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The decision about whether to retry someone is complicated by a number of factors, says Daniel Medwed, Northeastern distinguished professor of law and criminal justice.
The New York Court of Appeals overturned convicted rapist and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges Thursday, paving the way for a new trial.
The state’s highest court threw out the conviction, citing improper testimony from witnesses whose assault claims were not linked to the charges.
“Under our system of justice, the accused has a right to be held to account only for the crime charged and, thus, allegations of prior bad acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality,” the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said it will retry Weinstein, meaning his accusers may again be called to testify — reopening wounds that became the focus a seminal #MeToo-era case.
Weinstein, 72, who was convicted in a 2022 California rape case, is serving a 16-year sentence and remains in prison.
Given his advanced age and the parallel rape sentence, should he be retried in New York?
The decision is complicated by a number of factors, such as the likelihood of securing a conviction, the purpose it would serve, and whether it would be a good use of government resources, says Daniel Medwed, Northeastern distinguished professor of law and criminal justice.
“While I imagine there is still a high likelihood of conviction if he were retried, there are real questions about whether it is in the best interest of New York, given his lingering sentence on the California conviction and his age and poor health,” Medwed tells Northeastern Global News.
Medwed says the government’s “belt-and-suspenders approach” — coming at the case from all possible angles — may have imperiled the outcome.
“Instead of relying largely on the three main complaining witnesses, the DA sought to bring in evidence of other bad acts from different witnesses which mainly served to suggest that Weinstein had a propensity for this bad behavior — and the evidence rules frown on that type of ‘propensity evidence,’” he says. “To be sure, the fault lies mainly with the trial judge for letting the evidence in; it is hard to blame the DA for trying to bolster its case.”
A retrial, Medwed says, wouldn’t have any bearing on the ongoing prosecution of former President Donald Trump, who is also being tried in Manhattan. Trump faces several charges.
“I don’t see any bearing on Trump except the judge might be mindful at trial about not letting in prior bad actors evidence given that this is a strong indication of how the New York Court of Appeals feels about the topic,” Medwed says.
“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said, according to CNN.