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LOL, Harvey Weinstein Wants a New Judge Now Because This One Was Too Mean to Him

Harvey Weinstein arrives at New York City criminal court, hunched over a walker.

Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial began this week, kicking off two weeks of jury selection before an expected eight more weeks of actual trial. Weinstein has a long road ahead of him—and that’s just for this trial. Next up: California crimes! So how did he choose to start off his very first day in court? By pissing off the judge and refusing to follow the most basic of rules, of course.

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Weinstein reportedly brought multiple phones into the courtroom, despite it being a no-phones zone. And yet he’s casting himself as the victim in this scenario, asking New York State Supreme Court Judge James Burke to recuse himself for “prejudicial and inflammatory comments.”

What Judge Burke said to him was “Mr. Weinstein, I could not implore you more to not answer the following question: Is this really the way you want to end up in jail for the rest of your life, by texting in violation of an order? Is it?”

In a letter to the judge, Weinstein’s legal team wrote that the comments displayed “animus” toward their client. But if a defendant disobeyed multiple instructions to put away multiple phones, all of which are prohibited, how is the judge supposed to react? With a smile and a hug? Trade the phones for kittens?

I’m not a legal expert but Burke’s comments sound like animosity (meaning hostility), not animus (basically an intent to interfere based on that hostility), which sounds pretty reasonable in these circumstances.

It’s not just the judge Weinstein thinks is out to get him. His team had also previously requested that the trial be moved outside of New York because they didn’t think they could find impartial jurors there. Which, honestly, is a fair concern. According to CBS News, when the judge asked if any prospective jurors thought they wouldn’t be able to be impartial in such a high-profile case, about 40 hands went up. But that’s not a New York issue. It’s not like people in New Jersey or Connecticut or Montana haven’t heard about Harvey Weinstein and already have their own opinions.

It’s going to be hard to find unbiased jurors, sure. But shenanigans like constant prohibited texting isn’t going to help him. Neither is this clownery:

It’s going to be a long 10 weeks.

(via HuffPost, image: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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