The trial of former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is now underway in Los Angeles, greater than two years after he pleaded responsible in New York to 2 of 5 felony costs involving rape within the first diploma and rape within the third diploma.
Prosecutors have extradited Weinstein to Los Angeles to face a second trial, on the finish of which Weinstein, 70, may face an extra 100 years in jail if convicted of all costs. A 23-year jail sentence had already been imposed in opposition to Weinstein in New York in 2020, however that result’s at the moment being appealed by Weinstein’s attorneys primarily based on prosecutors’ overreach in the course of the trial.
Democratic Occasion-aligned supporters of the #MeToo marketing campaign undoubtedly noticed one other check as a possibility to place Weinstein and the #MeToo hashtags into the highlight on the eve of the midterm elections, throughout which Democratic candidates sought to safe votes as regular. Of. By pretending to be involved with the issues confronted by ladies. The trial has been featured prominently in nationwide information protection.
Nobody must consider that Weinstein is harmless as soon as once more for hating the sordid spectacle: ethical preaching of people that don’t have any enterprise, lecturing anybody about morality, all of actuality. Weinstein’s tending demon of proportion, and breathless reporting of probably the most graphic and, if we could also be blunt, typically unimaginable accusations.
Within the metropolis the place the trial is underway, Los Angeles, 1000’s of individuals sleep on the streets, dying each day from publicity to the weather, whereas officers watch in full indifference. The notorious Los Angeles Police Division commonly commits acts of ruthless violence in opposition to the poor and working-class inhabitants, whereas prosecutors commonly evade police accountability by refusing to convey felony costs in opposition to murderous cops.
The Los Angeles Metropolis Council, as uncovered by the just lately uncovered audio tapes, is a hotbed of racial prejudice and soiled factionalism. California’s jail inhabitants is roughly 100,000. If official figures are to be believed, almost the identical variety of Californians have died from COVID, together with 34,000 in Los Angeles County alone.
The fees in opposition to Weinstein within the Los Angeles trial embody 11 counts of rape and sexual assault involving 5 completely different ladies. At the very least one of many costs pertains to an incident that reportedly occurred 18 years in the past. As well as, two counts of indecent assault in opposition to a lady in London final June have been introduced in opposition to Weinstein by the Metropolitan Police, which may result in additional trial and attainable sentencing.
Weinstein pleaded not responsible to the fees introduced in opposition to him within the Los Angeles case. His attorneys declare he had “transactional” sexual encounters with the accusers, all aspiring Hollywood actresses and different distinguished leisure business figures. In different phrases, he alleged that he consented to have intercourse together with her in trade for his efforts to advance her profession. This conduct would nonetheless be an abuse of her place and a type of employment discrimination, however it could be an objectively much less crime than forcible rape, which Weinstein denies.
One other sobering characteristic of the Los Angeles case is the prescribed testimony of Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the spouse of present California Governor Gavin Newsom, and a documentary filmmaker and actress, who alleged that Weinstein raped her in 2004 and 2005.
Weinstein’s lawyer intends to question Siebel Newsom with proof that he emailed Weinstein two years after the alleged assault, asking for his assist navigating a intercourse scandal involving Gavin Newsom, referred to as Siebel. Newsom was relationship on the time, and the spouse of his marketing campaign supervisor. The First Woman of California additionally introduced her future husband to a celebration hosted by Weinstein after the alleged assault, elevating additional doubts concerning the credibility of her allegations.
In an opinion editorial for Huffington PublishIn , written 12 years after the alleged assault by Weinstein, Siebel Newsom described being victimized by Weinstein, however avoided claiming forcible rape, as an alternative describing her as making “aggressive advances”. “I used to be naive, new to the business, and did not know easy methods to cope with its aggressive advances,” she wrote, “describing a gathering on the Peninsula Lodge, the place the workers was current after which like clockwork. Immediately disappeared, leaving me alone with this extraordinarily highly effective and intimidating Hollywood legend.”
With no DNA proof out there and no police report being filed by the 5 accused instantly after the alleged incidents, the case was “settled” a number of years after the very fact, she stated. Just like the New York trial, prosecutors are trying to handle the weak point of their case, which has flooded the courtroom with allegations of different alleged, former “dangerous acts” by Weinstein, alleged sexual misconduct. exhibits a bent to interact in
It’s a basic authorized precept that proof that an individual has engaged in a specific conduct on one event isn’t proof that that individual has engaged in that conduct on one other particular event. In any other case, proof that Weinstein attacked one girl would in itself be ample proof that he attacked a thousand or 1,000,000 ladies. Moreover, when the “prior dangerous acts” themselves are disputed, the presumption that the “prior dangerous acts” outweigh the brand new “dangerous acts” turn into round.
It’s noteworthy that in California, the precise authorized provision being enforced by prosecutors was California Proof Code Part 1108, a measure written by right-wing Republicans within the mid-Nineties. That clause makes an exception to the overall prohibition on the usage of such proof, permitting it for use in a intercourse offense prosecution, even when the alleged prior “dangerous acts” have been by no means truly confirmed.
The identical heavy-handed prosecution technique was used in the course of the New York trial that resulted in his conviction, however Weinstein’s attorneys are actually interesting it as a violation of his elementary proper to a good trial.
Weinstein’s attorneys tried to delay the Los Angeles trial till after the advertising marketing campaign surrounding the movie. he stated. Set to launch on November 18, the movie claims to chronicle the occasions surrounding the preliminary new York Instances Investigating Weinstein’s habits. With an identical investigation printed in new yorker and written by disgraced journalist Ronan Farrow, the Instances Peace is believed to be the beginning of the so-called #MeToo marketing campaign in September 2017.
Decide Lisa Lench denied Weinstein’s request to delay the trial, however suggested the jury to not see the movie’s trailer and to keep away from all advertising for the upcoming movie. Nevertheless, because the jury won’t be forfeited in the course of the proceedings, the impact of this “advisory” is simply to attract the eye of the jurors to the movie.
The Los Angeles case has already been delayed for 2 years, partly due to well being points surrounding Weinstein, who was contaminated with COVID-19 whereas incarcerated in 2020. If her attorneys are to be believed, she is affected by problems of diabetes and is now nearly blind.
5 years after the launch of the #MeToo sexual witch hunt with allegations in opposition to Weinstein, it’s attainable to construct an goal steadiness sheet. A whole lot of lives and careers have been ruined primarily based on baseless allegations, reiterated advert nauseam By a grimy and cruel media. The slogan “Consider the Accused” was coined to degree the notion of innocence and silence skeptics.
Apart from the fees in opposition to Invoice Cosby (whose trial was ongoing earlier than the #MeToo marketing campaign started), hardly any costs have ever been confirmed in court docket. As an alternative, when a number of allegations reached court docket, resembling within the circumstances of Kevin Spacey, Johnny Depp, and Geoffrey Rush, they didn’t become true—or no less than, the case didn’t become black and white.
This was additionally true of the case in opposition to Weinstein, which was a lot weaker in court docket than the newspapers. Whereas Weinstein was for years forged because the embodiment of Devil, whose conduct justified the beginning of all the #MeToo sexual witch hunt, when the case lastly got here to court docket in New York, one journalist not solely expressed “affordable suspicion” described, somewhat a “mountain of doubts” that had emerged by the top of the proceedings as as to whether the actual Weinstein was actually responsible of lots of the particular issues he alleged.
In the meantime, figures resembling Donald Trump, Invoice Clinton and Joe Biden have usually remained unafraid of a media-controlled marketing campaign, with the allegations in opposition to them dismissed and ignored. Nor has the #MeToo marketing campaign recorded any obvious change within the circumstances confronted by working-class ladies.
As an alternative, the #MeToo stampede was usually confined to the extra privileged layers within the academia, amongst company professionals, authorities officers, and Hollywood and the information media, the place real accusations pushed accusers into positions of higher energy, wealth and affect. Competed with the fees leveled for delivering. , A brand new phrase got here into the dictionary: When somebody was destroyed by a retaliatory and baseless sexual allegation, the individual was stated to have been “metood.”
In some circumstances, victims of #MeToo have been impressed to take their very own lives, as within the tragic case of Benny Fredriksson, husband of famed Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sophie von Otter. Within the Weinstein case, filmmaker Jill Messick dedicated suicide in 2018 after a barrage of on-line assaults was launched in opposition to her, as soon as emails surfaced by which she was shot by Weinstein’s subsequent alleged rape-turned-actress Rose McGowan. accounts have been denied.
It must also be stated that within the Weinstein circumstances, media protection has not been with out moments of anti-Semitic moments.
Particularly in gentle of the trials involving Johnny Depp and Kevin Spacey, it appears just like the marketing campaign has misplaced momentum and individuals are coming to their senses. a current column in new York Instances Bitterly lamented the shortage of “throughout the board exile” for males accused of misconduct.
Weinstein’s habits might have been reprehensible, there isn’t any progressive cause to help efforts to revive the #MeToo sexual witch hunt and its notorious strategies: blasting folks with baseless allegations, mob-by-mob mob lynching, innocence Changing the notion of guilt, and unilateral trial by which public prosecutors are free to curtail all rights of the accused.
As for Weinstein himself, the entire affair demonstrates the corrupt state of affairs within the leisure business managed by highly effective capitalist pursuits, whereby probably the most intimate types of bodily relations between individuals are known as “transactions”. could be taken. Weinstein is much from distinctive in that regard. The identical “casting sofa” phenomenon is a truth of life, in some type or one other, wherever capitalism and social inequality have inevitably and inevitably been created by that system.
Weinstein’s repute in Hollywood and Democratic Occasion circles was an open secret till a few years earlier than the #MeToo marketing campaign started. Weinstein personally donated 1000’s of {dollars} to Democratic Occasion candidates earlier than falling from grace and hosted a celebration for Hillary Clinton in 2000. Clinton aides have been warned about Weinstein’s habits previous to the launch of the #MeToo marketing campaign, however the Clinton marketing campaign nonetheless acknowledged his donation and struck a cope with him to advertise his 2016 presidential marketing campaign anyway. .
