If you’re upset that New York’s top court tossed Harvey Weinstein’s sex-crime💞s conviction, blame state Sen. Mike Gianaris.
The Queens Democrat and his progressive allies engineered the elevation of Rowan Wilson to the chief judgeship; after two other members of the Court of Appeals recused themselves in this case, Wilson chose the two “pinch-hitter” judges — and all three joined another lefty in issuing the 4-3 ruling tha🍬t rewrote New𒉰 York law to force a Weinstein retrial.
The state for a century had allowed prosecutors to bring witnesses to testify to the accused’s behavior in incidents not charged in the indictment, as the prosecution did in Weinstein’s trial; Wilson & Co. decided that’s unfair — so Harvey 𓆏may walk.
His lawyers will likely use the NY decision to contest his California conviction on sim𒅌ilar crimes.
And this is exactly the kind of result that Gianaris, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and their cabal said they wanted in the drama that led to Wilson’s elevation.
Gov. Hochul’s initial choice, Judge He𝓡ctor LaSalle, was too centrist for them; they insisted on a new chief judge who’d be sympathetic to progressive causes — which absol▨utely includes, though they didn’t spell it out then, creating new rights for accused criminals.
And so they orchestrated the assassination of the LaSalle nomination.
Hochul then opted for a risky “compromise” that included putting LaSalle in the to🍷p slot.
Yes, we were most focused on the implications for Gianaris & Co.’s gerrymandering drive — which the move indeed enabled; we guess we should’ve spoken up more about the other implications of the court-stacking move.
But the fact remains: This is likely only the first in a long string of Wilson-led decisions that will outrage most New Yorkers, writing the most outra💟geous progressive ideas into state law without the progs having to actually line up the votes in the Leg🌠islature to pass it.
The only way to start reversing the damage is to hold all elected Democrats to account for enabling the prog extreme — a🧔nd vote every possible one out of office, starting th♌is November.