Harvey Weinstein’s conviction was just overturned. What does that mean for #MeToo?

By Mike Bebernes

On May 4, 2024

What’s happening

Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein will face a new trial on sex crimes charges, prosecutors in New York City revealed on Wednesday, one week after the state’s highest court overturned his previous rape conviction.

In 2017, accusations of sexual abuse against Weinstein, once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, helped turn the #MeToo movement into a massive cultural force that inspired women across the country to speak out against abuse and harassment they routinely face — along with the systems that allowed that mistreatment to go unchecked.

Roughly 100 women have accused Weinstein of some form of sexual misconduct, including using his powerful position in the film industry to coerce them into sex, unsolicited sexual advances and rape. Weinstein denies all of these allegations. In 2020, he was found guilty on two counts of sexual assault in New York and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

But last week, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that those convictions must be thrown out on the grounds that he had not had a fair trial. In a narrow 4-3 decision, the court found that the judge had allowed impermissible testimony from women who had accused Weinstein of assault, but weren’t in any way connected to the incidents at the center of the trial. In the view of the appeals court judges, that testimony violated a well-established legal principle that essentially states that defendants must only be judged on the specific acts they’ve been charged with, not their general behavior.

The court’s decision does not mean Weinstein, who is facing serious health issues, will walk free. He’s expected to remain in custody ahead of the new trial. Weinstein also faces a 16-year sentence for rape in California, which was not affected by the ruling in New York.

Why there’s debate

While many legal analysts believe the court’s reasoning for throwing out Weinstein’s conviction was correct on the merits, the decision still came as a stunning blow to his accusers and supporters of the #MeToo movement more broadly.

“This … is an act of institutional betrayal,” said actor Ashley Judd, who was among the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct. In the eyes of many commentators, the overturned conviction shows that, despite the massive “reckoning” that consumed the country several years ago, the structures that allow powerful men to victimize women are still very much in place. Some also expressed concern that the ruling will make it harder to hold abusers accountable by limiting prosecutors’ ability to establish a “pattern of behavior” that is often needed to overcome the “credibility gap” that individual accusers often face.

But others are more hopeful. They argue that one case, tossed out on what many see as justifiable procedural grounds, in no way invalidates the transformative influence the #MeToo movement has had on our culture. “When survivors everywhere broke their silence in 2017, the world changed,” the Silence Breakers, a group of Weinstein survivors, wrote in a statement. Some add that the ultimate purpose of #MeToo was never to put one man behind bars, but to shed light on the pervasive treatment of women across our society and push our culture toward a consensus that sexual victimization should not be tolerated — goals they argue the movement has unequivocally accomplished.

What’s next

Weinstein’s next hearing in New York is scheduled for the end of this month and prosecutors say the retrial could begin as soon as September. Weinstein’s lawyers are also appealing his California conviction. But California law expressly allows the exact kind of testimony that was ruled inadmissible in New York, making their odds of success much slimmer, legal experts say.

Perspectives

This case makes clear that the power structures #MeToo aimed to dismantle are still standing

“For a moment, it seemed like there was a possibility for real change — that survivors were going to be listened to, whether in the courtroom or in our daily lives. Instead, our reality is that these wins will be short-lived. … All that this proves is that with enough money and the drive to keep going, justice will bend in your favor.” — Sara Pequeño, USA Today

Nothing about this case changes what the movement has accomplished

“Because the brave women in this case broke their silence, millions and millions and millions of others found the strength to come forward and do the same. That will always be the victory. This doesn’t change that. And the people who abuse their power and privilege to violate and harm others will always be the villain. This doesn’t change that.” — Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement

This ruling makes it harder for women to come forward and expect justice

“The overturning of Weinstein’s conviction sends a disheartening message that even when survivors find the courage to speak out and a jury finds their abuser guilty, their voices can still be silenced, and their experiences called into question. Even years later, even after it seemed like the hard part was over. In other words, it’s never over.” — Laura Sinko, Philadelphia Inquirer

Weinstein’s legal victory is a major win for the anti-#MeToo backlash

“His overturned conviction is a symbolic milestone, a marker of the dramatic re-entrenchment of legal and institutional misogyny in our own era, and a reminder of how horribly the feminist ambitions of the late-2010s have been betrayed.” — Moira Donegan, Guardian

Nothing can derail the progress that the movement is still working toward

“Every time there’s a setback, we hear the same thing: that people will not come forward now. And every time they do. … This effort to end sexual violence is something that is ongoing, [and] we can’t unsee the things that we’ve seen.” — Anita Hill, professor of social policy and law at Brandeis University, to Vanity Fair

It may not feel like it right now, but things really have gotten better

“For survivors who continue to confront high barriers to belief, it might well feel like the system is destined not to deliver justice. Yet there is reason to believe in the promise of accountability. As collective understandings of sexual misconduct evolve, so too does our ability to fairly judge the credibility of accusers. Although progress is halting and maddeningly slow, trials such as Weinstein’s help bust the myth of the perfect victim.” — Deborah Tuerkheimer, CNN

Abusers deserve to be punished, but warping the justice system is not the way to get there

“Even bad men deserve justice, even creeps like Harvey Weinstein. The justice system cannot be a casualty of women’s just wrath at the past sins of powerful men.” — Melanie McDonagh, Evening Standard

This case highlights how the law is lagging behind our culture when it comes to sexual abuse

“Put bluntly: Our court system has not fully caught up to culture when it comes to understanding sexual violence.” — Jessica Bennett, New York Times

This piece was republished from Yahoo News.