The state of New York Court of Appeals overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction on Thursday.
They ruled that the judge who oversaw Weinstein’s 2020 conviction made a crucial mistake in allowing the testimonies of other women whose accusations were not a part of the 2020 case, according to The Associated Press. The judgment was overturned by a single vote, according to The New York Times.
The court found the judge to be prejudiced, thereby compromising the integrity of the case as a whole.
“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,” the court said as part of their 4-3 decision, according to The Associated Press.
The next steps were laid out immediately.
“The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial,” they said.
The court noted, “It is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them,” according to the Associated Press.
This decision reopens the conversations that sparked the #MeTooMovement of 2017 and could mean that Weinstein’s accusers could be forced to re-live their experience on the witness stand once more.
Ashley Judd was among the first to comment on the new ruling. (RELATED: 90s Star Mira Sorvino Tears Up As She Says Turning Down Harvey Weinstein Stifled Her Career)
“That’s really hard for the survivors … We still live in our truth. And we know what happened” she said, according to The New York Times.
Weinstein will remain behind bars in spite of the 2020 charges being overturned, because he was convicted of another rape in Los Angeles in 2022, and is serving a 16-year sentence in prison in correlation with that charge, according to The Guardian.