Law lesson: Only call witnesses relevant to the charges in the case.The State of New York Court of Appeals overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction because the judge allowed testimony from women not connected to the charges.Weinstein claimed the court judged him on “irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts.”The appeals court agreed:
We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose. The court compounded that error when it ruled that defendant, who had no criminal history, could be cross examined about those allegations as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light. The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless. The only evidence against defendant was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury. On the other hand, the threat of a cross-examination highlighting these untested allegations undermined defendant’s right to testify. The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.
Weinstein received 23 years for “forcing oral sex on TV and film production assistant Mimi Haley in 2006 and third-degree rape of hairstylist Jessica Mann in 2013.”
Weinstein became the face of the #MeToo movement when a bunch of Hollywood ladies took him out with a huge expose in The New York Times.
The trial court jury acquitted Weinstein “of first-degree rape and two counts of predatory sexual assault from actor Annabella Sciorra’s allegations of rape in the ’90s.”
The court heavily cited People v. Molineux, a case decided in 1901. The prosecution used evidence implying Roland Molineux committed an earlier crime. Molineux’s attorneys appealed and the State of New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction:
How different is our own common law, which is the product of all the wisdom and humanity of all the ages. Under it the accused comes into a court of justice, panoplied in the presumption of innocence, which shields him until his guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt. His general character can be thrown into the balance by no one but himself. The incidents of his life, not connected with the crime charged, are his sacred possession. He faces his accuser in the light of a distinct charge, with the assurance that no other will be, or can be, proved against him.
The case resulted in the Molineux rule known as 4.21. Evidence of Crimes and Wrongs (Molineux):
(1) Evidence of crimes, wrongs, or other acts committed by a person is not admissible to prove that the person acted in conformity therewith on a particular occasion or had a propensity to engage in a wrongful act or acts. This evidence may be admissible when it is more probative than prejudicial to prove, for example:
motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, common scheme or plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake or accident, or conduct that is inextricably interwoven with the charged acts; or to provide necessary background information or explanation; or to complete the narrative of the subject event or matter.
(2) In a criminal proceeding, where the defendant interposes a defense, the People on rebuttal may prove the defendant’s commission of other crimes or wrongs when such crimes or wrongs are relevant and probative to disprove the defense.
Sorry. Law nerd. I blame law school.
The appeals court reaffirmed “that no person accused of illegality may be judged on proof of uncharged crimes that serve only to establish the accused’s propensity for criminal behavior.”
I love the conclusion: “The trial court’s ruling ran afoul of these time-honored rules of evidence.”
Judge Singas dissented, arguing the majority’s ruling “perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability.”
Except…the Molineux Rule is based on a case of a man convicted of MURDER. So, the courts cannot apply the rule in sexual cases? Is that what Singas is claiming?
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