There's a rule that you can't put on evidence of prior "bad acts" to prove that a defendant committed the specific bad acts he's being tried for in the present case.
It's not that such evidence is completely irrelevant; it's that it's unduly prejudicial to the defendant. Such evidence tends to poison the jury against the defendant well out of proportion to the actual light it sheds on the current crime being judged at trial.
But that's what the state of New York did to get their conviction. They had some weak evidence of rape in cases where the statute of limitations hadn't run out yet, so they put on evidence from other women claiming they'd been raped (in cases where the statute of limitations had run out).
I'm not even sure how this was allowed in the first place. I assume (I haven't read much about the case) that they used the special and often-abused exemption to the "no prior bad acts" rule, the "signature" exception. Prosecutors will sometimes claim that a method of committing a crime is so specific to one individual that it constitutes a "signature" in the modus operandi, and can then put on witnesses who testify about the same M.O. being used in crimes against them.
It's often a weak and bullshitty exception: "The bank robbers wore ski masks and gloves, that's a signature." Okay it doesn't usually get that transparent, but you can see the way this rule can abused, and where a judge will allow "signature" evidence in a case The Regime is desperate to win.
Another exception, which seems to be the one used in this case, is to claim you're not putting on these witnesses to prove his prior bad acts, but to shed light on his state-of-mind he had when committing the acts he's on trial for.
The prosecution put on three witnesses to accuse Weinstein of prior rape, and claimed they weren't presenting this evidence just to show he's generally a rapist, but to prove that his state in mind in the current case was one of intent to commit a sexual assault. That is, it wasn't just a mistake where he misread the woman's level of interest in him.
But I mean, come on: You can't tell the jury "don't consider this testimony as evidence that he committed the current crime, just consider it as far as his state-of-mind." That's telling people to put the information in a special vault in their brain that they cannot access except to answer one particular question. No one's brain works like that, not even the brain of Noted "Compartmentalizer" Bill Clinton.
The toxic Regime will let every criminal out of jail to pacify one constituency. Then, when another constituency must be appeased, they'll change the rules and start presenting/allowing evidence that is plainly out-of-bounds just to convict one guy. The Regime is controlled by people who are all suffering from untreated moral breakdowns, permanently on tilt, and eager to suspend the law or change the law to to satisfy whatever moral panic they're currently in. (Trump can tell you all about that.)
Any trial that makes the news is now a political trial.
Weinstein is still in jail over a 2023 conviction for a rape in California.
Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction has been overturned by the New York Court of Appeals.
On Thursday, the court found in a 4-3 ruling that the judge in Weinstein's trial -- a landmark moment in the #MeToo movement that the 2017 allegations against him started -- had shown prejudice by allowing women to testify about allegations that were not part of the case. The court has now ordered a new trial.
Weinstein, the Oscar-winning producer of "Shakespeare in Love" and "Good Will Hunting," is serving a 23-year sentence at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Rome, N.Y. He will remain imprisoned as he was also convicted of rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and sentenced to an additional 16 years in prison. However, Weinstein was acquitted in the Los Angeles trial on charges involving a woman who testified in his New York case.
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"We reaffirm that no person accused of illegality may be judged on proof of uncharged crimes that serve only to establish the accused's propensity for criminal behavior," wrote Judge Jenny Rivera in the court's majority opinion. "It is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant's character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them."
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Judge Madeline Singas wrote in the court's dissenting opinion, "With today's decision, this Court continues to thwart the steady gains survivors of sexual violence have fought for in our criminal justice system. Forgotten are the women who bear the psychological trauma of sexual violence and the scars of testifying again, and again. This erosion of precedent, born from a refusal to accept that crimes of sexual violence are far more nuanced and complex than other crimes, comes at the expense and safety of women."
This is always the pitch: We have to break the rules to convict this defendant for political reasons.
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At oral argument in February, Aidala maintained that Justice James Burke had stacked the deck against Weinstein by allowing three women -- Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff and Lauren Young -- to testify against him.
Each of the women told the jury that Weinstein had sexually assaulted them after they showed up for what they thought would be a business meeting. The so-called "Molineux" witnesses were called to show that Weinstein's assaults had a common pattern, and that he was not confused about whether or not the victims consented.
Weinstein's defense argued that the effect of the testimony, however, was to attack his character without shedding any light on the allegations for which he was actually charged.
"This is major prejudice," Aidala argued in February. "It's saying, 'He's a bad guy. He's a bad guy. He's a bad guy.'"
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The issue of "prior bad acts" testimony was also raised in Bill Cosby's successful appeal of his sexual assault conviction in Pennsylvania. In that case, five women were allowed to testify to buttress the one allegation that was charged. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned that conviction on different grounds, finding that prosecutors had reneged on a promise not to prosecute Cosby.