Jonathan Majors has been found guilty of reckless assault and harassment in his domestic violence trial. A New York City jury of three men and three women just delivered the verdict on the Loki act…
So I tried to look up the difference between assault and reckless assault in NY, and according to this: https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/120/120-00(2).pdf it makes it seem more like “led to a situation that caused injury” which feels very light and isn’t the depiction of him hitting her and breaking her finger as is kind of presented. I think you could argue this means he didn’t go out of his way to assault her, but in the mess accidentally created a situation that led to an injury, likely when pushing her back into the car. That’s messy; “Guilty of reckless assault” is pretty concise and Disney won’t want that heat, but it sounds like the verdict is more nuanced and there’s a case that it was semi-accidental in a messy situation? If the rumors of Majors having a bunch of things in his contract about not recasting are true, this could be an extremely messy situation for Disney if they want to sever, but Majors counters the severance from the morality clause on the nuance and details.
The reality is that domestic abuse, much like rape, is incredibly difficult to prove. Because it isn’t happening in the wide open. And, even when it does, there is a lot of argument of “That is just how we are” which tends to go well with the character assassination defense.
So, likely, the jury was only able to come to a conclusion on what was recorded or directly corroborated by witnesses and ignored anything that happened behind closed doors.
So I tried to look up the difference between assault and reckless assault in NY, and according to this: https://www.nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/120/120-00(2).pdf it makes it seem more like “led to a situation that caused injury” which feels very light and isn’t the depiction of him hitting her and breaking her finger as is kind of presented. I think you could argue this means he didn’t go out of his way to assault her, but in the mess accidentally created a situation that led to an injury, likely when pushing her back into the car. That’s messy; “Guilty of reckless assault” is pretty concise and Disney won’t want that heat, but it sounds like the verdict is more nuanced and there’s a case that it was semi-accidental in a messy situation? If the rumors of Majors having a bunch of things in his contract about not recasting are true, this could be an extremely messy situation for Disney if they want to sever, but Majors counters the severance from the morality clause on the nuance and details.
The reality is that domestic abuse, much like rape, is incredibly difficult to prove. Because it isn’t happening in the wide open. And, even when it does, there is a lot of argument of “That is just how we are” which tends to go well with the character assassination defense.
So, likely, the jury was only able to come to a conclusion on what was recorded or directly corroborated by witnesses and ignored anything that happened behind closed doors.