In a surprising turn, New York's highest court on Thursday overturned the sex crimes conviction against Harvey Weinstein, prompting a new trial to be ordered.
The New York Court of Appeals found that the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren't part of the case.
"The error here that the highest court in New York found to be controlling and would lead to the new trial is that the trial judge allowed several women to testify who their particular claims were not part of the charging document," Lori Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, told KCBS Radio. "In other words, they were talking about all the other acts by Harvey Weinstein -- and that deterred Weinstein from testifying on his own behalf. So the justices in New York thought that that was unfair, that Weinstein should get a new trial."
Weinstein, 72, has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison following his 2020 conviction on charges of criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006, and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that he plans to retry the case, though it's not clear how long that could take.
Without the problematic testimony from uninvolved women, a new trial would presumably come down to just the alleged victim in the case, which Levinson said could definitely impact the outcome.
"I do think it was very convincing to the jury that this particular woman wasn't making up a story because there are several other women who had experienced the same thing, which is why in many courts that type of testimony is allowed," she said. "The question is when you have too many of those witnesses, whether they overshadow the testimony of the victim in that particular case."
Despite the ruling, Weinstein is not a free man. He will remain behind bars and could be extradited to Los Angeles, where he was convicted in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Authorities in New York may not even refile the case, Levinson explained, because of Weinstein's conviction in Los Angeles.
"The question is whether the New York authorities really even need to go forward with a new trial," she said. "Both of these cases were sort of safety nets for each other. I think the Los Angeles case was tried precisely because there was a concern that the New York case would be overturned."
The reversal of Weinstein's conviction is the second major #MeToo setback in the last two years, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court decision to throw out Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction.