When the accusation is sexual assault or rape, the rights of the accused go out the window.
President Donald Trump knows that firsthand — and he’s asking the US Supreme Court to remedy it.
Prosecutors and plaintiffs’ lawyers can drag in character assassins who know nothing about the alleged assault, but instead make their own claims — without proof — that they too were victims of the accused, often years or even decades earlier.
That’s what happened to Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case, and why he’s appealing the jury’s decision.
Last week, the justices delayed for the 11th time answering whether they will take up E. Jean Carroll v. Trump.
A New York jury awarded Carroll $5 million in 2023 after finding Trump liable for sexually abusing her in a Bergdorf Goodman’s lingerie dressing room years earlier.
Court watchers speculate the justices are delaying until a companion case, also involving Trump and Carroll, weaves its way up to them.
Whatever the reason, it’s crucial for the court to strike down the jury’s verdict — and halt this egregiously unfair character-assassination strategy.
Men accused of sexual assault have essentially lost their right to a fair trial due to misguided changes to the Federal Rules of Evidence that Congress made in 1995 — solely for such cases.
The legislators kowtowed to the crazy notion that every woman who claims to be a victim of sexual assault is telling the truth and deserves to be hailed as a “survivor.”
Federal Rules 413, 414 and 415 allow prosecutors in criminal cases, or the plaintiff’s lawyer in a civil case, to drag in past accusers voicing their own grievances against the accused, no matter how unsubstantiated.
Their testimony is meant to convince a jury that the defendant has a “propensity” to sexually assault women.
And when real evidence is lacking, it makes swaying the jury much easier.
Carroll couldn’t remember what year Trump supposedly assaulted her, never reported the incident to police, and couldn’t produce store cameras or witnesses who saw it happen.
Though she boasted that she had Trump’s DNA on her dress, she declined in court to permit a DNA test and moved to exclude DNA evidence from the trial.
What’s her lawyer to do when there’s no evidence to prove her implausible claim?
Drag in “propensity” witnesses — in Trump’s case, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff.
Leeds accused Trump of groping her on an airplane 37 years earlier, though she couldn’t remember the precise date, where she was flying or on what airline.
She could only recall that Trump had his hand up her skirt.
Natasha Stoynoff claimed that in 2005, Trump suddenly grabbed her and kissed her without her consent at Mar-a-Lago.
She, too, offered no corroborating contemporary evidence of the alleged behavior.
Trump’s lawyers are arguing that lower courts should never have allowed the jury to hear this inflammatory testimony.
None of it is flattering, but none of it supports Carroll’s charge that Trump assaulted her in Bergdorf’s.
In some cases, appellate judges are already acting to curb the abuses caused by Congress’ political correctness.
In 2024 the New York State Court of Appeals overruled Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction 4-3, because the trial judge had allowed the prosecution to bring in women to speak about their own grievances against Weinstein.
The former movie mogul didn’t get off free, but he got a new trial.
Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala called the ruling “a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York.”
But Judge Madeline Singas, one of the panel’s dissenters, argued that the majority’s decision will “thwart the steady gains survivors of sexual violence have fought for in our criminal justice system.”
Singas insisted that “crimes of sexual violence are far more nuanced and complex than other crimes” and strict standards of evidence and proof “come at the expense and safety of women.”
Don’t fall for that leftist blather.
Every accused person, male or female, deserves a fair trial before a jury that is presented with actual evidence — not a farrago of alleged past misdeeds.
For well over a century, lawyers and judges nationwide have had to adhere to the well-known Molineux precedent, set down in a famous 1901 New York murder trial.
It states that “the accused has a right to be held to account only for the crime charged, and thus, allegations of prior bad acts may not be admitted against them for the sole purpose of establishing their propensity for criminality.”
Sexual assault cases should be no exception.
The justices should strike down Carroll’s victory over Trump — and move past one-sided Me-Too injustice.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
