For the third time, the criminal justice system has failed to secure a conviction against Harvey Weinstein in New York. The mistrial, declared yesterday in Manhattan, was due to a hung jury: 10 of 12 jurors favouring conviction, two dissenting. This outcome, while legally permissible, represents a profound failure of process. The charges: one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree, one count of rape in the first degree. The absence of a unanimous verdict means the state must decide whether to pursue a fourth trial. For the accused, this is not exoneration. For the accusers, it is another layer of trauma.
We must understand the physics of this legal system. A trial is an energy input: the state pours resources into a controlled environment, aiming to produce a stable state: a verdict. Here, the system dissipated that energy into entropy. The jury could not reach equilibrium. The reasons are complex. One juror reportedly said the accuser's memory was “foggy.” Another cited inconsistencies. This is the reality of delayed reporting. Time degrades evidence. Eyewitness accounts are not like geological strata: they erode, shift, are reinterpreted. The jury's task is to measure that decay and decide if enough remains to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, the signal was too weak.
Weinstein's legal team argued that the accuser, a woman who came forward after the #MeToo movement, had a history of unreliable statements. The prosecution presented evidence of similar conduct by Weinstein, seeking to establish pattern. But pattern alone cannot overcome reasonable doubt. The jury's split reflects a deeper societal divide: how do we weigh testimony from decades past against the accused's presumption of innocence? The public sees a predator. The law sees a defendant.
The consequences are measurable. A mistrial is not a verdict, but it is a verdict on the system. The Manhattan District Attorney's office must now calculate the probability of a fourth trial yielding a conviction. The cost is not just financial: it is human. The accuser must relive the assault. The public must watch the process repeat. And Weinstein remains a convicted felon from his Los Angeles trial. That verdict stands. But in New York, the legacy is uncertainty.
For the climate of public opinion, this is a storm system that refuses to dissipate. The justice system is a greenhouse: it amplifies certain signals, attenuates others. The mistrial amplifies the message that powerful men can outlast accountability. The attenuation is felt by survivors who watch and wonder if their own cases would survive the same scrutiny. The temperature of trust drops.
What happens now? The state can retry. The defence can seek dismissal. The accuser can withdraw. But the physical reality is that time moves in one direction. Each trial reduces the probability of conviction. Witnesses move, memories fade, evidence is lost. This is the thermodynamics of justice: entropy always increases. The only way to counter it is to act quickly, decisively. The system failed to do so. The result is a third mistrial, a hung jury, and a question mark over the entire process.
The planet will continue to warm. The biosphere will continue to degrade. But this courtroom drama reminds us that human systems are just as fragile. We build institutions to hold back chaos. But chaos is patient.
In the meantime, Weinstein remains in custody. The next hearing is scheduled for May. The decision on a fourth trial will not come quickly. The system will deliberate, calculate, and perhaps decide that some cases are too hot to handle. That is the coldest realisation of all.
