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When Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction was overturned last month, women were outraged, not only because a man accused of sexually assaulting nearly 100 women was exonerated, but also because of why the court ruled the way it did.

The court said Weinstein did not get a fair trial because in addition to the three victims whose cases were part of the formal charges, three other women that Weinstein had sexually violated were also allowed to testify. This violated Weinstein’s rights, the court said, because instead of focusing on the evidence in the case, it painted Weinstein as a bad man who has a propensity to harm women.

This issue in the law - known as the prior bad acts rule - refers to how courts treat evidence that is relevant, but also prejudicial. For example, if a man is charged with arson of his home, and cops learn during their investigation that the man previously filed a false insurance claim involving a car accident, one could argue that the false insurance claim is fair game to use against him in the arson case because it shows that he had a financial motive to burn the house down. But there’s a difference between a false insurance claim and an arson case, and a jury should not find a person guilty just because they think he’s the type of person who has a propensity to steal things for money. A judge must balance how helpful the evidence is against how harmful it is. To determine helpfulness, the court first looks at what the prosecution must prove to win its case. In the arson example, the prosecution must prove that the man unlawfully set fire to his home. They do not have to prove that he had a specific motive or intent, so his reason for committing the crime isn’t critical to the case, even though it is relevant. Likewise, in Weinstein’s case, the prosecution did not have to prove that the Hollywood mogul had a specific motive or intent when he raped women, so reasonable judges can disagree about whether the prior bad acts evidence should be admitted. The trial judge and the lower appellate court said the evidence was fair game; New York’s highest court disagreed.

Emanuel Pastreich, Independent Candidate for President, March 14th, 2024

When Virginia approved the Equal Rights Amendment in January 2020, the thirty-eight states demanded by the Constitution for legal ratification of an amendment was reached. Some foolishly assumed that when the Biden Administration took power, it would recognize the law in light of President Biden’s constant harping on the ERA, and also because his cabinet had made identity and diversity such key themes in their speeches. Such Americans were sadly mistaken. The unaccountable Biden administration is as unencumbered by the Constitution as the Trump administration was and the Equal Rights Amendment is treated by the executive and judiciary as if it did not exist.

Under President Biden, we face a dictatorship that masquerades as the restoration of the rule of law. The constitutional crisis resulting from Biden’s contempt for the Equal Rights Amendment represents the cold steel fist in a multicultural fluffy glove that is his administration.

Following the Constitution, and federal law, the Biden administration has no say about whether the Equal Rights Amendment becomes the foundation for all debate on equality of citizens before the law. The executive branch is empowered to implement laws and regulations, the legislative branch is empowered to draft and approve laws and regulations and it has already approved the Equal Rights Amendment. The courts are responsible for determining that the laws are upheld.

Even more importantly, the corporate media, the pay-to-play public intellectuals promoted by big business, and other shadowy players who hire expensive lobbyists and PR firms have no role to play in the determination of policy or law.

The Equal Rights Amendment is already the law. Its content is fully supported by the vast majority of Americans. The Biden administration pretends the ERA is not the law because it does not care about working women, and because it is tasked by corporations with carrying out the slow demolition of the United States of America as a constitutional republic, and creating a political Disneyland that is driven by domestic repression wherein personalities or images in the mass media, not laws, legitimate the illegal actions of the government.

Last week Representative Corey Bush (D, MO) used her 5 minutes to question Attorney General Merrick Garland as an opportunity to urge the repudiation of the Trump administration's Office of Legal Counsel's letter directing the National Archivist to ignore her statutory duty to acknowledge the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Get the ERA brochure

This is how Wendy Murphy described this hearing on her twitter feed:

Incredible job today in court by ERA Attorney Mary Mahoney from Michigan! Really powerful oral argument in support of the ERA and full equality for all #Women! Thanks to leading Women’s rights group Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust for its fierce leadership!

Prominent constitutional scholars argue that the ERA time limit was advisory only, as it was not in the text of the amendment. They also say that the five states which rescinded their approval of the ERA many years after approving it have no settled right to rescind (at least two states tried to rescind the 14th amendment, to no avail). Article V, which lays out precisely the steps to add an amendment to the Constitution, says nothing about time limits. Congress added them for several amendments in the 20th century to increase its own power and control. But those time limits were all added to the text of those amendments. Not so the ERA.

. . .

The ERA needs to be published. Then we can all make popcorn and watch the legal skirmishes commence. But once published, it will be up to conservatives to prove why equality for women should continue to be excluded from the constitution of the world’s oldest democracy.