ALBANY, NY – New York lawmakers could soon change the legal standard that allowed Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction to be overturned, with momentum building behind a bill to strengthen sexual assault prosecutions after the disgraced mogul’s case. of cinema has been archived.
The state’s highest court late last month threw out Weinstein’s conviction in a ruling that said a trial judge unfairly allowed women to testify about allegations that were not part of their criminal charges.
Two weeks later, lawmakers are advancing a bill that would allow courts to admit evidence that a defendant in a sex crimes case has committed other sex crimes, while also giving the judge the discretion to prohibit such testimony if it would create “undue prejudice” against a defendant. .
“In sexual assault cases, which typically rely on survivor testimony, it is essential and critical. This allows the perpetrator’s pattern of behavior to be presented in court,” Rep. Amy Paulin, a Democrat sponsoring the bill, said at a rally for the legislation in New York City on Thursday.
New York allows such evidence to be used in some cases, such as to prove a common motive or scheme, although supporters of the bill, who include the state Senate’s deputy leader, have said the current rule needs clarification following the ruling. Weinstein.
Paulin said 16 other states have similar laws, as does the federal government.
Weinstein, 72, has denied the New York allegations. He is accused of raping an aspiring actor in 2013 and sexually assaulting a production assistant in 2006. His conviction in 2020 was a key moment in the #MeToo movement, a reckoning with sexual misconduct in American society.
New York prosecutors are seeking a new trial for Weinstein in September. The former film executive was also convicted of rape in California and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He is currently imprisoned in New York.
The project drew initial criticism from the Legal Aid Society. Amanda Jack, the group’s policy director, said the proposal is overly broad and “will move us so far away from any sense of justice and due process that it must be rejected as a dangerous bane of our criminal trials system.”
Heather Ellis Cucolo, a professor at New York Law School, said admitting such evidence requires delicate consideration by the court but can help jurors in sexual assault cases where two people give conflicting accounts of an incident.
“It’s incredibly difficult to evaluate the evidence when he said she said, so the whole purpose of using prior bad acts is to show that this is a pattern. This is something this person did to other victims,” she said.
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