What A Day - That's A Wrap On Harvey Weinstein

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has been convicted on two counts of felony sex crimes. The convictions are the culmination of a month-long trial and testimonies brought by six women. The Supreme Court added a case to its docket on Monday, which will decide whether it was okay for city officials in Philadelphia to end a foster care contract with Catholic Social Services because the agency said it would not accept applications from same-sex couples. And in headlines: Trump is big in India, marsquakes, and another coronavirus update.

It's Tuesday, February 25th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, wishing you a very fun and colorful Mardi Gras. Yeah, it's Fat Tuesday. You know what that means? I am going to gain more. Mass? More mass. On today's show, the verdict in the Harvey Weinstein trial, the Supreme Court takes up a pivotal case regarding same-sex adoption, and then some headlines.

Nearly two and a half years after the New York Times published a story detailing decades of abuse by film executive Harvey Weinstein, which amplified the Me Too movement, the disgraced Hollywood mogul has been found guilty on two counts of felony sex crimes and has been acquitted on three other counts. The convictions are the culmination of a month-long trial and testimonies brought by six women. Akilah, this trial has been dominating the news. We've heard harrowing testimonies, insane lines of defense. Take us through what the jury decided here. All right.

So Weinstein has been convicted of criminal sexual assault in the first degree based on the testimony of former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Halle and rape in the third degree based on the testimony of former actress Jessica Mann. He was acquitted of the most severe charge, predatory sexual assault, which would have established that this was a pattern of behavior for him since 1994. Still, this is a historic moment, so we can't take anything away from that. An incredibly powerful man is being held accountable for his crimes. It's just not something that happens very often anymore. Yeah, that is very true. So when is Weinstein expected to be sentenced? All right, so sentencing is going to take place March 11th.

After the verdict came down, he was actually taken to the hospital due to complaints of chest pain. But here's what we know. Weinstein is 67 years old and he's facing at least five years and up to 25 on the first degree count and up to four years on the third degree count. The judge can consider running the sentences consecutively for a maximum total of 29 years, which if he served that whole sentence would make him 96 years old at the time of release. Yeah, so effectively the rest of his life, potentially. What is the overall response been to this? Certainly a very emotional moment. Yeah, well, there's obviously a lot of gratitude for the brave women who came forward and told their stories. Ashley Judd, an actress who came forward in the initial New York Times article, tweeted, quote,

for the women who testified in this case and walked through traumatic hell, you did a public service to girls and women everywhere. Thank you. Mira Sorvino, who also accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, tweeted, quote, the beginning of hashtag justice, more to come, my sisters, hashtag Weinstein guilty. And Mariska Hargitay, a.k.a. Detective Benson on the NBC drama Law & Order SVU, tweeted that the Weinstein case, quote, represented some of the ugliest behavior I have seen in the criminal justice system. She's right. It's not just ugly. It's especially heinous, which sounds like a joke. But in all seriousness, Hargitay started the Joyful Heart Foundation, which educates and empowers victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.

And she's also made a commitment to end the backlog of rape kits nationwide. So it's all good work. And, you know, she's qualified to weigh in. Yeah, indeed. So this is definitely a start for the legal system holding powerful men accountable. But Akilah, what do we think here? Let's kind of take stock of what else has happened in terms of the way society even thinks about all this over the last few years? Are we sort of generally moving in the right direction? I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think that the future is brighter. Obviously, Weinstein's just one man and he inflicted pain on countless women. But checks and balances are being put in place because of, you know,

all this coming to light. And, you know, there are comedians who make lazy jokes about, you know, how can I take a woman in the office to lunch? Am I going to be in trouble for something? Which, you know, completely misses the point of this case and also the Me Too movement overall. You know, another thing that has sort of happened since all of this came to light, NDAs that are meant to muzzle subordinates have fallen out of vogue. You know, just last week, Conde Nast said that they're getting rid of NDAs. We saw the exchange with Elizabeth Warren taking Bloomberg to task about the several NDAs that he has women under. And so that, you know, that is society changing. And also several predators in power positions are behind bars now. You know, obviously,

Bill Cosby comes to mind. But across industries, lots of people have been held to account. And I think that that is important. But more than that, you know, women and men are finally telling their stories and in doing so ending the stigma of being a victim. Weinstein's lawyer basically used every play in the victim blaming playbook. You know, why did you still work there? Why did you keep in touch with him? Why didn't you tell anyone back then? You knew better than to be alone with him, all of that bullshit. And just like the jury pushback, society is doing the same. You know, the fact that Weinstein was convicted speaks to the jury's willingness to accept the gray area surrounding many cases of sexual assault and move past preconceptions of

how victims typically respond. And I think that that's, I think it's a beautiful thing. I think it's a great thing. Well, we will update with sentencing details when they are available and keep you posted on Weinstein's criminal case here in L.A., where he's been charged with several felonies stemming from accusations by two women who say he sexually assaulted them. That trial has yet to begin. But for now, good riddance. The Supreme Court added a case to its docket on Monday that stems from a legal fight in Philadelphia. There, city officials ended a foster care contract with Catholic Social Services, given that the agency said that it would not accept applications from same-sex couples. Catholic Social Services sued, claiming Philadelphia was violating their First Amendment rights, and now the Supreme Court will decide. So Gideon, tell us more about the backstory here. Yeah, the city of Philadelphia works with a bunch of different agencies as part of its foster

care system, and one of them was Catholic Social Services. Philadelphia stopped doing placements with them following a 2018 news story that shed light on their policy of not placing children with same-sex couples. The agency and then some foster parents sued after that based on their First Amendment rights of religious freedom. They were claiming discrimination. Then a lower court determined that the city was within its rights to end the contract due to requiring compliance with its non-discrimination policies. Then in August of last year, the Supreme Court decided against hearing the case, but this year they decided that they would actually take it up. Right. And this is sort of like the case of the Colorado baker refusing to make a wedding cake

for a same-sex couple, right? Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. Just as a refresher on that, in 2018, the Supreme Court did not decide the main issue in that case, which is whether businesses can get exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on religious grounds. But it did rule that the Baker had been mistreated by some of the state's civil rights commission. So now Catholic Social Services is trying to use that part of the decision to argue their case. The city says that Catholic Social Services is not entitled to rewrite how Philadelphia conducts government contracts to take out anti-discrimination language. Okay. So on the one hand, we have an agency saying we should be able to operate according to our religion. And then you have the city saying,

sure, but not within our foster care system. Right. So the court has to decide whether it's okay for Philadelphia to exclude them, basically. Yeah, that's basically it. And there is some justified concern over the ramifications of the Supreme Court hearing this case and making a ruling. Leslie Cooper at the ACLU said the case could have major consequences for, quote, more than 400,000 children in foster care across the country, allowing foster care agencies to exclude qualified families based on religious requirements that have nothing to do with the ability to care for a child, such as their sexual orientation or faith, would make it even worse, end quote. So yeah, she's concerned about ripple effects from all of this.

So this is headed to the Supreme Court now. Do we have any sense of where the justices might stand on this issue? Yeah, as a window into that, we can look at the 1990 case, Employment Division v. Smith and what's going on with that. In that decision written by former Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative justice wrote, quote, we have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the state is free to regulate. Meaning essentially, it's okay for a city or state to make laws as long as they aren't targeting a particular group, and then go and enforce those laws. But in the years since, conservatives on

the court with two newer additions from President Trump has said that they are open to reconsidering that decision. And now, given the situation that Catholic Social Services is in, they are explicitly asking them to do so. So going forward, this question of how the court views religious freedom is very much an open one. And seemingly they want to revisit a lot of this stuff. We'll be keeping an eye on this case as it progresses. It's set to be argued next term with a decision in 2021. And now for some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines.

Katherine Johnson, one of the mathematicians at NASA who inspired the film Hidden Figures, passed away yesterday. She was 101 years old. Her calculations led Apollo 11 to land on the moon and return back to Earth after Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk. She also helped send the first American into space and made it possible for the first American to orbit Earth. During her 33 years at NASA, she and other Black women in the research division were rarely, if ever, committed for their accomplishments in space research. In 2015, at the age of 96, Johnson was awarded the

Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Stocks fell about 3.5% in the United States on Monday following spikes in coronavirus cases around the world. It's the biggest loss Wall Street has seen in two years and a sign that investors are worried about what's next with the virus. There's a lot of economic anxiety to go around. Germany, Italy, and Japan could be facing a higher risk of entering a recession. Some of this has to do with factories around the world struggling to cope with the closures of their suppliers in China. To respond to the outbreak, the White House asked Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency spending. The drugmaker Moderna also delivered the first experimental coronavirus vaccine for humans. Researchers are set to begin clinical trials of the drug in April.

I will let them inject me with it. This is not legally binding. I don't know. I don't know. Roll the tape. We'll wait and see what Moderna has in store. And if my doctor says it's fine. Yeah, okay.

Now for some exciting news out of Mars, of which the moon is part. I'm doing all the space stories today. All right. NASA just released the first set of data from their Mars Lander InSight, which touched down in 2018 on the red planet, a.k.a. the one Matt Damon grew those potatoes on. The big discovery is that Mars is seismically active, meaning it has earthquakes, though up there they call them marsquakes, which obviously makes sense, but still kind of feels cute to me in a bad way, you know? Anyway, geophysicists say Mars shakes less than the Earth and for different reasons. While earthquakes result from shifting tectonic plates, Marsquakes are caused by long-term cooling of the planet since its formation some 4.5 billion years ago. Insight will continue to send info back to Earth, helping scientists to understand how rocky planets like Mars, Earth, and Venus form.

We might want to use that info to build a new planet once the president turns ours into an inferno ruled by unrecycled plastic that came to life. Unrecycled plastic that is currently choking a duck in Central Park. Get there and save him now. I did hear about that. We are on our way after this show. President Trump is continuing his first official visit to India today. He got a big welcome yesterday, appearing with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a Namaste Trump rally that drew over 100,000 local Trump supporters in temperatures approaching 90 degrees.

Couldn't be me. And guys, it probably felt even hotter because it was also attended by Jared Kushner. Side note, why is it that whenever Kushner leaves the country, all of my toys stop being possessed? I don't know. It's very strange, just a coinkydink. Trump gets along well with Modi, who's also a right-wing populist leader, and has been criticized for detaining thousands in Kashmir and helping to pass an Islamophobic citizenship bill. Earlier in the day, the president visited the Taj Mahal, which inspired Trump's former Atlantic City casino that's now a Hard Rock Hotel. It the day, the president visited the Taj Mahal, which inspired Trump's former

Atlantic City casino that's now a hard rock hotel. It's cool that the president has this connection to Indian culture and also to classic rock memorabilia from bands like Aerosmith and Puddle of Mud. Pod. Those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, ring our doorbell, and run away to make us cranky until your friends listen. And if you're into reading, and not just marriage proposals written in the sky by airplanes like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter.

Check it out and subscribe at Cricut.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And we love you. We'll see you later. What a day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer.

Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.