree rape cost stemming from actor Annabella Sciorra’s allegations of a mid-Nineteen Nineties rape — confirmed that jurors had been paying consideration.
The Related Press doesn’t typically determine folks alleging sexual assault except they consent to be named; Sciorra has spoken publicly about her allegations.
The Courtroom of Appeals agreed final yr to take Weinstein’s case after an intermediate appeals courtroom upheld his conviction. Previous to their ruling, judges on the decrease appellate courtroom had raised doubts about Burke’s conduct throughout oral arguments. One noticed that that Burke had let prosecutors pile on with “extremely prejudicial testimony” from extra witnesses.
Burke’s time period expired on the finish of 2022. He was not reappointed and is not a decide.
___
Observe Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and ship confidential suggestions by visiting https://www.ap.org/suggestions
