If you’re upset that New York’s top court tossed Harvey Weinstein’s sex-crimes 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 that rewrote New 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 may walk.
His lawyers will likely use the NY decision to contest his California conviction on similar 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 Hector LaSalle, was too centrist for them; they insisted on a new chief judge who’d be sympathetic to progressive causes — which absolutely 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 top 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 outrageous progressive ideas into state law without the progs having to actually line up the votes in the Legislature to pass it.
The only way to start reversing the damage is to hold all elected Democrats to account for enabling the prog extreme — and vote every possible one out of office, starting this November.