George Gascón, the progressive district attorney in Los Angeles County who has been blamed by critics for rising crime rates, declined to comment on the Weinstein case, as did Marlene Martinez and Paul Thompson, the deputy district attorneys assigned to the trial.

“The notion of getting justice obviously means a great deal to a great many people,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford University law professor and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. “Losing in California would be bad for the victims, bad for the #MeToo movement and bad for Gascón.”