re: Harvey Weinstein conviction overturned

I'm sure Weinstein ran an active casting couch, but that seems more like soliciting prostitution with rich career rewards than a case of rape.

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"including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case"

Honestly that sounds like more than just not following procedure or a minor mistake. It sounds like the judge allowed evidence in trial that should have never been allowed in. He'll still get found guilty at retrial.

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question for legal experts:

wouldn't allowing them to testify about this be considered testifying about his character?

Yep. No clue about New York but other bad acts can come into evidence if it meets certain criteria. If it was this guys MO to do this with ladies then decent chance it gets in. In LA anyway.

Fun fact. Gavin Newsome’s current wife got nailed by Harvey Weinstein on the casting couch to get acting parts.
Gavin had to follow Harvey. That has to hurt.

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If my daughter was one of his victims, that dude would be hanging from a bridge

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Most of the parents of the girls he abused probably offer them up to him.

allowing testimony from women for whom no charges were ever brought is effectively telling the jury "Old Harve has been doing this for years, so you ought to convict him of this one." the reputation of being a rapist is not evidence that he committed this rape, and the jury must base their decision on the evidence.

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question for legal experts:

wouldn't allowing them to testify about this be considered testifying about his character?

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I'm not an expert so perhaps an attorney can chime in here, but I seem to remember that there is a general prohibition against using past criminal convictions or allegations of bad behavior to prove current charges because the prejudicial aspect outweighs the value. For example if you were convicted of shoplifting 10 years ago and are now on trial for murder, the DA can't bring up your shoplifting charge.

There were/are some exceptions. For example if a person was convicted of robbing a bank in 1993 by cutting a hole in the roof and repelling down into the vault and was then re-arrested for bank robbery in 2007 by doing the same thing, you can't use the first bank robbery conviction in the current trial to argue that he was more likely to commit bank robbery but you could use it to show modus operandi - ie, he has experience cutting holes in the roof of banks so he definitely knew how to do this.

As to Weinstein, I seem to remember feminists getting huffed up about this rule because sexual assault crimes are notoriously difficult to bring and prove in court so they made an exception for sex assault claims. Now you can introduce "past sexual misbehavior" to prove current allegations under the theory "once a sexual deviant, always a sexual deviant". But I don't know the exact rules or whether you need an actual conviction to bring that in.

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So they get to do the trial a second time. Harvey may not ultimately have any relief at all.

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He still has a 13 year sentence in California to serve that's back to back with whatever he has in New York. Even if the NY case goes back to trial and he gets acquitted, he still dies in prison.

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All depends on the case and what one is trying to prove by using it.

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The fact that the 7 judges split 4-3 tells me that it depends far too much on interpretation.

When seven experienced legal scholars have a differing opinion on such a fundamental legal principle, it should be taken as a glowing neon sign that the language of the law needs to be refined. Lawmakers need to do better.