New York's highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction.
The Court of Appeals found the trial judge made serious legal errors that unfairly prejudiced the disgraced filmmaker.
Weinstein's successful appeal is a blow to the #MeToo movement against powerful men who prey on vulnerable women, undoing one of its historic breakthrough moments.
What was Weinstein convicted of?
In February 2020, Weinstein was found guilty of the sexual assault of production assistant Mimi Haleyi, and the third-degree rape of actress Jessica Mann.
The trial heard evidence Weinstein – who made his name with films like The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love – was a serial predator who abused his status and power in Hollywood to manipulate women.
Haleyi said Weinstein invited her to an apartment in 2006, for what she thought was a meeting about her career. When she was there, she said, he pushed her onto a bed and forced oral sex on her.
Mann said Weinstein blocked her from leaving his hotel room, forced her to undress and raped her in 2013.
He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
He was acquitted on two counts of predatory sexual assault, though. Those offences carried a potential life sentence.
Weinstein's arrest, in 2018, followed Pulitzer-winning pieces in The New York Times and The New Yorker that exposed his alleged misconduct. More than 100 women have publicly aired allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein.
Why was the conviction overturned?
The court found the trial judge made an error by allowing several other women to testify against Weinstein, even though their assault claims were not part of the official case against him.
They included costume designer Dawn Dunning, model Tarale Wulff and actress Lauren Young. The three women all said Weinstein lured them to his room and attacked them.
Annabella Sciorra, an actress from The Sopranos, also testified during the trial. She said Weinstein barged into her apartment and raped her in the mid-1990s – too long ago to be charged.
The court ruled that, by allowing the extra witnesses to testify, the trial judge committed an "abuse of judicial discretion":
"Under our system of justice, the accused has a right to be held to account for the crime charged and, thus, allegations of bad prior acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality."
The trial judge made another error, the court found, by allowing the prosecution to cross-examine Weinstein about evidence of other past bad behaviour – things like throwing food and staplers at people, punching his brother at a business meeting and photoshopping an actress's head onto another woman's naked body without permission:
"Without question, this is appalling, shameful, repulsive conduct that could only diminish defendant's character before the jury. But [the legal precedent of] Sandoval does not legitimise destroying a defendant's character under the guise of prosecutorial need."
Facing cross-examination on those things, Weinstein decided not to take the stand in his defence, which "undermined the fact-finding process in this case", the court found.
Was it a unanimous decision?
No – this decision split the court 3-4.
One of the judges, Madeline Singas, wrote a passionate dissenting decision that included a warning:
"Men who serially sexually exploit their power over women – especially the most vulnerable groups in society – will reap the benefit of today's decision."
Judge Singas argued that a defendant's state of mind, including whether he knew someone was refusing consent, were often difficult to prove. Past evidence of assaults was relevant to his likely intentions:
"By ignoring the legal and practical realities of proving a lack of consent, the majority [of judges] has crafted a naïve narrative: that within the most fraught and intimate settings, intent is readily apparent, and issues of consent easily ascertained.
"This conclusion deprives juries of the context necessary to do their work, forecloses the prosecution from using an essential tool to prove intent, ignores the nuances of how sexual violence is perpetrated and perceived, and demonstrates the majority's utter lack of understanding of the dynamics of sexual assault.
"Because New York's women deserve better, I dissent."
So does Weinstein get out of jail?
No. But he'll probably be moved.
Weinstein is serving another sentence for raping another woman – Italian model-actress Evgeniya Chernyshova, who said Weinstein showed up at her hotel room during a 2013 film festival, talked his way inside and assaulted her.
He was convicted of that offence in 2022 in Los Angeles.
He's now expected to be transferred from New York to California to continue serving prison time there.
What happens now?
Weinstein is likely to face another trial.
The Manhattan district attorney's office said in a statement:
"We will do everything in our power to retry this case and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault."
A retrial would mean witnesses and alleged victim-survivors could be forced to relive their previous courtroom ordeals and give evidence again.
Meanwhile, Weinstein is hoping to overturn his other conviction, too, on the grounds the Californian jury was told about his previous conviction in New York.
An appeal in the California case is set for May 20.
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