Paulin’s ‘Weinstein’ bill back on legislative agenda for 2025

The first day of the new legislative session is still two days away, but lawmakers have already prefiled a number of bills that failed to pass last year. One piece of legislation slated to reappear this year is a bill sponsored by Assembly Member Amy Paulin informally known as the “Weinstein Bill.” 

The bill, inspired by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein’s New York overturned rape conviction, would allow prosecutors to include evidence of prior sexual offenses in legal proceedings. But the bill, first introduced last year, failed to make it to the Assembly floor after some of Paulin’s colleagues raised concerns with the bill’s broad language. Criminal justice reform advocates also cried foul as her bill was being prepared, arguing that it could possibly harm communities of color and open the door to “once a criminal, always a criminal” arguments. Paulin did not respond to a request for comment.

The state Senate introduced an amended version of the bill shortly before the legislative session ended, but the Assembly didn’t have time to do the same before lawmakers put their pencils down for the year. In 2025, though, Paulin should have plenty of time to amend the bill. A new version of the bill has already been prefiled, and it currently counts 27 co-sponsors. This version of the bill also features slightly updated language, doing away with wording like “propensity” that gave lawmakers pause and adding legal cover by affirming that courts have the right to exclude certain evidence if it is seen as creating undue prejudice. 

Those tweaks are not enough to mollify all of the bill’s critics. "This overly broad proposal, even in its amended form, would destroy a fundamental protection against wrongful convictions and unjust incarceration - in a system that already disproportionately entraps Black and Latinx New Yorkers and in a state that now ranks third in the nation for wrongful convictions,” said Amanda Jack, policy director with Criminal Law Reform at The Legal Aid Society. She labeled the legislation “dangerous” and said it moved away from “any sense of fairness.”

Brown & Weinraub lobbyist Alex Betke said that while no one is happy at the idea of Harvey Weinstein walking free, the bill would raise all sorts of legal questions going forward and legislators would use the full session to work through them. “It would change a long-standing court precedent and these sorts of bills can take some time to make it through the legislative process,” Betke said.