Harvey Weinstein conviction overturned in New York
 

Any surprises here?!

Courts overturned the death penalty for the vermin Boston Marathon bomber as well.

Weinstein is a turd but to this day I feel less empathy for those same ‘victim’ actors/actresses that praised him while accepting their various industry awards yet were just as complicit in the cover up

Doesn't matter much, since he's in jail for his convictions in California.

It does matter. He was convicted because he was guilty. The state will now have to use resources to retry him. But additionally it hamstrings other prosecutions of this kind of assault. Judge Madeline Singas put it well in her disent: "In a scathing dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and that the appeals court was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote.

“This conclusion deprives juries of the context necessary to do their work, forecloses the prosecution from using any 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,” she concluded."

Singas should be thrown off the bench, for writing such a ludicrous dissent. The issue at hand had nothing to do with politics, nor some folks notion that women aren't capable of standing up for themselves ... or the opposite, using their physical or sexually desirability to obtain an "edge".

The appeal was procedural in nature (as most are) and the original trial judge fell victim to the exact same political bias that effects Singas.

This is the 2nd hit the MeToo movement has taken recently and there are more to come. Perpetuating the myth that women are vulnerable and helpless, is simply another misguided notion the woke would like to perpetuate.

Sorry, but women are weaker than men.

Most of them are A Okay because most men are decent. For which most women used to be grateful. Many still are, & when we finally get through this weird phase they will be again.

As to the 2 hits, both are misguided. They are procedural, but both men: Cosby & Weinstein are not decent men.

Now, if you want to talk about (especially in Weinstein's case) how many women went along to further their careers, that is a different topic/thread (& one I'm not sure I want to discuss, I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm rather sure it did).

Just follow the MONEY… you know who he donated to right?

Physically perhaps.

& if Cosby and Weinstein used physical violence, that's a huge leap from "coercing".

In way too many of these cases, the fact that accused was a philander or womanizer is introduced into evidence, unrelated to the specific events they're on trial for. Unfair.

get through this weird phase?

IMO the weird phase going to get worst, way worst.:shocked:

Facts should matter along with fairness and not procedural nitpicking.

As a previous response to this post alluded, appeals are not most often a matter of procedure, but ALWAYS. At least that’s what I learned in law school. The facts of a case are NEVER retried on appeal. What may be argued on appeal is whether, as a matter of law, certain facts were allowed into evidence erroneously or in error. A procedural error.

Not to be argumentative, I am just curious what you believe to be the correct punishment for Cosby & Weinstein, or are you saying there should be no punishment at all?

NO means Yes again !

Ok. Retyping the article means nothing. It’s in Ca and way more people are complicit.

Perhaps you should re-read what I wrote.

I didn't mention guilt or innocence, I said they're both entitled to a fair trial and hearsay evidence of their proclivities, unrelated to the crimes they were on trial for, are irrelevant.

Women and men, have used they're "positions" and "attributes" to get what they want, forever. It's not illegal, until politics, societal prejudices or organized pressure groups are introduced into the equation.

They are sending him to California to serve his 16 year sentence there. The New York times annotated the decision here pretty well which explains the legality of the decision. The Harvey Weinstein Appeal Ruling: Annotated and Explained - The New York Times

What are you worried about, he is still in prison in California!

He was convicted in New York and California but he is in prison in New York.

I was not aware of this.

Gov. Gavin Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, testified at the Los Angeles trial that Weinstein raped her in 2005.

So I guess we should no longer “ believe all women”? The #metoo movement was an artificially manufactured fraud to foment cultural and social unrest just like other causes of a certain ideology.

Too many rich and powerful in that list. They can't set the precedence of actually jailing them so...

Weinstein
 

Leave it to those stupid New York City judges to continually usurp the Constitution and make bad decisions. Somewhere I refuse to visit.

I agree, much ado about nothing. Certainly appears there WAS major legal procedural errors, and I am happy that those were not just ignored because THAT can effect ALL of us, not just in this case where most of us take a very low view of this individual. HOWEVER, I for one believe he will die in prison regardless of this decision. The MEDIA seems to be the SCREAMING this headline and of course know a LOT Of the public will just assume this means he's "off free" !

Take a look at the dissent. She gets it.

Those that have money and influence seem to get away with their crimes.

Women have been taken advantage of by men for decades and no one really cares. It always becomes a "he said" "she said" and the one with the money and power wins.

Allegations without convictions shouldn’t have been admitted.
The Judge was wrong. Thank God for Appellate Courts & the Supremes.
Weinstein is still in jail as sentenced on other charges. Good decision to overturn.
Filthy Defendant, but Court should follow the law; our Courts need cleaning. In most States you only have to be a lawyer for five years & you can run for a bench. Some Judges aren’t even lawyers - no law school (Constitutional Judges in TX).
You just have to get those ballots in; no test needed & you can be a Judge.

"If" they used physical violence? Hello? Clearly, some people remain vastly under informed about the filthy and criminal conduct of those two.

Would you deem drugging women into unconsciousness and then having sex with their passed-out bodies to be physical violence? That was psychopathic Cosby. He did that to many women, over years.

Weinstein? He's a serial rapist too. At least one woman went to police after he had done so and presumably gotten a rape kit taken as well. Well, how convenient, the Manhattan DA at the time, Cyrus Vance Jr, just happened to decide that there "wasn't enough to charge Weinstein" so, he didn't. A few weeks later, Weinstein's law firm sent the Vance re-election campaign a $30,000 donation.

How many times did that happen, we all wonder? There's non-justice for you! That's what big shots do -- cover for each other and make pay-offs.

Weinstein also RUINED careers of some women who rebuffed him and got away before he could accost them. That's what happened to Mira Sorvino. Harvey called director, Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) and trashed Mira to him, whom Jackson was considering for an upcoming role. He didn't hire her based on lies Weinstein spewed. Jackson publicly admitted it after Harvey got busted - he was embarrassed and apologized to her. But, how many other Directors did HW go out of his way to influence in order to ruin her career? Obviously, there were others b/c she got no work for years. That's how filthy that guy is.

How does she, and the other women he did that to, get recourse for that, Brian? Financial and otherwise?

Wow, much confusion there ^^^ and VERY low information. Like so many others.

Nicely put.

I recall my younger brother would make jokes about Bill Cosby when my brother still lived and worked in Reno, Nevada. He could get a lot of the gossip going around while working at the Reno airport renting cars.

I did not get the jokes. Then.

Then wonder why Oscar Lopez Rivera was pardoned?

Well, color me completely not shocked about this. The overturning of the Weinstein conviction was engineered by politicians and judges. You may call them FOH (Friends of Harvey).

From article: If you’re upset that New York’s top court tossed Harvey Weinstein’s sex-crimes conviction, blame state Sen. Mike Gianaris.

The Queens Democrat and his progressive allies engineered the elevation of Rowan Wilson to the chief judgeship; after two other members of the Court of Appeals recused themselves in this case, Wilson chose the two “pinch-hitter” judges — and all three joined another lefty in issuing the 4-3 ruling that rewrote New York law to force a Weinstein retrial.

The state for a century had allowed prosecutors to bring witnesses to testify to the accused’s behavior in incidents not charged in the indictment, as the prosecution did in Weinstein’s trial; Wilson & Co. decided that’s unfair — so Harvey may walk.

His lawyers will likely use the NY decision to contest his California conviction on similar crimes.

And this is exactly the kind of result that Gianaris, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and their cabal said they wanted in the drama that led to Wilson’s elevation.
Blame NY progressives for the outrageous Harvey Weinstein ruling

Paging BrianL99 - How about answering the questions posed in comment #28?

If you have an hour, you can watch the Weinstein appellate arguments in the NY Supreme Court. It is very interesting.

https://youtu.be/GQUD3pEKv4w?si=D8g_erA_afs_APev

There are currently seven judges on the court (four women and three men) but for some reason, two women judges didn't participate in the decision. It looks like the court asked for two other women judges to participate in this decision.

The decision was 4-3. Three women and one man voted to reverse the conviction. That decision was written by a woman. The three dissenting votes were one woman and two men. The dissent was written by a woman.

So the vote was three women and one man voting to reverse the conviction and one woman and two men voting to uphold the conviction. The women judges voted 3-1 in favor of reversal and the men judges voted 2-1 in favor of convicting him.

Does that say anything about the MeToo movement?

I think you're trying to front some theory that the gender of judges is more relevant than their expertise in the law, regarding court outcomes. I don't agree with the premise.

It was almost entirely lost in media coverage that THREE judges voted against this overturn. That should be a red flag to any rational person. I started laughing when I saw the ratio of 4/3 and immediately figured HW and his lawyers wrangled that outcome - it's the Harvey way.

If the info put forth in that linked NY Post article is accurate, that's exactly what they did. Stacked the court for the outcome they wanted. That's "justice" in America.

I am not trying to front some theory on gender. I am just pointing out the sex of the judges that made the decision.

However, some people have said that we need more women on the courts so that they courts can better understand women. I was a bit surprised that the women on the court were less sympathetic to the victims (all women) than the men were.

In fact, the dissent said "because New York’s women deserve better, I dissent.”

One of the men in his dissent stated "Rooted in centuries of deeply patriarchal and misogynistic legal tradition, progress toward a more enlightened and evidence-based approach to the prosecution of rape and related crimes perpetrated predominantly against women has been both challenging and sporadic, with most meaningful progress achieved only over the past 50 years."

I would not expect three women would vote in favor of a "deeply patriarchal and misogynistic legal tradition" and against an "enlightened and evidence based approach to the prosecution of rape."

Thanks for the details. I will only repeat what appears to be the unsurprising case here: STACKED court.

(Just like Congress is stacked, many state Governors, AGs and legislators, Boards of large corporations and on and on. Not starting a verboten political dialogue; just making a valid point.)