On May 15, 2026, New York Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber declared a mistrial in the Manhattan retrial of Harvey Weinstein after the jury reported it was hopelessly deadlocked on the only count still before it: third-degree rape under New York Penal Law section 130.25, tied to a 2013 hotel-room accusation by Jessica Mann. Jurors told the court that no one was going to change where they stood. According to PBS NewsHour, jurors who spoke outside court described the split as roughly nine for acquittal to three. That number matters, but not in the way many readers assume. A jury that leans toward acquittal and cannot agree has not acquitted. It has produced no verdict at all.
For anyone trying to understand what just happened, the single most important point is this: a deadlocked jury leaves the charge legally unresolved, not legally cleared. The difference between those two outcomes is not a technicality. It is the line that decides whether the case is over or merely paused.
A deadlock is not a verdict
When a jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, the judge does not enter a finding of not guilty. The judge declares a mistrial and discharges the jury. No conviction is recorded, but no acquittal is recorded either. The count returns to the same posture it occupied before trial: charged, contested, and undecided. CNN reported that the Mann count has now been before a jury three times, and that prosecutors are weighing whether to take it before a jury again. That option exists only because a hung jury, unlike an acquittal, does not close the door.
Acquittal versus hung jury: what the Fifth Amendment actually says
The Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause protects a person from being tried twice for the same offense. The protection turns on two questions: when does jeopardy attach, and when does it terminate. Jeopardy attaches once a jury is sworn. It terminates, in a way that bars any retrial, when there is a final resolution on the merits. An acquittal is the clearest example. Once a jury finds a defendant not guilty, that verdict is final and the state can never retry that charge, no matter how strong the evidence later appears.
A mistrial caused by a genuinely deadlocked jury is the opposite case. The Supreme Court has treated a hung jury as a classic instance of "manifest necessity" to discharge the jury, a rule that traces back to United States v. Perez in 1824. The modern statement of the doctrine is Richardson v. United States, 468 U.S. 317 (1984), where the Court held that the failure of a jury to reach a verdict is not an event that terminates jeopardy. Because jeopardy is treated as continuing, a second prosecution is not a second jeopardy. In plain terms: an acquittal ends the matter, a deadlock does not.
This is why the reported nine-to-three lean toward acquittal does not function as a near-acquittal. Under the law it has the same legal weight as any other split that prevents unanimity. The constitutional category is binary. Either the jury rendered a verdict or it did not.
How New York got here: a count-by-count timeline
The Weinstein litigation in New York has moved count by count, and tracking it that way explains why one charge keeps coming back while others are settled.
In 2020, a New York jury convicted Weinstein of third-degree rape involving Jessica Mann and a first-degree criminal sexual act involving Miriam Haley. On April 25, 2024, a divided New York Court of Appeals reversed that conviction in a 4 to 3 decision, finding that the trial court improperly admitted testimony about uncharged prior conduct in violation of the state's Molineux rule, as summarized in the case background. That reversal wiped out the 2020 verdicts and set up a retrial.
The June 2025 retrial split the counts. As Variety and CBS News New York reported, the jury convicted Weinstein of the criminal sexual act count involving Miriam Haley, acquitted him on a count involving Kaja Sokola, and deadlocked on the third-degree rape count involving Jessica Mann. The Haley conviction is final and stands. The Sokola acquittal is final and can never be retried. The Mann count alone was left unresolved, and it went to a jury again in 2026.
The May 15, 2026 mistrial is the second straight deadlock on the Mann count. Counting the 2020 trial and the two retrials, the count has now been tried three times. The open question is whether the state will pursue it a fourth time.
Can the state really try him again?
Constitutionally, yes. Because the deadlock did not terminate jeopardy, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar another prosecution of the Mann count. Newsweek noted that no double-jeopardy bar prevents reprosecution of a hung count and that the open question is whether the Manhattan District Attorney will seek a fourth trial.
There is no fixed number in the Constitution that says how many times the state may retry a defendant after successive hung juries. The real limits come from other sources. Prosecutorial discretion is the first and largest filter, since the office must decide whether the case is worth pursuing. New York's speedy-trial statute, CPL 30.30, constrains how long the state can take to be ready. Due-process principles guard against truly abusive serial prosecution. The wishes of the accuser and the practical strength of the evidence weigh heavily, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said it would consider next steps in consultation with Jessica Mann and in light of Weinstein's pending sentencing on the 2025 conviction. Resource and political judgment also factor into a decision to commit to a fourth trial of the same allegation.
The defense playbook after repeated deadlocks
Two consecutive deadlocks hand the defense a clear strategic narrative: the state has now tried this count twice in a row without persuading a jury to convict, and it cannot meet its burden. Defense attorney Marc Agnifilo called the outcome "a great day for our jury system," signaling exactly that framing.
Beyond messaging, New York gives the defense a concrete procedural tool. Under CPL 210.40, often called a Clayton motion, a defendant can ask the court to dismiss an indictment in furtherance of justice even where the charge is legally sufficient. The statute requires the court to weigh factors including the history of the proceeding, and repeated deadlocks are a recognized consideration. A defense team can argue that forcing a community to seat yet another jury on a count that has twice failed to produce a verdict serves no compelling end of justice. The defense also negotiates from a particular position here, because Weinstein already stands convicted on the 2025 Haley criminal sexual act count and faces sentencing on it. That standing conviction changes the leverage on both sides when the parties assess whether a fourth Mann trial is worth it.
What happens next
The immediate procedural marker is a court date set for June 24, 2026, when the question of a fourth trial on the Mann count is expected to come into focus, per Newsweek. That date runs alongside Weinstein's pending sentencing on the 2025 Haley conviction, which is separate from his California conviction. Even if the Mann count is never retried, or is dismissed, Weinstein remains convicted on the Haley count and faces sentencing on it. The Sokola acquittal remains final. Only the Mann count remains in legal limbo.
The broader stakes extend past one defendant. Serial retrials of the same allegation test how the system balances an accuser's right to have a charge heard against a defendant's interest in not facing the same count indefinitely. The Weinstein litigation has become a prominent setting for that question in the post-2017 era of sexual-misconduct prosecutions, but the legal mechanics apply to any defendant whose jury hangs.
Why the distinction matters
"A hung jury is not an acquittal" is more than a slogan. It is the constitutional rule that determines whether the case is finished. An acquittal would have ended the Mann count forever. A deadlock leaves it exactly where it was, available for the state to pursue again within the limits of discretion, speedy-trial rules, due process, and a possible motion to dismiss in furtherance of justice. If you are following this case, or facing a deadlock in your own, the category is what controls the outcome. A verdict ends a charge. A hung jury only pauses it.
Related reading
Sources
- Judge declares mistrial in Harvey Weinstein's New York rape retrial after jury deadlocks, PBS NewsHour
- Judge declares a mistrial in Harvey Weinstein's rape retrial after jury deadlocks, CNN
- Will Alvin Bragg Seek Fourth Harvey Weinstein Trial? Crucial June Court Date Set, Newsweek
- Harvey Weinstein found guilty of criminal sexual assault as jury reaches partial verdict in retrial, CBS News New York
- Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty of Sexual Assault in New York Retrial, Variety
- Richardson v. United States, 468 U.S. 317 (1984), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law
- Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases, Wikipedia (background)
Note: This article contains AI-assisted content and has been reviewed by our editorial team.
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