Up First from NPR - Campus Tensions Rise, SCOTUS Trump Immunity, Weinstein's Conviction Tossed

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

As protests and arrests continue at college campuses across the U.S.. are the students calling for divestment in Israel getting closer to their demands? The U.S. Supreme Court took nearly three hours to debate whether a president should have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. And New York State's highest court has overturned the criminal conviction of former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrea de Leon, Meghan Sullivan, H-J Mai, Elana Perl, Jan Johnson and Ben Adler. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Nina Kravinsky. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, our technical director is Zac Coleman, and our Executive Producer is Erika Aguilar.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Protests and arrests at college campuses across the U.S. Israel, mom! Columbia, kids! How many kids did you kill today? Are the students calling for divestment in Israel getting closer to their demands? I'm Leila Faldin, that's A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News. The U.S. Supreme Court weighs presidential immunity. You also appreciate that we're writing a rule for the ages.

Their ruling could delay President Trump's January 6th trial beyond the November election. Which way do the justices' questions suggest they're leaning? And Harvey Weinstein's New York sexual assault conviction is overturned on appeal. What argument convinced the state's highest court? Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day. Now, our change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to our change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition

Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. It's been a week since Columbia University called in the police to clear an encampment of anti-war protesters on a campus lawn, and what a week it's been. More than 100 students were arrested that day. And since then, the student demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza have only intensified. They've spread to universities across the country and led to hundreds more arrests. NPR's Adrian Florido is in New York. Adrian, you've been reporting at Columbia where after all those arrests last week,

students pretty quickly reestablished their encampment. So let's start with what happened last night. Well, last night, a lot of people showed up outside the gates of Columbia University in a show of support for the protesters. Israel bomb! Columbia pass! How many kids did you kill today? And there were also counter protesters who came out to show support for Israel. For days, protest leaders and university officials have been in negotiations over the encampment's future. The university wants it gone, but the hundreds of students in the camp say they're staying put until their demands are met. Early Wednesday, Columbia officials gave students 48 hours to pick up their encampment and said that after that, the school would consider

alternative options. It didn't elaborate what that meant, but the students think it means law enforcement will again remove them by force. It's now been the two days since the university issued that warning, so the campus is really on edge about another confrontation almost at any moment possibly. Yeah, you mentioned that the students are refusing to clear the encampment until their demands are met. What are those demands? A few things. The big one is divestment.

They want Colombia to sell off the stock it owns in companies that do business in Israel and that the protesters say are enabling Israel's war in Gaza and its operations in the West Bank. We want it publicly known that Columbia University does not endorse this. That was Ray Guerrero. He's a Columbia grad student who's been heavily involved in the divestment campaign. And he says that if Columbia pulls its money from these companies, other institutions might follow.

And that could bring pressure to bear on the Israeli government. And they also want all of the students who were suspended after being arrested last week to have their suspensions lifted. Colombia hasn't publicly said much about these demands, but it did reject a proposal for divestment just a couple of months ago. And it's worth noting the financial pressure the university is facing from the other side. Some very wealthy alumni who are angry with these protests have started withholding donations. As we said, these kinds of demonstrations have now spread to campuses across the country and so have arrests of protesters and faculty. What does that

look like? Yeah, well, what really took hold last week at a few of the nation's most elite schools like Columbia, Harvard, Brown is now happening at schools like UT Austin, USC in LA. Yesterday, students at the City College of New York set up an encampment. And a lot of these schools, things have heated up. At USC, dozens of students have been arrested. The same at UT Austin, where the school brought in police in riot gear. And all told, there have been more than 500 arrests nationwide, including some faculty. And here's the thing, too. I mean, some school years are coming to a close. A lot of schools are planning for graduations. I mean, will these protests impact all that? Well, here at Columbia, the encampment is smack in the center of where the school holds its main graduation ceremony. And in fact, all around the encampment, workers are already basically putting up the stages and scaffolding for that event. It's part of why protesters suspect they're about to be removed by force. At USC, the main graduation ceremony has been canceled, and that could happen at other schools because these students showing up to protest say

they're not going anywhere. That's NPR's Adrian Florido in New York. Thanks a lot. Thank you, A. Should a president have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution even after they leave office? The U.S. Supreme Court took nearly three hours to debate that question yesterday. The justices appeared skeptical of blanket immunity, but the conservative majority also seemed open to some immunity, and that could delay Donald Trump's trial until after the November election. We're joined now by Ankush Kordori. He's a senior writer for Political Magazine and a former federal prosecutor. So let's take this in pieces, starting with the question of blanket immunity. Let's listen to an exchange between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Trump's lawyer, John Sauer. It's about whether some of Trump's actions in

the January 6th case are official acts or private. And I want to know if you agree or disagree about the characterization of these acts as private. Petitioner turned to a private attorney, was willing to spread knowingly false claims of election fraud to spearhead his challenges to the election results. Private? As alleged. I mean, we dispute the allegation, but that sounds private to me. Sounds private. All right, Ankur, so why does this distinction of official versus private matter, at least to the conservative justices? Right. So at least to the conservative justices, they seem to want to draw a distinction between official acts that are tied to the job responsibilities of the president and to immunize the president in some capacity for those sorts of acts and to distinguish those from non-official or private acts that would potentially themselves then be subject to criminal prosecution and to sort of carve a theory of

immunity that provides some form of immunity for presidents but not total immunity. Now on the other hand, the liberal justices don't think this distinction should matter at all. So what stood out to you from their questions? Well, the liberal justices were pointing out many absurd hypotheticals that would flow from that distinction. If a president wanted to murder someone while they were in office, instead of hiring a private hitman, this doctrine would be incentivizing them to use the powers of the presidency to commit that criminal misconduct. So it's kind of backwards. All right. So no blanket immunity, perhaps, but some justices suggested there should be some level of immunity and hinted that they might send the case back to the lower courts for some more work. Here's Chief Justice John Roberts.

What concerns me is, as you know, the Court of Appeals did not get into a focused consideration of what acts we're talking about or what documents we're talking about. So what's Roberts referring to here and what could it mean for how the court might rule? Well, he seems to be suggesting that the Court of Appeals should have undertaken a more searching or granular analysis of the allegations, the indictment, again, to distinguish in some capacity between official and non-official acts. In terms of the implications, you know, if they send it back to the lower courts for more work to be done, that could fatally imperil any prospect for this prosecution moving

to trial before the November election. And so this may result in a delay, further delay of the case beyond November. And of course, if Donald Trump wins re-election in November, it is highly unlikely that this trial will occur. All right. Now, several justices, including Neil Gorsuch, pointed out the precedent-setting nature of this case. You also appreciate that we're writing a rule for the ages. So how could this ruling then affect future presidents? Well, yeah. I mean, he seems to be concerned about hypothetical future presidents who may or may not be engaged in criminal misconduct and worrying about crafting a rule for all time. We've had a couple of hundred years under the current

rule, which everybody thought until this current litigation meant that a president could be prosecuted after leaving office. So, you know, we're hearing these arguments with the conservatives, but they seem to be geared toward a specific outcome. Ankur Kordori, senior writer for Politico magazine. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. New York State's highest court has overturned the criminal conviction of former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. To many observers, it was a stunning development. Weinstein was one of the most high-profile men accused of sexual assault during the Me Too movement. Here's one of Weinstein's accusers,

actor and advocate Ashley Judd. This today is an act of institutional betrayal, and our institutions betray survivors of male sexual violence. Joining us now to explain the appeal court's decision is NPR culture correspondent Anastasia Silkas. And just a note, this story does mention sexual assault. So Anastasia, Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York in 2020. He's been serving a long sentence upstate. What happened yesterday? So you're right.

He's been serving a 23-year sentence on this New York conviction, but he appealed. And yesterday, the New York State Court of Appeals handed down a four to three decision saying that he hadn't had a fair trial. Had not had a fair trial. Okay. Now this is one of the most closely followed criminal cases in the media in the last few years. I mean, books were written about Weinstein and the women's accusations against him. And as I recall, Anastasia, dozens of women made public allegations against him. So what exactly happened here? That's right. About 100 women made public accusations against him. And several of those women testified against him during this New York

criminal trial, even though their allegations weren't part of the charges he was on trial for. And that is a big part of what the appeals court found unfair. OK, so if their accusations were not part of the charges, then why were they allowed to testify? So in New York, there's something called the Molino rule, which has a precedent going back to a case from 1900. And essentially, under some very certain circumstances, a judge can allow witnesses who testify to prior so-called bad acts. And in this case, the trial judge in the Weinstein case allowed these women to testify. So that rule, the Molyneux rule, that allowed them to win the appeal. Exactly. That's at the heart of what the appeals court said was unfair to Weinstein. And legal experts often say that when judges allow Molino witnesses, it's a very subjective decision. And then a conviction becomes easier to challenge. And that's exactly what happened here.

And I should note, the appeals court ordered a new trial to take place. All right. So the new trial, what's the outlook there? Who would make that decision? That's up to the office of the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg. And Bragg's office told me yesterday that they do intend to try again. In a written statement, they told me that they will, quote, do everything in our power to retry this case and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault. Okay, so Weinstein's conviction is overturned. Does that mean he can be free now? His conviction in New York has been overturned. You may recall Weinstein was put on a separate criminal trial in California, and he was convicted there of rape and sexual assault. And in February 2023, he was sentenced to 16 more years in prison. And that was always ordered to be served separately from the New York sentence.

So right now we're expecting he will be moved to California to serve out that sentence. Unless, of course, he wins on appeal there as well. OK, that's NPR correspondent Anastasia Siolkas. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And that's a first for Friday, April 26th. I'm Amy Martinez. And I'm Leila Faldil.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrea DeLeon, Megan Sullivan, H.J. Mai, Jan Johnson, Alana Pearl, and Ben Adler. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams, and Nina Kravinsky. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Zach Coleman, and our executive producer is Erica Aguilar. And a reminder, Up First airs on Saturday, too. Ayesha Roscoe and Scott Simon have the news. It'll be right here in this feed or wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you back here Monday for the news you need to start your week.