Harvey Weinstein Turns Himself In

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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11 Responses

  1. Pinky says:

    Question for any lawyers: would you petition for a bench trial?Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Pinky says:

      Jury selection? Oh, my gosh. That’d turn the trial into the Simpson trial all over again.

      Would you want to explain to the judge that you’d like to excuse a female juror because she said that she’s received an unwanted sexual advance at work? Like, out loud? In front of the other potential jurors?

      If the dice rolled in such a way that you used peremptories only on female jurors, how would that play?

      Yeah, you pretty much *HAVE* to go for a bench trial.Report

    • LeeEsq in reply to Pinky says:

      It’s a tricky question. Selecting a jury for either side is going to be difficult for the political reasons Jay said. At the same time, judges aren’t immune to political pressure either. Judges have come under a lot of scrutiny recently for lenient sentencing in rape cases. A bench trial might not be all that different strategically because of the political moment.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Pinky says:

      As I understand it, you’re supposed to push for a bench trial if you think your legal position is stronger than your public image. How bad would Weinstein’s legal case have to be for him to prefer a jury? Although I guess there’s always the possibility that you could pick up one juror in a he-said-she-said kind of case and get a mistrial.

      Maybe they should just get Meryl Streep to give the closing. She could call him an artist of the caliber of Roman Polanski. That could get twelve people to vote Not Guilty, right?

      I guess that’s what I keep coming back to. Twelve not guilties. What do you have to do to get that?Report

  2. Oscar Gordon says:

    I have little faith that the system will do more than slap him on the wrist. He’ll either take a weak plea, or he’ll skate out of a trial with an acquittal, or only convicted on minor charges.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      I don’t see what advantages he has. I believe that more than half of all rape trials end with the accused serving time, and there are likely to be a lot of counts. What’s your cutoff number for considering the system to have failed? (No pun intended with the word “cutoff”, although you can make a good argument that that would be justified too.)Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

        Cosby needed two trials to get a conviction, and he drugged his victims. Weinstein never drugged anyone, or used violence, or even threatened violence. He just threatened careers and livelihood. I don’t trust a jury to see that as ‘really rape’, rather than just being a colossal dick.Report

        • Murali in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

          We watched and loved cosby on TV. I wouldn’t remember Harvey Weinstein’s name except for the scandal. I don’t usually pay attention to who the producer of the movie is. And even if I remembered the name, I wouldn’t have any attachment to it. I suspect that most people wouldn’t either.

          In order for someone to say guilty for people like Cosby and Clinton, you have to overcome resistance to the idea that their hero could do such a horrible thing. Weinstein is not in the same position. He is not anyone’s hero.

          It is true that Harvey Weinstein has put a lot of women on the casting couch. But it does not follow that casting couch is all that he has done. The charges here are specifically about rape. It may very well turn out in the trial that given testimony and other evidence presented, something worse than the casting couch happened. So, even if everyone was inclined to regard* casting couch as assholery not amounting to rape, the specificity and the narrowness of the charges, where only one person is accusing him of rape and another of forcing her to perform oral sex (as opposed to what it might be if every hollywood actress who he had put on the couch had brought a charge against him) that the case is much stronger.

          *I’m not saying that they would be correct in doing so, but I’m granting that Oscar has a better grasp of what a likely jury will think about the casting couch.Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    California is not New York.

    That said:

    The Los Angeles County District Attorney and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office both confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that they have rejected Terry Crews’ sexual assault case against William Morris Endeavor agent Adam Venit.

    A representative for the Los Angeles City Attorney said that “the matter was rejected because it was beyond the statute of limitations.”

    Report