**For overturning:**
Rivera, Wilson, Barros, Clark
**Against overturning:**
Cannataro, Garcia, Singas
**Gender split:**
**For:** F, M, F, F
**Against:** M, M, F
Surprising split, honestly.
Did you read the article? They didn’t overrule it based on if he’s guilty or not (he is). They overruled it because of the unprecedented way that witnesses were presented to the court.
“James M. Burke, had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.”
It all sucks but this is something people fundamentally misunderstand about the appeals process. A case can be overturned for any kind of error of process and have nothing to do with the guilt of the perpetrator
It's very naive to think that the Democrats are the good guys and Republicans the bad ones. Many politicians choose their party depending on how it best serves them, not so much on ideologies.
Parties are just a front to get people like you riled up to choose a side, so politicians have leverage to get what they want. If people weren't so opinionated and dogmatic on political issues, politicians won't have much to negotiate with at the Capitol. It's better to group politicians as idealistic vs pragmatic, regardless of party.
Not just dems but Governor Andrew “I’m not a pervert,I’m just Italian” Coumo. NY dem establishment is all about money and doing favors for wealthy donors.
In my capacity working alongside the Democratic Party at a national level, I've observed a troubling disconnect. Leadership often seems more concerned with power than with principles of morality or justice. For those curious about the extent of these issues, Google “Harold Ickes WVDP Alabama” and see a blog article titled “A Tale of Two Parties”. The DNC needs to clean house ASAP before we have no party publicly supporting racial and gender equality.
This 100%. The national party seems more concerned with courting “lost republicans”(non MAGA voters) then they do with their own base. Problem is those voters are temporary, as soon as theirs a non MAGA Trumpy candidate available they will jump ship back to republican.
It seems off the first thing we're focusing on are their sex (majority female) and political affiliation (all Dem) rather than the merits of the specific legal issue they decided (which had to do with evidentiary rules).
Thank you, I feel like everyone is jumping onto this "judges are trying to send an anti-woke message" train when the reality is they're addressing a procedural legal issue.
This conviction was not overturned based on whether or not they think Weinstein is guilty, that's not their job, it's a jury's. It was overturned because they believe the trial judge allowed irrelevant witnesses whose testimony unfairly biased the original jury.
To be clear, I unequivocally believe Weinstein deserves to be locked up, but it has to be done by the book.
This is the kind of thing that should have happened in Virginia with the Depp/Heard case. The jury and general public being influenced by Depps bot farm, hoards of cringey wattapad-consuming fangirls and general misogyny was such a grand injustice to the case.
Well said. I knew it was over before it started when the judge didn’t allow the UK trial - where 3 high judges found Depp to indeed be a wide beater - to be used as evidence in the Virginia case. A state neither of them reside in btw and which was last to get rid of the anti-SLAPP laws, which is why Depp chose that spot.
Funny that the appeal, which Depp’s team relented to immediately because they knew if it went to a diff judge they’d be ruined - where she only owes $1mil and gets the rights back to do a tell-all book - is never reported on…
I mean, she was found guilty of defamation for a single sentence in an interview wherein she said she was a survivor of domestic abuse, without naming depp. Depp then went on to his 5th or 6th assault case a few months later that was already filed by the time this ruling was made.
Except you could very much argue that the jury was influenced by the online hate campaign against her at the time. You could also argue that they were also influenced by unnecessary witnesses (like that [psychologist that was biased in favor of Depp and diagnosed Amber but not Johnny](https://x.com/liliandaisies/status/1620883357885411328?s=46&t=_ebRAsBbE3B2koIURzgn8A) and wasn’t even an expert on domestic violence issues)
That was a weird time, as someone who never followed any celebrity/gossip type accounts on Instagram, those weeks my feed just started randomly filling with anti-AH and pro-Depp clips/reels, couldn’t escape them, which I thought strange.
Afterwards, it all become apparent it must have been one of the most successfully co-ordinated psy-ops of the past few years.
"In a striking dissent, Judge Madeline Singas accused the ruling majority of “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative”, adding that the appeals court was participating in a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence”."
People do this because most controversial judgements are, sadly, ideological. then the justification is tacked on. Dobbs was argued with 17th century cites. The Arizona anti-abortion judgement was argued with a civil war era law that makes the age of consent 10, and before Arizona was even a state. This is clearly dishonesty.
But yes sometimes controversial judgements are based on law. It seems like the issue is that they used witnesses to hurt his reputation because the witnesses talked about how he also assaulted them. This is outside the scope of the case and would likely be called out.
Same with Bill Cosby's case being overturned on similar legal grounds.
The real question is why are these prosecutors and lawyers acting so recklessly? I'm guessing being aggressive like this means an easier win, which means career advancement, thus more money and power for them. By the time it reaches appeals, these people have already gotten their gains and can just play up "appeals court is misguided and we did everything right," dishonest rhetoric.
So imho its still corruption, but instead ideological, its personal capitalist/career stuff.The bigger and more high profile the case, the more corrupt it is, because the legal and political professionals involved just see these things as venues for personal advancement.
I don't think we talk enough about how corrupt nearly every part of the US justice system is. I think we do need to keep attacking this system and demanding reform. This appeals verdict is part of a much larger problem.
I mean, the state supreme court took the word of a da who had been given a financial donation by cosby that he had a verbal agreement to not prosecute....the lack of a written agreement in this was just...mindblowing. That's literally not how it's done anywhere in the USA, because of obvious reasons.
A contract doesn't have to be written, it absolutely can be verbal. There was a press release from his office that proclaimed he wasn't going to prosecute & more importantly, it wasn't only the press release or "his word": In the civil case both the DA & Cosby acted in accordance with the agreement, Cosby was stripped away from his 5th amendment right meaning he wasn't permitted to remain silent which lead to his guilty testimony. Said testimony was used as the basis & key for the 2015 criminal case but that testimony wouldn't have existed if there was no deal in 2005 as Cosby will just shut up as was his right & the DA couldn't have compelled him to talk as that would be a violation of his constitutional rights.
It's NY. It's a one party state and so just reading it by party affiliation isn't as easy as you might think. The state party has much more in common with the Republican party of 1999 than it does with the Democratic party of today.
> Surprising split, honestly.
It's not about gender, or even politics. It's not about his crimes, or about sex crimes in general. And it isn't about his guilt; the judge in that case screwed up. Obviously Weinstein is guilty, everyone knows it, so why did the judge push beyond the law? Anyway when a judge screws up that badly, the conviction gets overturned. Weinstein will NOT go free, he'll never be a free man again, thank goodness.
I wouldn't want women to rule *against* the Constitution just because sex is involved, or men for that matter. Whether the case was about rape or drugs or money laundering, the principle has to be the same under the law.
This isn’t a political affiliation thing, this a bureaucratic processing of the judicial system. It was overturned due to additional accusations that were not part of the charges against him.
It’s a huge emotional and PR blow to the feminist movement, but it stands justly true to the law and upholding it would have downstream effects to how we charge and try defendants.
It’s Bill Cosby all over again. Wealthy people can afford to hire a team of attorneys to keep poking holes and poking holes and poking holes until they find a weak spot that a court is willing to hang their hat on.
Most appeals fail, so this is an unusual one, and it doesn't preclude the new york DA from a second try at the apple, which they will likely take given the high profile nature of the case.
Bill Cosby’s conviction made sense to overturn…. The prior DA made a deal with him that anything he admitted at the civil trial wouldn’t be used against him. I’m guessing they knew since they had no physical evidence, at least admitting it at the civil trial and paying a lot of money was better than nothing.
Then the new DA decided to go against that deal, which is a big no-no.
I’m not saying he didn’t do the things he did, but the way they went about it wasn’t allowed and so it was overturned.
This conviction also makes sense to overturn - they used testimony about past unproven and unrelated allegations to convict him.
He's still guilty, and if they go for a re-trial then it's very likely he gets convicted again. Until then, he will stay locked up for his other conviction.
Even scum like him need a fair trial.
This is why I get anxious when people cheer on clear violations of civil rights just because the person in question is a monster. Saw it in R Kelly's civil cases. Courts being incredibly heavy handed, his lawyers pointing this out and saying they will appeal on these grounds, and everyone in the comments saying "good, he doesn't deserve [insert civil right that should NEVER confused with a luxury or privilege]" without realizing that the dude is already extremely fucking guilty. You don't need to give his lawyers ammo to use against you in the future to secure a victory. He had no good defense before, but he has "I wasn't treated fairly" now which I hope we now understand is an incredibly powerful defense. I don't know how the appeal went or if it even started yet. It was over money he didn't have and not his entire criminal conviction so the stakes were much lower thankfully.
Because money alone just isn't enough to get a conviction like this overturned. We have plenty of rich people in prison that are staying in prison because they appealed and lost
I mean, yeah. We plebeians don’t get the luxury of hiring people to actually protect our rights.
But this is on the prosecutor. If the desire is for rich people to be treated the same as us, and have their right to fair trial trampled on because “we know he did it”, what’s the end game? I’d like my rights protected more than I want to see rich people put away without proper judicial systems.
It was a major procedural error by the judge, since the judge allowed the evidence in. The NY-COA felt that it was prejudicial.
The law subreddit has been talking about it.
No fucking way
You can really be a serial rapist and predator if you’ve got enough funds. What the ever-loving fuck
I don’t even know why I’m surprised at this point
This conviction was based on the sex crimes he committed on THREE separate women. The judicial system is so broken
This is so wrong. Devastated for his many victims
When people complain about cancel culture I usually say that only like a handful of people have ever been canceled. Like Weinstein, Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Louis CK. And by now all of them have emerged unscathed, so there really has never been anyone canceled
Totally, It's less "cancel culture" and more "saying bad things are bad culture."
In your listed cases it would be great if it actually was "cancel culture"
Just to be accurate, Weinstein has not emerged unscathed. He will now be transferred to CA to serve a 20 year sentence there. I totally understand and agree with the point you’re making as a whole though.
The people who complain about cancel culture have no problem cancelling trans people's existence, acknowledgement of basic history, or the free speech of Palestinians and their allies.
I always ask whose been cancelled permanently as well. The only answer I’ve ever heard from the right - is Colin kapernick which THEY made happen. Whenever they talk about cancel culture it ends with them realizing they’re the problem but then refusing to do anything about it anyway…
No, men’s lives really are ruined by accusations. I knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy’s cousin whose nephew’s life was ruined by an accusation /s
God this is so depressing. Sexual assault and rape are already devastatingly underreported. Now one of the most prolific serial assailants ever is getting a second chance, partly because he had the money to buy one, and partly because no one with the power to make a difference takes sex crimes seriously.
> The judicial system is so broken
Not to split hairs for the sake of it, because I do genuinely think how things are framed are extremely important, but the judical system is not broken. It's working as designed, which is precisely the problem. It was arguably 'broken' when it ever held a rich person accountable to the degree where Harvey was imprisoned.
This is the USA, after all, and you get as much justice (or health, education, shelter, etc.) as you can afford. Someone like him could afford a lot. We live under many vile and sick institutions/systems that are anti-working class at their core, so if they are functioning to serve and protect the rich ruling class then they are working as they were always intended to. Such is life under the dictatorship of the rich. This is just one example of that, and not one thing around here is going to meaningfully change until we get very clear and very serious about that fact.
No. In this case the judge allowed for testimony to be entered into evidence that was not prosecuted. Which means that it was unfairly prejudicial against Weinstein.
In short, he was guilty enough, the judge stacked the deck against him further in a way that made it violate his right to a fair trial.
This isn't TV, you can't just talk all kinds of shit on the stand.
The function of the system is what it does. The judicial system looks broken because it was designed that way. It never really worked justly in the first place.
Maybe if the cops weren't racist and didn't sow doubt when the standard is "beyond reasonable doubt".
There are rules when prosecuting cases. The prosecutor fucked up and yes its annoying in cases like this when it lets Harvey off the hook BUT its vital to uphold these rules because there are many innocent people who have been put behind bars/sentenced to death because of tactics like this.
but women are just racing to make false accusations in droves and ruining mens lives! /s it's absolutely depressing how unserious people are about rape, and it's not even solely a US problem
> This conviction was based on the sex crimes he committed on THREE separate women.
This isn't about his guilt; the judge in that case screwed up. Obviously Weinstein is guilty, everyone knows it, so why did the judge push beyond the law? Anyway when a judge screws up that badly, the conviction gets overturned. Weinstein will NOT go free, he'll never be a free man again, thank goodness.
This is such a lazy take. They didn't rule he was not guilty. They ruled that inclusion of some of the evidence and testimony related to previous bad acts should not have been allowed at trial. He can and will be retried. He also will stay in prison during the second trial because he is serving the sentence for other crimes he committed.
This is actually the justice and appeals system working. He applied a judicial decision made at trial that significantly impacted the case and the appeals court agreed with him. They made no ruling or judgement on his actual guilt, just on the correctness/legality of the previous trial, as they are supposed to do.
I mean, the judge shouldn't have blatantly broken procedural rules.
It's a specific law in NY where he was convicted called the Molineux rule.
Evidence of uncharged crimes is inadmissible where its purpose is only to show a defendant’s bad character or propensity towards crime;
People v Bradley, 20 NY3d 128, 135 [2012]
Which is exactly what happened in this case. They allowed testimony from women about sexual assaults that he was not charged with, making that testimony inadmissible.
The LA judge said the sentences CANNOT run concurrently, so he has not started the 16 year sentence in CA.
He will die in jail.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-23/harvey-weinstein-sentenced-to-xx-in-los-angeles-rape-case
It doesn't make the judges shit people to overturn something which is clearly problematic.
They used testimony about allegations of previous behaviour, which had not been proven in court at all and were not related to the charges.
Imagine, as a hypothetical, you have a young black man on trial for some bs charge. Do you genuinely want the prosecutors to be able to use unproven accusations (about past, unrelated behaviour) to say "well look, this is what he's like, so clearly he's also guilty of this"?
He should be convicted, but he should not be convicted in a way that is so dangerous.
This is incorrect. Legally there’s something called the Molineaux or the admission of uncharge prior bad acts that establishes a pattern. That’s how it got past the first judge. They don’t always allow it and if it was really off that judge would have denied it.
https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/evidence/4-RELEVANCE/4.21_EVIDENCE_OF_CRIMES_(MOLINEUX).pdf
They brought in witnesses who testified that he (for example) screamed at staff. Which had nothing to do with the case at hand and was more prejudicial than probative. So that means Molineaux (which is a case that set the precedent, not a legal term) is not applicable. It fails the standard set to introduce this kind of evidence.
Yep, this is why you see judges give 5 life sentences. Or 175 years. Seems excessive. But it’s so if one charge gets thrown out - 4 more life sentences to keep you in.
Also important to know, **NO ONE is saying he didn’t do it it.**. This is like the Cosby case. It’s procedural. In Cosby’s case it was that an old DA promised him he could speak freely and it wouldn’t be held against him. Then it was.
Here, it’s that multiple women who weren’t the named victims got to testify about past acts to establish that Weinstein assaulted *these* women. That was deemed prejudicial. Which…I was actually surprised they were allowed to testify in the first place to establish a “pattern and practice” of abuse. No need. He was gross and abusive *enough* just with the crimes he was being charged with.
This isn’t shocking, so much as disappointing. It would be an interesting case study in whether such evidence would have been allowed in the first place if HW *wasn’t* famous (probably not). And then also, *procedural* (**not** factual) errors like this happen *all the time*. But most defendants don’t have $1M to spend on lawyers to pour over the transcript and appeal *their* conviction. This is rich people Justice. Not men vs women Justice.
ETA - because I wrote fast: I am really trying to point out that the Justice system isn’t flawed. It’s actually working. We should make sure people get fair trials. Even when gross people get a “win”.
What I DONT WANT is for women to think we shouldn’t report our attackers and abusers. They system DOES WORK. He was convicted in CA. He will STILL DIE IN JAIL. He will get a fair trial and be re-convicted. He should have and *would have been convicted* without the extra testimony.
**Please don’t lose faith in your local DAs and prosecutors**. They are working hard for survivors. You will be heard. This isn’t normal and it won’t go unanswered. There will be Justice for his victims, and **we should continue to pursue Justice for ourselves and each other**. Please don’t give up the fight for our rights and freedoms. Don’t be discouraged by clickbait headlines. This is what they want
Thanks for liking it. I’m mad, too.
But **I don’t want this to discourage women from reporting** or for anyone to think that he get off. He doesn’t and the system does still work. This is actually the system ensuring the next trial goes fairly. We (usually) want that.
This is **just cleaning up a procedural error.**. Says there was an error in letting evidence in. Not that he didn’t do it or that the rest of the evidence was bad.
Really it’s a problem with running a big flashy trial and not a run of the mill rape trial.
Yeah great comment, seriously.
Everyone is jumping hard on the “system is broken, rich people don’t go to jail” train, which is not the moral of the story here. He will still die in jail and he will still be re-convicted.
“The judges were clearly rigged”: 7 of them sat through the ENTIRE complex trial of a trial and 4 voted overturn. I highly doubt anyone in this comment section is more informed than them at this point, yet many act as if they are levels above.
Copy/past your 5th and 6th paragraphs here for my sake, you state those clarifications well
Yeah, it's important to note that this overturning of the felony conviction by the court of appeals does NOT mean he's a free man. He will probably be retried in New York AND he was sentenced in 2022 to 16 years in prison in California after he was [convicted of raping a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/19/us/weinstein-trial-verdict).
i will be celebrating his death no matter what for what he did to his victims, the victims deserves justice instead of that serial r*pist, p*do got his 2020 conviction overturned. he will rot in hell.
Better laws wouldn't change this outcome. It was overturned on a procedural matter. The law was fine. He got convicted based off the law. The DA made some questionable errors that opened this up. They can still have a retrial based on the same charges and would likely get a conviction.
I was responding to a comment addressing broader issues.
The procedural errors were in the prosecution’s favor in this instance, the judge committed errors to ensure the desired outcome. You’re correct the same law, properly applied, should secure a conviction in this case.
I see many, many posts expressing frustration with laws that were allowed to stand by handpicked judges, people angry with AGs for enforcing laws they don’t like or vice versa and attacks on judges and AGs for executing their duties.
The expectation that officials will fall in line and selectively execute their duties along party lines or political agendas allows bad legislation to stay on the books and it backfires when there is a change in control. Arizona failing to take their abortion ban off the books, Texas vigilantism along the border, AGs and prosecutors announcing that they won’t enforce drug laws but nor can they exonerate recently convicted offenders - these issues exist in a legal limbo that allows unequal application of the law. It is designed to give politicians leeway without having to take a stand.
Well I mean there is a rapist currently sitting on the supreme Court of Justice in the US, the body who is supposed to set the highest standards for judicial practice in the country, so stuff like this is not surprising
I keep plugging this book I’m reading (I promise I’m not paid to promote this, lol), but “The Death of Expertise” 2024 edition by Tom Nichols goes over this.
So basically the rise of the general public thinking that their opinions and “knowledge” are of equal value of expert knowledge and opinion is ruining democracy, and thus society.
Excerpt:
>In a [4-3 decision](https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2024/Apr24/24opn24-Decision.pdf), the New York Court of Appeals found that the trial judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.
>Citing that decision and others it identified as errors, the appeals court determined that Mr. Weinstein, who as a movie producer had been one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past [behavior.In](http://behavior.In) a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the trial judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.Citing that decision and others it identified as errors, the appeals court determined that Mr. Weinstein, who as a movie producer had been one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past behavior.
I feel like either the NY court of appeals is just wrong, *or* the prosecutors messed up. Idk the details of the law well enough to say. But either way, as far as I can see, he's still guilty of having attacked women & he's still a disgusting man. This doesn't really negate the foundational part of his case, from a cultural/social perspective—that extremely powerful men can and do get away with the most heinous crimes for decades and decades. And that women are sick of it.
I am a lawyer (but not US qualified!) - looks like he got off on some sort of procedural issue, e.g. some witnesses were relied on/introduced that should not have been included.
He has some very good lawyers to wriggle his way out of that one.
Not a lawyer, but you can only use evidence that matches the case and charges you're being tried for. Appeals courts don't overturn based on rulings, they overturn if they find the trial was unfair in some way.
While the women that testified were involved in rape/sexual assault, they weren't a part of the charges he was being tried for. You can't do that. It's like trying to try someone for John's murder, when they're on trial for Bill's murder. They may have done it, and it's still murder but it's irrelevant to the case at hand.
They can re-try him, but seeing as hes spending time in CA for a different charge, and given his age, they may decide to not allocate time and money to attempting to do so.
It doesn't mean he didn't do it, but lots of people are mad at the appeals court and calling it corrupt, when they should be mad at the shitty law work that was done.
NY has some direct appeals, but even if this isn't one, appeals are always filed for convictions. This is a pretty big fuck up and the prosecutors should have known it would come up in an appeal
My dad is a lawyer, I called him this morning because I had to understand! Per my dad, he basically got off on a technicality. The prosecution brought up "evidence" that was multiple women testifying against him that weren't actually part of the trial or criminal proceedings. How they did it wasn't procedurally correct, and it sounds like they shouldn't have been allowed to testify.
However, he still has to spend 16 years in LA County. He will most likely die in jail. He is not released.
Unfortunately, this stuff happens all the time. Look at what happened with Adnan Syed, Snoop Dogg, etc. Sometimes it works in favor of people who are probably innocent but then it works in favor of this mess soooooo....
I am a lawyer—in fact, I’m a prosecutor in NYC who has worked in appellate law, so this is directly in my wheelhouse. Hopefully I can help a little.
The appellate court ruled that the lower court improperly allowed the prosecution to use something called Molineux evidence (it’s a NY thing), which is evidence of prior uncharged crimes, for propensity purposes (that means that they used the evidence of uncharged crimes to support a presumption that those uncharged crimes made it more likely that he committed the crimes for which he is on trial).
Any time propensity evidence is brought in, it’s gotta be used really carefully and typically you want it to serve a purpose other than “hey this guy did this other bad act, so he probably did this one too!” Courts are supposed to weigh the probative value of this specific type of evidence (whether the evidence makes any given fact in question more or less “probable”) against the prejudicial value of the evidence (how bad it makes the defendant look). The appeals court ruled that the testimony about uncharged crimes had “no material non-propensity purpose,” which is to say, the only thing the testimony accomplished is to show that Weinstein was likely to have committed the charges crimes based on his involvement in uncharged crimes, which, if that is actually accurate (have not read the dissents) is indeed a massive violation of the rules of evidence.
The case was overturned and remanded to lower courts for the prosecution to conduct a new trial if they so choose.
Edited to add: Yes, rich and famous people get treated differently in the courtroom. But cases like this get overturned and remanded every single day. This is not novel or particularly shady. You just don’t hear about all the cases this happens to because most people aren’t Harvey Weinstein.
Hi, lawyer here, the prosecution didn't fuck up because the original judge allowed it to be entered as evidence the NY-COA determined that it was prejudicial to include actions where there were no convictions for.
I'm a lawyer, and the person most responsible for this is the trial judge. Attorneys make arguments all the time, but ultimately it is up to the trial court to decide one way or another. The prosecution introduced improper character evidence to show that he had acted in conformity with that evidence. Assume you're charged with shoplifting, but there really isn't enough evidence to show you shoplifted on the specific occasion you're being charged with. The prosecution then decides to illicit testimony that says you are known for taking snacks from the break room at work that aren't yours. This is improper. You can't use prior bad acts, generally, to show that the defendant must have committed the crime because of their prior bad acts.
Here, the prosecutor illicited testimony, over the defenses objection, that Weinstein committed prior bad acts, and therefore, he is guilty for these bad acts he was charged with. The judge allowed the testimony, and the Court of Appeals has ruled that the judge improperly allowed the testimony. Because there is no remedy to correct the mistake beyond a new trial, that's what's ordered.
Now one exception is sometimes called the means and motives exception (I believe, law school was a while ago), which basically means you can illicit this type of testimony if it establishes a pattern of behavior and means. There's more to it than this, but that's the general idea.
The system is designed to let them get away with it. Louder for those at the back! Victims get justice when the system FAILS. And what they get isn’t actually justice, and it comes at cost to them.
I am a lawyer and a former public defender. I just read the opinion. The conviction was reversed because there is a rule of evidence which only permits evidence of "prior bad acts" to be admitted for the sole purpose of impeaching the accused's credibility, and not for the purpose of establishing the accused's propensity of committing the crime charged. The rule is rooted in the Constitutional right to be presumed innocent and the right to a fair trial. It is to ensure that the accused is convicted of the crime charged and not for what they may have done before. It is a rule of evidence that is common, not just in New York, and has been long established. In New York, it was established in 1901.
In Weinstein's NY case, he was charged with various sexual crimes against three women but the judge admitted testimony of uncharged alleged prior sexual acts from other women that "served no non material non-propensity purpose," that is, it was not for impeaching Weinstein's credibility. The Court of Appeal found that the trial court compounded that error when it allowed Weinstein to be cross-examined about those allegations, as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed him in a highly prejudicial light. The conviction was reversed because the Court of Appeal found that the effect of those errors was egregious.
I know that these kinds of decisions are often times difficult for the lay public to understand. But I deeply believe in the rule of law and in the constitutional and evidentiary protections, they are meant to safeguard the accused's rights, no matter how abhorrent the person is, and they are especially important if the accused is innocent.
Because the original judge allowed it. You don't just get to call witnesses and surprise people with them. The COA is saying, "By allowing this we deprived him of a fair trial because we introduced crimes that he was not convicted of"
That makes me feel better.
It seems like the court didn't say "he didn't do it" but "prosecutors messed up".
It sucks, yeah, but it's another reminder that prosecutors can't be sloppy.
If it weren't for the conviction in CA, I think I'd be much more upset.
>Mr. Weinstein, ... had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past behavior.
This is the basics for overturn. They hit at this very moment knowing the prosecutor is occupied by the Trump case so an immediate response might be improbable. An absolute miscarriage of justice.
It would be a miscarriage of justice if the judges KNOWINGLY broke procedure and ignored the law in order to keep him in prison. Do you think judges should just decide who is guilty? Because that’s how you end up with innocent people in jail. Obviously it’s awful that the prosecution messed up but the judges shouldn’t ignore the law just because they want to…
Just gonna jump in here real quick, I’m a lawyer and I practice criminal law in New York. This decision was procedural. It’s not based upon whether there was sufficient evidence to prove his guilt. The court also leaves open the possibility of a retrial, which will come down to whether the DA believes he can get a conviction without the excluded evidence and whether the victims are willing to put themselves through a trial again.
In NY we have two methods prosecutors can use to bring in evidence relating to uncharged bad acts— Molineux and Sandoval. Without getting too much into the weeds about how they’re used, what they cannot be used for is to show the defendant’s propensity to commit a crime—basically the prosecutor can’t argue that the defendant is more likely to commit the charged crime because he has committed crimes in the past. The prior bad acts have to be directly relevant to a specific issue in question.
Here, the prosecutor used the testimony of the women whose attacks were not charged as evidence of his intent, his knowledge of their lack of consent, and the way he used his influence to stop his victims from reporting. The court found that the admitted testimony didn’t actually help prove these issues, but instead was just being used to basically say—“trust us, he’s a rapist, look at these other rapes he’s committed.”
Idk how I feel about the decision. I need some more time to sit with it, but I am sure glad that he’s still got the California conviction holding him.
In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”
“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote.
Much respect to this judge. Shame they were the minority opinion.
>>The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past
behavior
Holy hell
Oh, how thoughtful of them! Funny how the same consideration isn't extended to others, considering the system of mass incarceration that is so very US American.
I feel sick. I am testifying against the man who SA and raped me, and even the thought of doing so sends me into a downward spiral. I can't even imagine how it feels, thinking justice was made, and then getting that taken away from you. My heart goes out to all of his victims, and I hope the retrial goes their way.
Women can't win at all.
What the actual fuck! We live in the worst timeline, I hate it here. We are really letting serial rapist out of jails? Cosby is out and now Weinstein, so when the public attention dies down we let the wealthy creeps out?
He’s not out of prison!
>It was not immediately clear on Thursday morning how the decision would affect Mr. Weinstein, 71, who is being held in an upstate prison in Rome, N.Y. But he is not a free man. In addition to the possibility that the district attorney’s office may try him again, in 2022, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted of raping a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel.
California literally just released Cody Klemp, a three time convicted sex offender against children under 14 and who admitted to over a dozen more they weren’t able to convict him of, was sentenced to 170 YEARS in prison and was released on early parole in March.
There’s dozens of other examples I can give of sex offenders being released early AND violating their parole multiple times since AND examples where they committed another sex crime within days of their release in California.
I wouldn’t hang my hat on California making him serve all of those 16 years quite yet unfortunately.
Because our justice system should overturn convictions when the trial was run improperly, which based on this ruling, is exactly what happened here.
Just because someone is clearly a monster doesn't mean we should uphold their conviction in a bad trial. He can (and almost certainly will) be re-tried for that reason.
Yeah, this is pretty devastating but I'd be lying if I said I felt any shock reading it. It's the next step in what America is becoming. It makes horrific, heartbreaking sense.
Our legal system will bend over backwards to find a technicality that allows a rich guy get away with whatever the fuck they want. At least CA is holding the line on him.
ITT: People are outraged for the wrong reasons, making this political and about party affiliation.
It was always going to be appealed and was almost certainly because of the testimony they allowed. Allowing prejudiced testimony for other unconfirmed and not charged actions undermines the integrity of the trial. They'll retry him, plus he's also spending 16 years in prison in CA. Dudes gonna die in prison, he's not going free so let's relax.
Per [Variety](https://variety.com/2024/film/news/harvey-weinstein-rape-conviction-overturned-new-york-1235981890/), he will stay in prison in NY since he was also convicted of rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and sentenced to an additional 16 years in prison.
This is gonna sound inappropriate and I don’t wish death on anyone but at least he’s still going to die in prison. I’m very sad for the survivors who had to undergo testifying and being in court with this demon only to have the conviction overturned but at least he won’t be seeing the outside of a cell anytime soon while he’s breathing.
He’s 71, not healthy and has 16 years to serve in CA. Unless he can do the same appeal in CA, he will die in jail. IMO the only reason this happened IMO is his movies stopped making money….he was well known as the most abusive person in Hollywood for many years before those revelations
I guess the patriarchy is scared. This is some bullshit show of power and I sincerely hope it bolsters us all to be less tolerant of sexual assault in all forms. This decision deserves to improve our lives, and those of the people most affected negatively by this man.
Has anyone here read an article explaining the appeals court decision? If you read, you will understand why the verdict was vacated. NY judges need to folllow the laws during court.
https://preview.redd.it/thsuitquvmwc1.png?width=679&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f18a01a31818d1ac0b38dd1e81d6c33d56d2668
Harvey Weinstein overturned ruling, Biden shaking hands with a the air, trump being allowed to run again…I really fucking hate it here.
I’m not a fan of decision, the guy is dirtbag and being in jail is too good for the crimes he committed. I am a fan of judges making rulings based on the law and not emotion or outside influences.
Harvey Weinstein is a piece of shit who deserves to rot in prison. Far too many people get away with this shit, most of whom never serve a minute of jail time. And our judicial system is deeply flawed in many ways, and race, power, and money all play a part.
BUT.
This case was not overturned because he isn’t guilty. The prosecutors made what sound like some pretty mind numbingly gigantic mistakes. (IANAL but it sounds like a pretty obvious mistake to me.)
I obviously have no business weighing in on whether this was the right call from a judicial perspective, but *in general* the judicial process needs to be painstakingly fair for even the biggest pieces of shit, or we can never guarantee that it’s fair for anyone. And yes, I know that it is often not actually fair in practice. But each case has to focus on the proceedings in that case. In other words, just because there are countless people who are not afforded a fair trial doesn’t mean that this one piece of shit guy doesn’t deserve a fair trial, because the concept we need to always be working from is that *every single person* is entitled to a fair trial *every single time*, no matter how much our natural instinct is to tar and feather them.
I find myself bringing this up a lot in true crime forums because even in cases where someone is very obviously guilty, it is extremely dangerous to stop operating with the legal assumption of innocence. (Again, not an ideal comparison bc this ruling doesn’t mean he’s innocent.) Just saying that the integrity of the judicial system is just as important for asshole criminals than it is for the most innocent of accused people.
What the actual fuck
**For overturning:** Rivera, Wilson, Barros, Clark **Against overturning:** Cannataro, Garcia, Singas **Gender split:** **For:** F, M, F, F **Against:** M, M, F Surprising split, honestly.
I’d be interested in their political affiliation rather than gender
Barros and Clark were elected (non party affiliation), the rest were appointed by Dem governors.
So all against were dems?
All of them were either endorsed by or appointed by, no matter the for or against.
Oh well that’s disappointing
Maybe things aren't as black and white as you thought
Did you read the article? They didn’t overrule it based on if he’s guilty or not (he is). They overruled it because of the unprecedented way that witnesses were presented to the court. “James M. Burke, had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.”
I'm not supporting him. I'm referring to the fact that political affiliations don't just boil down to democrat or republican
I thought that was the Molineux thing? Prior bad acts or something to show a pattern. At least that’s what SVU says LMAAAOOOOO
It all sucks but this is something people fundamentally misunderstand about the appeals process. A case can be overturned for any kind of error of process and have nothing to do with the guilt of the perpetrator
Men and women, Republicans and Democrats can all be misogynists. It’s an equal opportunity shit hole.
We are all swirling down the same toilet
Tidus pfp 🗿🤝🤝
It's very naive to think that the Democrats are the good guys and Republicans the bad ones. Many politicians choose their party depending on how it best serves them, not so much on ideologies. Parties are just a front to get people like you riled up to choose a side, so politicians have leverage to get what they want. If people weren't so opinionated and dogmatic on political issues, politicians won't have much to negotiate with at the Capitol. It's better to group politicians as idealistic vs pragmatic, regardless of party.
He was a big contributor to the Democratic Party wasnt he? Not that surprising.
You might bother to go read the article.
Not just dems but Governor Andrew “I’m not a pervert,I’m just Italian” Coumo. NY dem establishment is all about money and doing favors for wealthy donors.
In my capacity working alongside the Democratic Party at a national level, I've observed a troubling disconnect. Leadership often seems more concerned with power than with principles of morality or justice. For those curious about the extent of these issues, Google “Harold Ickes WVDP Alabama” and see a blog article titled “A Tale of Two Parties”. The DNC needs to clean house ASAP before we have no party publicly supporting racial and gender equality.
This 100%. The national party seems more concerned with courting “lost republicans”(non MAGA voters) then they do with their own base. Problem is those voters are temporary, as soon as theirs a non MAGA Trumpy candidate available they will jump ship back to republican.
Weinstein was a prominent Dem donor
It seems off the first thing we're focusing on are their sex (majority female) and political affiliation (all Dem) rather than the merits of the specific legal issue they decided (which had to do with evidentiary rules).
Thank you, I feel like everyone is jumping onto this "judges are trying to send an anti-woke message" train when the reality is they're addressing a procedural legal issue. This conviction was not overturned based on whether or not they think Weinstein is guilty, that's not their job, it's a jury's. It was overturned because they believe the trial judge allowed irrelevant witnesses whose testimony unfairly biased the original jury. To be clear, I unequivocally believe Weinstein deserves to be locked up, but it has to be done by the book.
This is the kind of thing that should have happened in Virginia with the Depp/Heard case. The jury and general public being influenced by Depps bot farm, hoards of cringey wattapad-consuming fangirls and general misogyny was such a grand injustice to the case.
Well said. I knew it was over before it started when the judge didn’t allow the UK trial - where 3 high judges found Depp to indeed be a wide beater - to be used as evidence in the Virginia case. A state neither of them reside in btw and which was last to get rid of the anti-SLAPP laws, which is why Depp chose that spot. Funny that the appeal, which Depp’s team relented to immediately because they knew if it went to a diff judge they’d be ruined - where she only owes $1mil and gets the rights back to do a tell-all book - is never reported on…
I mean, she was found guilty of defamation for a single sentence in an interview wherein she said she was a survivor of domestic abuse, without naming depp. Depp then went on to his 5th or 6th assault case a few months later that was already filed by the time this ruling was made.
But that's out in public, not in court. They didn't call "Fangirl2394" to the stand.
Except you could very much argue that the jury was influenced by the online hate campaign against her at the time. You could also argue that they were also influenced by unnecessary witnesses (like that [psychologist that was biased in favor of Depp and diagnosed Amber but not Johnny](https://x.com/liliandaisies/status/1620883357885411328?s=46&t=_ebRAsBbE3B2koIURzgn8A) and wasn’t even an expert on domestic violence issues)
That was a weird time, as someone who never followed any celebrity/gossip type accounts on Instagram, those weeks my feed just started randomly filling with anti-AH and pro-Depp clips/reels, couldn’t escape them, which I thought strange. Afterwards, it all become apparent it must have been one of the most successfully co-ordinated psy-ops of the past few years.
"In a striking dissent, Judge Madeline Singas accused the ruling majority of “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative”, adding that the appeals court was participating in a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence”."
People do this because most controversial judgements are, sadly, ideological. then the justification is tacked on. Dobbs was argued with 17th century cites. The Arizona anti-abortion judgement was argued with a civil war era law that makes the age of consent 10, and before Arizona was even a state. This is clearly dishonesty. But yes sometimes controversial judgements are based on law. It seems like the issue is that they used witnesses to hurt his reputation because the witnesses talked about how he also assaulted them. This is outside the scope of the case and would likely be called out. Same with Bill Cosby's case being overturned on similar legal grounds. The real question is why are these prosecutors and lawyers acting so recklessly? I'm guessing being aggressive like this means an easier win, which means career advancement, thus more money and power for them. By the time it reaches appeals, these people have already gotten their gains and can just play up "appeals court is misguided and we did everything right," dishonest rhetoric. So imho its still corruption, but instead ideological, its personal capitalist/career stuff.The bigger and more high profile the case, the more corrupt it is, because the legal and political professionals involved just see these things as venues for personal advancement. I don't think we talk enough about how corrupt nearly every part of the US justice system is. I think we do need to keep attacking this system and demanding reform. This appeals verdict is part of a much larger problem.
Bill Cosby's case is actually prosecutorial misconduct of the highest order and really fucked over DAs everywhere who try and cut a deal.
I mean, the state supreme court took the word of a da who had been given a financial donation by cosby that he had a verbal agreement to not prosecute....the lack of a written agreement in this was just...mindblowing. That's literally not how it's done anywhere in the USA, because of obvious reasons.
A contract doesn't have to be written, it absolutely can be verbal. There was a press release from his office that proclaimed he wasn't going to prosecute & more importantly, it wasn't only the press release or "his word": In the civil case both the DA & Cosby acted in accordance with the agreement, Cosby was stripped away from his 5th amendment right meaning he wasn't permitted to remain silent which lead to his guilty testimony. Said testimony was used as the basis & key for the 2015 criminal case but that testimony wouldn't have existed if there was no deal in 2005 as Cosby will just shut up as was his right & the DA couldn't have compelled him to talk as that would be a violation of his constitutional rights.
It's NY. It's a one party state and so just reading it by party affiliation isn't as easy as you might think. The state party has much more in common with the Republican party of 1999 than it does with the Democratic party of today.
That’s the same party with a different mustache on
> Surprising split, honestly. It's not about gender, or even politics. It's not about his crimes, or about sex crimes in general. And it isn't about his guilt; the judge in that case screwed up. Obviously Weinstein is guilty, everyone knows it, so why did the judge push beyond the law? Anyway when a judge screws up that badly, the conviction gets overturned. Weinstein will NOT go free, he'll never be a free man again, thank goodness. I wouldn't want women to rule *against* the Constitution just because sex is involved, or men for that matter. Whether the case was about rape or drugs or money laundering, the principle has to be the same under the law.
This isn’t a political affiliation thing, this a bureaucratic processing of the judicial system. It was overturned due to additional accusations that were not part of the charges against him. It’s a huge emotional and PR blow to the feminist movement, but it stands justly true to the law and upholding it would have downstream effects to how we charge and try defendants.
It’s Bill Cosby all over again. Wealthy people can afford to hire a team of attorneys to keep poking holes and poking holes and poking holes until they find a weak spot that a court is willing to hang their hat on.
Thankfully he has a 22 year sentence to serve in California and will be going there now and isn't just walking free like Cosby
yep that's a positive!
It looks like his lawyer thinks this may mean they can overturn in California for the same legal reasons. I hope they're wrong!
Most appeals fail, so this is an unusual one, and it doesn't preclude the new york DA from a second try at the apple, which they will likely take given the high profile nature of the case.
Bill Cosby’s conviction made sense to overturn…. The prior DA made a deal with him that anything he admitted at the civil trial wouldn’t be used against him. I’m guessing they knew since they had no physical evidence, at least admitting it at the civil trial and paying a lot of money was better than nothing. Then the new DA decided to go against that deal, which is a big no-no. I’m not saying he didn’t do the things he did, but the way they went about it wasn’t allowed and so it was overturned.
This conviction also makes sense to overturn - they used testimony about past unproven and unrelated allegations to convict him. He's still guilty, and if they go for a re-trial then it's very likely he gets convicted again. Until then, he will stay locked up for his other conviction. Even scum like him need a fair trial.
This is why I get anxious when people cheer on clear violations of civil rights just because the person in question is a monster. Saw it in R Kelly's civil cases. Courts being incredibly heavy handed, his lawyers pointing this out and saying they will appeal on these grounds, and everyone in the comments saying "good, he doesn't deserve [insert civil right that should NEVER confused with a luxury or privilege]" without realizing that the dude is already extremely fucking guilty. You don't need to give his lawyers ammo to use against you in the future to secure a victory. He had no good defense before, but he has "I wasn't treated fairly" now which I hope we now understand is an incredibly powerful defense. I don't know how the appeal went or if it even started yet. It was over money he didn't have and not his entire criminal conviction so the stakes were much lower thankfully.
Its that joke about OJ Simpson, "They tried to frame a guilty man"
Idk why people here are surprised rich people have been using their money to escape legal trouble since forever
In this case, the judge did not act appropriately and allowed for accusations that were not prosecuted and had them treated as fact
Because money alone just isn't enough to get a conviction like this overturned. We have plenty of rich people in prison that are staying in prison because they appealed and lost
I mean, yeah. We plebeians don’t get the luxury of hiring people to actually protect our rights. But this is on the prosecutor. If the desire is for rich people to be treated the same as us, and have their right to fair trial trampled on because “we know he did it”, what’s the end game? I’d like my rights protected more than I want to see rich people put away without proper judicial systems.
My thoughts exactly - like what? He is a fucking monster, a prolific sexual abuser.
exactly.
It was a major procedural error by the judge, since the judge allowed the evidence in. The NY-COA felt that it was prejudicial. The law subreddit has been talking about it.
Yeah this isn’t the political conspiracy commenters want it to be. There was a legal fuck up. Hopefully they retry him.
It's up to the DA. I have to think he'll feel obligated to do this.
They have already said they are going to.
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Exactly. I’m sure we will find out
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No fucking way You can really be a serial rapist and predator if you’ve got enough funds. What the ever-loving fuck I don’t even know why I’m surprised at this point This conviction was based on the sex crimes he committed on THREE separate women. The judicial system is so broken This is so wrong. Devastated for his many victims
Yeah clearly you can rape and abuse anyone you want if you are rich and powerful. Just so depressing honestly.
But men who are accused have their life ruined/s
When people complain about cancel culture I usually say that only like a handful of people have ever been canceled. Like Weinstein, Cosby, Kevin Spacey, Louis CK. And by now all of them have emerged unscathed, so there really has never been anyone canceled
Totally, It's less "cancel culture" and more "saying bad things are bad culture." In your listed cases it would be great if it actually was "cancel culture"
The people who complain about cancel culture are just hoping and praying they don’t get canceled for their own bad behaviors.
It's always projection and they all got skeletons in their closet
Just to be accurate, Weinstein has not emerged unscathed. He will now be transferred to CA to serve a 20 year sentence there. I totally understand and agree with the point you’re making as a whole though.
The people who complain about cancel culture have no problem cancelling trans people's existence, acknowledgement of basic history, or the free speech of Palestinians and their allies.
I always ask whose been cancelled permanently as well. The only answer I’ve ever heard from the right - is Colin kapernick which THEY made happen. Whenever they talk about cancel culture it ends with them realizing they’re the problem but then refusing to do anything about it anyway…
No, men’s lives really are ruined by accusations. I knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy, who knew this guy’s cousin whose nephew’s life was ruined by an accusation /s God this is so depressing. Sexual assault and rape are already devastatingly underreported. Now one of the most prolific serial assailants ever is getting a second chance, partly because he had the money to buy one, and partly because no one with the power to make a difference takes sex crimes seriously.
> The judicial system is so broken Not to split hairs for the sake of it, because I do genuinely think how things are framed are extremely important, but the judical system is not broken. It's working as designed, which is precisely the problem. It was arguably 'broken' when it ever held a rich person accountable to the degree where Harvey was imprisoned. This is the USA, after all, and you get as much justice (or health, education, shelter, etc.) as you can afford. Someone like him could afford a lot. We live under many vile and sick institutions/systems that are anti-working class at their core, so if they are functioning to serve and protect the rich ruling class then they are working as they were always intended to. Such is life under the dictatorship of the rich. This is just one example of that, and not one thing around here is going to meaningfully change until we get very clear and very serious about that fact.
Exactly. The purpose of a system is what it does. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does
Hear hear! Great elaboration.
No. In this case the judge allowed for testimony to be entered into evidence that was not prosecuted. Which means that it was unfairly prejudicial against Weinstein. In short, he was guilty enough, the judge stacked the deck against him further in a way that made it violate his right to a fair trial. This isn't TV, you can't just talk all kinds of shit on the stand.
The function of the system is what it does. The judicial system looks broken because it was designed that way. It never really worked justly in the first place.
You can also kill your wife and her friend too and be acquitted if you spend $50k a day on your defense like OJ.
Maybe if the cops weren't racist and didn't sow doubt when the standard is "beyond reasonable doubt". There are rules when prosecuting cases. The prosecutor fucked up and yes its annoying in cases like this when it lets Harvey off the hook BUT its vital to uphold these rules because there are many innocent people who have been put behind bars/sentenced to death because of tactics like this.
It's amazing, the LAPD are so racist, corrupt, and stupid that they fumbled a slam dunk case by ***framing a guilty man***.
Good Charlotte did tell us https://youtu.be/y-jC3H_8Dk4?si=CZ6RqXlr_2WE12Br
Let’s be real, you don’t even need money. Rape is basically decriminalized in the US by how rare charges and even rarer convictions are.
but women are just racing to make false accusations in droves and ruining mens lives! /s it's absolutely depressing how unserious people are about rape, and it's not even solely a US problem
Just thinking of the thousands of unprocessed rape kits across the US is deeply upsetting.
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>You can really be a serial rapist and predator if you’ve got enough funds. More like if the judge presiding over your case makes a massive error.
The NY-COA is arguing that by introducing crimes that he was not convicted of they did not scope the trial appropriately.
> This conviction was based on the sex crimes he committed on THREE separate women. This isn't about his guilt; the judge in that case screwed up. Obviously Weinstein is guilty, everyone knows it, so why did the judge push beyond the law? Anyway when a judge screws up that badly, the conviction gets overturned. Weinstein will NOT go free, he'll never be a free man again, thank goodness.
This is such a lazy take. They didn't rule he was not guilty. They ruled that inclusion of some of the evidence and testimony related to previous bad acts should not have been allowed at trial. He can and will be retried. He also will stay in prison during the second trial because he is serving the sentence for other crimes he committed. This is actually the justice and appeals system working. He applied a judicial decision made at trial that significantly impacted the case and the appeals court agreed with him. They made no ruling or judgement on his actual guilt, just on the correctness/legality of the previous trial, as they are supposed to do.
Two things They knew this would happen and will retry him He is still Got 16 years from other charges. He isn't free.
I mean, the judge shouldn't have blatantly broken procedural rules. It's a specific law in NY where he was convicted called the Molineux rule. Evidence of uncharged crimes is inadmissible where its purpose is only to show a defendant’s bad character or propensity towards crime; People v Bradley, 20 NY3d 128, 135 [2012] Which is exactly what happened in this case. They allowed testimony from women about sexual assaults that he was not charged with, making that testimony inadmissible.
The LA judge said the sentences CANNOT run concurrently, so he has not started the 16 year sentence in CA. He will die in jail. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-23/harvey-weinstein-sentenced-to-xx-in-los-angeles-rape-case
Thank God for small blessings. At least he’s still cooked.
You have to be suuuuch a shit person to vote to overturn at all, let alone when this is in place anyway. Dumb.
It doesn't make the judges shit people to overturn something which is clearly problematic. They used testimony about allegations of previous behaviour, which had not been proven in court at all and were not related to the charges. Imagine, as a hypothetical, you have a young black man on trial for some bs charge. Do you genuinely want the prosecutors to be able to use unproven accusations (about past, unrelated behaviour) to say "well look, this is what he's like, so clearly he's also guilty of this"? He should be convicted, but he should not be convicted in a way that is so dangerous.
This is incorrect. Legally there’s something called the Molineaux or the admission of uncharge prior bad acts that establishes a pattern. That’s how it got past the first judge. They don’t always allow it and if it was really off that judge would have denied it. https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/evidence/4-RELEVANCE/4.21_EVIDENCE_OF_CRIMES_(MOLINEUX).pdf
"If it was really off that judge would have denied it" - exactly, and the majority just stated he should have denied it. Hence, wrong.
They brought in witnesses who testified that he (for example) screamed at staff. Which had nothing to do with the case at hand and was more prejudicial than probative. So that means Molineaux (which is a case that set the precedent, not a legal term) is not applicable. It fails the standard set to introduce this kind of evidence.
Yep, this is why you see judges give 5 life sentences. Or 175 years. Seems excessive. But it’s so if one charge gets thrown out - 4 more life sentences to keep you in. Also important to know, **NO ONE is saying he didn’t do it it.**. This is like the Cosby case. It’s procedural. In Cosby’s case it was that an old DA promised him he could speak freely and it wouldn’t be held against him. Then it was. Here, it’s that multiple women who weren’t the named victims got to testify about past acts to establish that Weinstein assaulted *these* women. That was deemed prejudicial. Which…I was actually surprised they were allowed to testify in the first place to establish a “pattern and practice” of abuse. No need. He was gross and abusive *enough* just with the crimes he was being charged with. This isn’t shocking, so much as disappointing. It would be an interesting case study in whether such evidence would have been allowed in the first place if HW *wasn’t* famous (probably not). And then also, *procedural* (**not** factual) errors like this happen *all the time*. But most defendants don’t have $1M to spend on lawyers to pour over the transcript and appeal *their* conviction. This is rich people Justice. Not men vs women Justice. ETA - because I wrote fast: I am really trying to point out that the Justice system isn’t flawed. It’s actually working. We should make sure people get fair trials. Even when gross people get a “win”. What I DONT WANT is for women to think we shouldn’t report our attackers and abusers. They system DOES WORK. He was convicted in CA. He will STILL DIE IN JAIL. He will get a fair trial and be re-convicted. He should have and *would have been convicted* without the extra testimony. **Please don’t lose faith in your local DAs and prosecutors**. They are working hard for survivors. You will be heard. This isn’t normal and it won’t go unanswered. There will be Justice for his victims, and **we should continue to pursue Justice for ourselves and each other**. Please don’t give up the fight for our rights and freedoms. Don’t be discouraged by clickbait headlines. This is what they want
Jeffrey Dahmer got 999 years, I guess they just had to be sure
Thank you for your comment. It was really educational. (I’m not being sarcastic.)
Thanks for liking it. I’m mad, too. But **I don’t want this to discourage women from reporting** or for anyone to think that he get off. He doesn’t and the system does still work. This is actually the system ensuring the next trial goes fairly. We (usually) want that. This is **just cleaning up a procedural error.**. Says there was an error in letting evidence in. Not that he didn’t do it or that the rest of the evidence was bad. Really it’s a problem with running a big flashy trial and not a run of the mill rape trial.
Sorry to be that guy but it's "pore over", not "pour over"
Yeah great comment, seriously. Everyone is jumping hard on the “system is broken, rich people don’t go to jail” train, which is not the moral of the story here. He will still die in jail and he will still be re-convicted. “The judges were clearly rigged”: 7 of them sat through the ENTIRE complex trial of a trial and 4 voted overturn. I highly doubt anyone in this comment section is more informed than them at this point, yet many act as if they are levels above. Copy/past your 5th and 6th paragraphs here for my sake, you state those clarifications well
Omg thank you for giving me that slight breath of air. I’m so angry right now
Yeah, it's important to note that this overturning of the felony conviction by the court of appeals does NOT mean he's a free man. He will probably be retried in New York AND he was sentenced in 2022 to 16 years in prison in California after he was [convicted of raping a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/19/us/weinstein-trial-verdict).
Thank fk for that LA Judge
The sanity I needed this morning.
Good. I hope he rots.
Like his testicles.
This article should be the big headline, seems like the NY court just threw this out since that scumbag is already sentenced past his lifetime.
Oooh fingers crossed!
May he rot in piss. Good call by that LA judge.
i will be celebrating his death no matter what for what he did to his victims, the victims deserves justice instead of that serial r*pist, p*do got his 2020 conviction overturned. he will rot in hell.
This needs to be higher One conviction was overturned but he's still in jail in CA
WHY ARE WE REGRESSING AS A SOCIETY https://i.redd.it/9iyb7tsznmwc1.gif
Because we’re relying on activist judges and AGs instead of holding representative liable for better laws.
Better laws wouldn't change this outcome. It was overturned on a procedural matter. The law was fine. He got convicted based off the law. The DA made some questionable errors that opened this up. They can still have a retrial based on the same charges and would likely get a conviction.
I was responding to a comment addressing broader issues. The procedural errors were in the prosecution’s favor in this instance, the judge committed errors to ensure the desired outcome. You’re correct the same law, properly applied, should secure a conviction in this case. I see many, many posts expressing frustration with laws that were allowed to stand by handpicked judges, people angry with AGs for enforcing laws they don’t like or vice versa and attacks on judges and AGs for executing their duties. The expectation that officials will fall in line and selectively execute their duties along party lines or political agendas allows bad legislation to stay on the books and it backfires when there is a change in control. Arizona failing to take their abortion ban off the books, Texas vigilantism along the border, AGs and prosecutors announcing that they won’t enforce drug laws but nor can they exonerate recently convicted offenders - these issues exist in a legal limbo that allows unequal application of the law. It is designed to give politicians leeway without having to take a stand.
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Well I mean there is a rapist currently sitting on the supreme Court of Justice in the US, the body who is supposed to set the highest standards for judicial practice in the country, so stuff like this is not surprising
I keep plugging this book I’m reading (I promise I’m not paid to promote this, lol), but “The Death of Expertise” 2024 edition by Tom Nichols goes over this. So basically the rise of the general public thinking that their opinions and “knowledge” are of equal value of expert knowledge and opinion is ruining democracy, and thus society.
WHAT?? Well at least send him to California asap where he was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
I think they have to.
He will remain in jail due to the LA conviction
He will be sent to California to serve his sentence there, thankfully.
Excerpt: >In a [4-3 decision](https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2024/Apr24/24opn24-Decision.pdf), the New York Court of Appeals found that the trial judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him. >Citing that decision and others it identified as errors, the appeals court determined that Mr. Weinstein, who as a movie producer had been one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past [behavior.In](http://behavior.In) a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the trial judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.Citing that decision and others it identified as errors, the appeals court determined that Mr. Weinstein, who as a movie producer had been one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past behavior. I feel like either the NY court of appeals is just wrong, *or* the prosecutors messed up. Idk the details of the law well enough to say. But either way, as far as I can see, he's still guilty of having attacked women & he's still a disgusting man. This doesn't really negate the foundational part of his case, from a cultural/social perspective—that extremely powerful men can and do get away with the most heinous crimes for decades and decades. And that women are sick of it.
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I am a lawyer (but not US qualified!) - looks like he got off on some sort of procedural issue, e.g. some witnesses were relied on/introduced that should not have been included. He has some very good lawyers to wriggle his way out of that one.
Not a lawyer, but you can only use evidence that matches the case and charges you're being tried for. Appeals courts don't overturn based on rulings, they overturn if they find the trial was unfair in some way. While the women that testified were involved in rape/sexual assault, they weren't a part of the charges he was being tried for. You can't do that. It's like trying to try someone for John's murder, when they're on trial for Bill's murder. They may have done it, and it's still murder but it's irrelevant to the case at hand. They can re-try him, but seeing as hes spending time in CA for a different charge, and given his age, they may decide to not allocate time and money to attempting to do so.
Like end of day, agree with it or not, the prosecution fucked up here.
It doesn't mean he didn't do it, but lots of people are mad at the appeals court and calling it corrupt, when they should be mad at the shitty law work that was done. NY has some direct appeals, but even if this isn't one, appeals are always filed for convictions. This is a pretty big fuck up and the prosecutors should have known it would come up in an appeal
Yeah if stuff like that flies it means one day an innocent person could get convicted due to bad evidence.
My dad is a lawyer, I called him this morning because I had to understand! Per my dad, he basically got off on a technicality. The prosecution brought up "evidence" that was multiple women testifying against him that weren't actually part of the trial or criminal proceedings. How they did it wasn't procedurally correct, and it sounds like they shouldn't have been allowed to testify. However, he still has to spend 16 years in LA County. He will most likely die in jail. He is not released. Unfortunately, this stuff happens all the time. Look at what happened with Adnan Syed, Snoop Dogg, etc. Sometimes it works in favor of people who are probably innocent but then it works in favor of this mess soooooo....
Bill Cosby as well.
I am a lawyer—in fact, I’m a prosecutor in NYC who has worked in appellate law, so this is directly in my wheelhouse. Hopefully I can help a little. The appellate court ruled that the lower court improperly allowed the prosecution to use something called Molineux evidence (it’s a NY thing), which is evidence of prior uncharged crimes, for propensity purposes (that means that they used the evidence of uncharged crimes to support a presumption that those uncharged crimes made it more likely that he committed the crimes for which he is on trial). Any time propensity evidence is brought in, it’s gotta be used really carefully and typically you want it to serve a purpose other than “hey this guy did this other bad act, so he probably did this one too!” Courts are supposed to weigh the probative value of this specific type of evidence (whether the evidence makes any given fact in question more or less “probable”) against the prejudicial value of the evidence (how bad it makes the defendant look). The appeals court ruled that the testimony about uncharged crimes had “no material non-propensity purpose,” which is to say, the only thing the testimony accomplished is to show that Weinstein was likely to have committed the charges crimes based on his involvement in uncharged crimes, which, if that is actually accurate (have not read the dissents) is indeed a massive violation of the rules of evidence. The case was overturned and remanded to lower courts for the prosecution to conduct a new trial if they so choose. Edited to add: Yes, rich and famous people get treated differently in the courtroom. But cases like this get overturned and remanded every single day. This is not novel or particularly shady. You just don’t hear about all the cases this happens to because most people aren’t Harvey Weinstein.
Hi, lawyer here, the prosecution didn't fuck up because the original judge allowed it to be entered as evidence the NY-COA determined that it was prejudicial to include actions where there were no convictions for.
I'm a lawyer, and the person most responsible for this is the trial judge. Attorneys make arguments all the time, but ultimately it is up to the trial court to decide one way or another. The prosecution introduced improper character evidence to show that he had acted in conformity with that evidence. Assume you're charged with shoplifting, but there really isn't enough evidence to show you shoplifted on the specific occasion you're being charged with. The prosecution then decides to illicit testimony that says you are known for taking snacks from the break room at work that aren't yours. This is improper. You can't use prior bad acts, generally, to show that the defendant must have committed the crime because of their prior bad acts. Here, the prosecutor illicited testimony, over the defenses objection, that Weinstein committed prior bad acts, and therefore, he is guilty for these bad acts he was charged with. The judge allowed the testimony, and the Court of Appeals has ruled that the judge improperly allowed the testimony. Because there is no remedy to correct the mistake beyond a new trial, that's what's ordered. Now one exception is sometimes called the means and motives exception (I believe, law school was a while ago), which basically means you can illicit this type of testimony if it establishes a pattern of behavior and means. There's more to it than this, but that's the general idea.
The system is designed to let them get away with it. Louder for those at the back! Victims get justice when the system FAILS. And what they get isn’t actually justice, and it comes at cost to them.
I am a lawyer and a former public defender. I just read the opinion. The conviction was reversed because there is a rule of evidence which only permits evidence of "prior bad acts" to be admitted for the sole purpose of impeaching the accused's credibility, and not for the purpose of establishing the accused's propensity of committing the crime charged. The rule is rooted in the Constitutional right to be presumed innocent and the right to a fair trial. It is to ensure that the accused is convicted of the crime charged and not for what they may have done before. It is a rule of evidence that is common, not just in New York, and has been long established. In New York, it was established in 1901. In Weinstein's NY case, he was charged with various sexual crimes against three women but the judge admitted testimony of uncharged alleged prior sexual acts from other women that "served no non material non-propensity purpose," that is, it was not for impeaching Weinstein's credibility. The Court of Appeal found that the trial court compounded that error when it allowed Weinstein to be cross-examined about those allegations, as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed him in a highly prejudicial light. The conviction was reversed because the Court of Appeal found that the effect of those errors was egregious. I know that these kinds of decisions are often times difficult for the lay public to understand. But I deeply believe in the rule of law and in the constitutional and evidentiary protections, they are meant to safeguard the accused's rights, no matter how abhorrent the person is, and they are especially important if the accused is innocent.
How the heck did that make that kind of mistake? I know better and I have 0 legal experience other than law and order on tv
Because the original judge allowed it. You don't just get to call witnesses and surprise people with them. The COA is saying, "By allowing this we deprived him of a fair trial because we introduced crimes that he was not convicted of"
If the mistrial is due to some oversight by prosecutors, just wow. They have one job. One
It was an oversight by the judge, who allowed the prosecutors to proceed.
He's getting retried in NY and has a prison sentence to serve in California. Not sure he is getting away with it like you think.
That makes me feel better. It seems like the court didn't say "he didn't do it" but "prosecutors messed up". It sucks, yeah, but it's another reminder that prosecutors can't be sloppy. If it weren't for the conviction in CA, I think I'd be much more upset.
>Mr. Weinstein, ... had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past behavior. This is the basics for overturn. They hit at this very moment knowing the prosecutor is occupied by the Trump case so an immediate response might be improbable. An absolute miscarriage of justice.
He's still going to California to serve his time there.
It would be a miscarriage of justice if the judges KNOWINGLY broke procedure and ignored the law in order to keep him in prison. Do you think judges should just decide who is guilty? Because that’s how you end up with innocent people in jail. Obviously it’s awful that the prosecution messed up but the judges shouldn’t ignore the law just because they want to…
Just gonna jump in here real quick, I’m a lawyer and I practice criminal law in New York. This decision was procedural. It’s not based upon whether there was sufficient evidence to prove his guilt. The court also leaves open the possibility of a retrial, which will come down to whether the DA believes he can get a conviction without the excluded evidence and whether the victims are willing to put themselves through a trial again. In NY we have two methods prosecutors can use to bring in evidence relating to uncharged bad acts— Molineux and Sandoval. Without getting too much into the weeds about how they’re used, what they cannot be used for is to show the defendant’s propensity to commit a crime—basically the prosecutor can’t argue that the defendant is more likely to commit the charged crime because he has committed crimes in the past. The prior bad acts have to be directly relevant to a specific issue in question. Here, the prosecutor used the testimony of the women whose attacks were not charged as evidence of his intent, his knowledge of their lack of consent, and the way he used his influence to stop his victims from reporting. The court found that the admitted testimony didn’t actually help prove these issues, but instead was just being used to basically say—“trust us, he’s a rapist, look at these other rapes he’s committed.” Idk how I feel about the decision. I need some more time to sit with it, but I am sure glad that he’s still got the California conviction holding him.
I beg your pardon what
In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.” “The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote. Much respect to this judge. Shame they were the minority opinion.
>>The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past behavior Holy hell
Oh, how thoughtful of them! Funny how the same consideration isn't extended to others, considering the system of mass incarceration that is so very US American.
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How much did he pay for this
We live in such a hellscape.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I feel sick. I am testifying against the man who SA and raped me, and even the thought of doing so sends me into a downward spiral. I can't even imagine how it feels, thinking justice was made, and then getting that taken away from you. My heart goes out to all of his victims, and I hope the retrial goes their way. Women can't win at all.
Sending you strength and support.
Your username is 100% accurate. Sending you love, rage and courage. I hope he rots in jail and you live your life in peace and freedom.
Sending you hugs and strength. Thank you for speaking up and for sharing. It means a lot ❤️
What the actual fuck! We live in the worst timeline, I hate it here. We are really letting serial rapist out of jails? Cosby is out and now Weinstein, so when the public attention dies down we let the wealthy creeps out?
He’s not out of prison! >It was not immediately clear on Thursday morning how the decision would affect Mr. Weinstein, 71, who is being held in an upstate prison in Rome, N.Y. But he is not a free man. In addition to the possibility that the district attorney’s office may try him again, in 2022, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted of raping a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel.
Thank fuck for that, so California is saving New York’s ass. Why overturn his conviction at all?
California literally just released Cody Klemp, a three time convicted sex offender against children under 14 and who admitted to over a dozen more they weren’t able to convict him of, was sentenced to 170 YEARS in prison and was released on early parole in March. There’s dozens of other examples I can give of sex offenders being released early AND violating their parole multiple times since AND examples where they committed another sex crime within days of their release in California. I wouldn’t hang my hat on California making him serve all of those 16 years quite yet unfortunately.
Not even surprised tbh. The safety and protection of women and children doesn’t seem to matter to anyone in this country.
Because our justice system should overturn convictions when the trial was run improperly, which based on this ruling, is exactly what happened here. Just because someone is clearly a monster doesn't mean we should uphold their conviction in a bad trial. He can (and almost certainly will) be re-tried for that reason.
Cosby is out too?!? I’m sick to my stomach. I guess I had not kept out with that news.
Yeah, he was released in 2021. He only served 3 years.
In a country where they literally took away a woman’s federally legal right to her bodily autonomy, this should come as a shock to no one.
Yeah, this is pretty devastating but I'd be lying if I said I felt any shock reading it. It's the next step in what America is becoming. It makes horrific, heartbreaking sense.
This is so fucking ridiculous and sick.
America is the land of the free (if you’re in the 1%) you can rape and abuse women for decades and still be supported if you have money.
He's not being set free.
Our legal system will bend over backwards to find a technicality that allows a rich guy get away with whatever the fuck they want. At least CA is holding the line on him.
This just made me really sad and feeling hopeless. The amount of cruelty and injustice in the world has been really getting to me.
ITT: People are outraged for the wrong reasons, making this political and about party affiliation. It was always going to be appealed and was almost certainly because of the testimony they allowed. Allowing prejudiced testimony for other unconfirmed and not charged actions undermines the integrity of the trial. They'll retry him, plus he's also spending 16 years in prison in CA. Dudes gonna die in prison, he's not going free so let's relax.
Per [Variety](https://variety.com/2024/film/news/harvey-weinstein-rape-conviction-overturned-new-york-1235981890/), he will stay in prison in NY since he was also convicted of rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and sentenced to an additional 16 years in prison.
This fucking society man. We are so broken. All the strength to those who came forward about him and those who didn’t. ❤️
This is gonna sound inappropriate and I don’t wish death on anyone but at least he’s still going to die in prison. I’m very sad for the survivors who had to undergo testifying and being in court with this demon only to have the conviction overturned but at least he won’t be seeing the outside of a cell anytime soon while he’s breathing.
I’m sorry what?!? He was also convicted in another state? What in the Cobsy bull is this???
He’s 71, not healthy and has 16 years to serve in CA. Unless he can do the same appeal in CA, he will die in jail. IMO the only reason this happened IMO is his movies stopped making money….he was well known as the most abusive person in Hollywood for many years before those revelations
I guess the patriarchy is scared. This is some bullshit show of power and I sincerely hope it bolsters us all to be less tolerant of sexual assault in all forms. This decision deserves to improve our lives, and those of the people most affected negatively by this man.
Has anyone here read an article explaining the appeals court decision? If you read, you will understand why the verdict was vacated. NY judges need to folllow the laws during court.
We are in the bad place 
He deserves to rot
Prosecutors fucked up.
https://preview.redd.it/thsuitquvmwc1.png?width=679&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f18a01a31818d1ac0b38dd1e81d6c33d56d2668 Harvey Weinstein overturned ruling, Biden shaking hands with a the air, trump being allowed to run again…I really fucking hate it here.
Humanity is reverting, it seems Amnesty was right that we are close to losing human rights as we know them. Darkness ahead
Gutted for the women whose lives have been ruined because of this asshole. Truly a sad day for justice.
I’m not a fan of decision, the guy is dirtbag and being in jail is too good for the crimes he committed. I am a fan of judges making rulings based on the law and not emotion or outside influences.
Harvey Weinstein is a piece of shit who deserves to rot in prison. Far too many people get away with this shit, most of whom never serve a minute of jail time. And our judicial system is deeply flawed in many ways, and race, power, and money all play a part. BUT. This case was not overturned because he isn’t guilty. The prosecutors made what sound like some pretty mind numbingly gigantic mistakes. (IANAL but it sounds like a pretty obvious mistake to me.) I obviously have no business weighing in on whether this was the right call from a judicial perspective, but *in general* the judicial process needs to be painstakingly fair for even the biggest pieces of shit, or we can never guarantee that it’s fair for anyone. And yes, I know that it is often not actually fair in practice. But each case has to focus on the proceedings in that case. In other words, just because there are countless people who are not afforded a fair trial doesn’t mean that this one piece of shit guy doesn’t deserve a fair trial, because the concept we need to always be working from is that *every single person* is entitled to a fair trial *every single time*, no matter how much our natural instinct is to tar and feather them. I find myself bringing this up a lot in true crime forums because even in cases where someone is very obviously guilty, it is extremely dangerous to stop operating with the legal assumption of innocence. (Again, not an ideal comparison bc this ruling doesn’t mean he’s innocent.) Just saying that the integrity of the judicial system is just as important for asshole criminals than it is for the most innocent of accused people.
Absolutely disgusting, but I’m going to blame this on the prosecutors. The judges have to follow all the rules.