April 25 (UPI) — The New York Court of Appeals Thursday overturned film producer Harvey Weinstein‘s 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial.
The appeals court said in a 4-3 ruling that the trial judge in Weinstein’s New York rape case improperly allowed testimony and evidence against Weinstein that was “irrelevant” and “prejudicial” to the criminal charges he faced.
“The trial court’s rulings ran afoul of these time-honored rules of evidence. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, and a new trial ordered,” the appeals court said in its ruling.
Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years for first-degree rape, a first-degree criminal sexual act and a third-degree rape.
“We are happily surprised and we are studying the ruling,” Weinstein spokesperson Juda Engelmayer told ABC News of the decision to overturn the conviction.
The appeals court said Judge James Burke made an “error” in admitting testimony from women with allegations against Weinstein that did not pertain to the case which was then “compounded” when he allowed Weinstein to be cross-examined about those allegations and other misconduct that portrayed him “in a highly prejudicial right.”
The New York Appeals Court ruling said that “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.”
“We reaffirm that no person accused of illegality may be judged on proof of uncharged crimes that serve only to establish the accused’s propensity for criminal behavior,” the appeals court majority wrote in the ruling. “At trial, a defendant stands to account for the crimes as charged. Proof of prior crimes and uncharged bad acts are the rare exception to this fundamental rule of criminal law.”
In a dissent, New York Appeals Court Judge Madeline Singas wrote the decision represented a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”
“This conclusion deprives juries of the context necessary to do their work, forecloses the prosecution from using an essential tool to prove intent, ignores the nuances of how sexual violence is perpetrated and perceived, and demonstrates the majority’s utter lack of understanding of the dynamics of sexual assault. Because New York’s women deserve better, I dissent,” Singas said.
Attorney Douglas H. Wigdor, who represented eight Weinstein accusers, also condemned the decision.
“Today’s decision is a major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence,” Widgor said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that his office would retry the case if the victims are willing to come forward to testify again.
“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” Bragg said.
Weinstein will remain imprisoned in California, where he was convicted on separate rape charges. The California convictions were one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault.
He was sentenced in Feb. 2023 to 16 years in prison for the California charges.
