9 jurors have been picked Wednesday on the second day of jury choice in Harvey Weinstein’s #MeToo rape retrial.
On the similar time, lawyer for the disgraced Hollywood bigwig requested a decide to permit him to spend his nights at a New York Metropolis hospital as an alternative of jail at some point of the trial, citing his many well being points together with most cancers and issues strolling that require using a wheelchair to get out and in of court docket.
The jurors — 5 girls and 4 males — have been picked from a gaggle of 25 potential jurors who spent the previous two days answering questions from prosecutors and Weinstein’s legal professionals to gauge their potential to be neutral. They’re the primary jurors picked after none have been chosen on Tuesday.
Jury choice will resume Thursday with a recent group of about 80 potential jurors to start the screening course of anew. Decide Curtis Farber has stated a complete of 12 jurors and 6 alternates will likely be picked.
The prosecution and protection every used seven of their allotted 15 peremptory challenges to reject potential jurors on Wednesday, leaving eight per facet.
Two different candidates have been faraway from consideration by the decide. One had expressed dismay in regards to the justice system and complained that rich folks keep away from culpability for wrongdoing. One other initially indicated he could possibly be honest however then returned to the courtroom and stated he didn’t suppose he may.
“Defense counsel asked my reaction to the defendant’s name and the first word that came in my head was ‘pig,’” stated the person, who works as an funding banker. “And I apologize, but I feel a great sense of responsibility as a citizen and I take this stuff seriously.”
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not responsible and denies raping or sexually assaulting anybody.
He leaned again in his wheelchair, peering at potential jurors as they answered questions that touched on every thing from their impressions of #MeToo — a motion spawned by scores of allegations in 2017 towards the ex-studio boss — to what they love to do of their spare time.
An accounting guide rejected by the prosecution stated he had “negative feelings” about the movement because his high school classmates had been wrongly accused of sexual assault. A lawyer who works in cryptocurrency compliance countered that “not enough has been done” on account of #MeToo. She was rejected by Weinstein’s facet.
In looking for to relocate Weinstein for the trial, his legal professionals argued that his keep on the metropolis’s infamous Rikers Island jail complicated is exacerbating his well being points and that he’d be higher off within the jail ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Weinstein has been forwards and backwards quite a few occasions to Bellevue in current months for therapy of assorted maladies.
The Oscar-winning producer has quite a few well being situations, together with power myeloid leukemia, coronary heart points, diabetes, sleep apnea and sciatica. A current tongue an infection was misdiagnosed at Rikers, requiring that Weinstein be hospitalized, and he has gained practically 20 kilos prior to now month, his lawyer Imran Ansari stated.
Weinstein’s legal professionals filed a authorized declare towards the town in November, alleging he was receiving substandard medical therapy in unhygienic situations at Rikers. The declare, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues that Weinstein has been returned to Rikers every time earlier than totally recovering on the hospital.
“Because of this mistreatment, he has been worn down considerably health wise, and now faces the stress of trial in this condition, which may very well lead to serious health complications, even death,” Ansari stated Wednesday in a press release.
Rikers has confronted rising scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and harmful situations. Final yr, a decide cleared the best way for a doable federal takeover, discovering inmates have been in “unconstitutional danger.”
Farber has but to rule on the switch request, and the difficulty wasn’t mentioned in court docket Wednesday.
Weinstein is being tried once more after New York’s highest court docket final yr overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year jail sentence, discovering his trial had been tainted by improper rulings and prejudicial testimony.
He’s being retried on two expenses. He’s accused of raping an aspiring actor in a Manhattan resort room in 2013 and a legal intercourse act by forcing oral intercourse on a film and TV manufacturing assistant in 2006.
He’s additionally charged with one other rely of legal intercourse act primarily based on an allegation from a lady who was not part of the unique trial. That lady, who has requested to not be named publicly, alleges that Weinstein compelled oral intercourse on her at a Manhattan resort.
