In a significant ruling, New York’s highest court overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction on Thursday. The court determined that the trial judge had improperly allowed women to testify about allegations against the former movie mogul that were not part of the case. This decision reverses a landmark ruling from the #MeToo era, which began in 2017 with numerous allegations against Weinstein.
Despite the reversal, Weinstein, 72, will remain in prison due to a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles in 2022. However, the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has signaled its intention to retry Weinstein, which means his accusers may have to retell their stories on the witness stand.
The state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 23-year sentence in a 4-3 decision, finding that the trial court had erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants. The court’s majority called this “an abuse of judicial discretion.” In a dissenting opinion, Judge Madeline Singas argued that the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, called the ruling “a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York.” Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney’s office stated that they would “do everything in our power to retry this case.”
Attorney Douglas H. Wigdor, who represented eight Harvey Weinstein accusers, including two witnesses at the New York criminal trial, described the ruling as “a major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence.” Debra Katz, a prominent civil rights and #MeToo attorney who represented several Weinstein accusers, said her clients feel “gutted” by the ruling but believe their testimony has changed the world.
The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction marks the second major setback for the #MeToo movement in the last two years, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal of a decision to throw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.