I’m just gonna go ahead and say it.
Failing to tell the defense they had the bullets recovered on set is a freaking stupid move. Like it’s incomprehensible how a prosecutor of any amount of experience- or even an intern at the office in their first week- could make such an abysmally stupid mistake.
To put it another way: someone threw the case, intentionally.
Or, it really was a politically motivated trial and the prosecution was willing to cover up exculpatory evidence in order to manipulate the justice system. Either way, its damning.
I fail to see how the cartridges can possibly be exculpatory.
It doesn’t matter how they got in the gun, or if these were from a case on set. He doesn’t contest that that it went off while he was holding it. Only that it’s not his fault.
Manslaughter is about proving negligence or misconduct. The prosecution case was that Baldwin was at fault as he was negligent handling a gun with live ammunition.
Part of Baldwins defence was that he did not know the gun had a live round in it.
The new evidence was that the live ammo came from the props company, not the armourer, throwing doubt over whether the armourer or Baldwin knew there were live rounds on set or in the gun.
That’s a hugely important part of the defence case, and also makes it much hard to prove involuntary manslaughter - it would be negligent to fire a gun knowing there is a live round in it, but if you did not know there were live rounds then does that meet the same level of negligence?
Personally I thought the case against Baldwin seemed tenuous so I’m not surprised this new evidence ended the trial.
This does raise serious questions about the safety of the armourers conviction. She might still be negligent as its unclear how live ammo from the prop company got on set without her knowing but she has not been able to answer that as the evidence was suppressed and she was convicted on the assumption it was entirely her fault the live ammo was on set.
It raises even more serious questions about the behaviour and motivations of the new mexico prosecution team and investigators.
The problem with this statement is that prop/inert cartridges are labeled and identified as such in ways that are usually fairly obvious.
Like “loading” the cartridge with a steel ball bearing, and a used/fired primer cap (which has a divot from the hammer.) Thorough inspection would have identified them as inert.
While it’s remotely possible they were so well crafted as to be virtually identical, that kind of thing would end the props company. They are very careful to always make the marking conspicuous- as long as you know to look for it. (Another common option is a somewhat large hole in the side of the casing.)
And the indicators should have been gone over in a safety briefing so everyone knows. (And is trained in what to do on seeing a live round. “Hey! Live round! armorer!”)
In any case Baldwin had a duty of care to handle the firearm safely. Part of that includes knowing its state. He did not clear the fire arm, and did not know its state. It becomes self evident they were not inert cartridges but rather live rounds given that we’re talking about Alina being shot.
Man, you really don’t know anything about the case do you
If you’re driving and your brakes mysteriously fail, consequently someone dies. Is it manslaughter?
Edit: clarity.
Not quite, you’re ignoring the role of the armorer on set in your metaphor.
If you just picked up your car from the mechanic after they were expected to check everything, including the brakes, and the brakes then fail causing you to crash and kill someone… Is it manslaughter? And if so, who is at fault?
You were driving the vehicle, but you would obviously expect the brakes to be in working order since they were supposedly checked immediately before you started driving. The driver would almost certainly not be charged in that case, but the mechanic on the other hand would clearly be negligent, directly leading to the death.
I’m not tho. One of the implications of the bullets being a little bit of everywhere was that it implied another source.
Depends on why they failed and if you should have maintained your car better.
It’s usually not all that mysterious. Brakes don’t just randomly fail for no reason.
Let’s say they failed because of poor maintenance. Then yes.
Let’s say they failed because there was a defect in the brake line that caused it to rupture in the high temperatures of summer. Then no.
Baldwin failed a duty of care to ensure the weapon was cleared and in fact safe. He then failed a duty of care when handling that weapon in an extremely unsafe manner.
To go with the analogy, he knew his brakes were failing and drove anyway.
If you know your brakes are failing, and they fail… It’s not mysterious.
Then your analogy sucks. This wasn’t a random failure.
As I said in the reply: Baldwin knew- or should have known- that he was handling the firearm unsafely, and that he shouldn’t handle it in an unsafe manner,
No. But with the withheld evidence now known… The armorer herself may not have been convicted and she’s certainly getting retried.
Those mistakes didn’t happen in a vacuum. But proving where that vacuum came from doesn’t have the same certainty that it did.
This has always been what I believed.
Nah, this sort of shit happens all the time.
Baldwin just has the power and influence to fight the charge.
I think you overestimate Baldwin’s current star power. These days, he’s a B-lister, at best. Aside from this trial, he hasn’t really been relevant in pop culture for a while now.
He’s still rich, for sure. But I doubt he’s still rich enough to buy a judge, if he ever was to begin with.
You don’t need to bribe a judge.
You need enough money to have a team of lawyers grind through the evidence and find what’s been hidden.
Compare this to having a public defender with limited resources. They basically have to trust the DA’s office.
What’s depressing about this is the DA’s office is so used to getting away with this shady shit, that they can’t do their job properly even when they know they’re under a higher level of scrutiny. Think of all the average Joes that have been fucked over by these guys.
Rich persons justice isn’t really about bribing your way out of things. It’s about having enough resources that you can force the system to behave, for you, in the way that it’s meant to.
This is instead of the usual process that just steamrolls over every poor bastard that ends up in court.
If there’s one thing we’ve discovered over the years, those in charge are surprisingly cheap to bribe.
The Baldwins are extremely well connected. One of them is married to Justin Bieber. Who just got 10mil for performing at that 350mil Indian wedding. Alec is also a movie producer, which you cannot do if you have no money.
What if that judge’s daughter is a huge Justin Bieber fan? Or wants front row tickets to a fashion show or backstage Coachella passes? Or attend a movie premiere? That’s all within his scope
Not on high profile cases, no it does not.
(Well, excluding Trump trials … Trump truly hires the best.)
My cynical self agrees with you. But also, Hanlon’s Razor.
She was in charge of keeping things safe, she failed in her responsibilities and someone died. She is at fault and should face the consequences.
I know right. The logic seems to be “well he didn’t get charged for it so I shouldn’t be either”. Yeah, but keeping weapons safe was your job, not his.
What will it help? She will stay dead and another life is destroyed? It will not prevent it from happening again, more than the death of an innocent person.
Fuck yeah, Hollywood getting away with killing an employee.
Remember, she filed a safety complaint against the production precisely because of all this. Alina was a union whistleblower who turned up dead.
I rarely comment, but your statement is factually incorrect on a few points. I assume when you stated “Alina”, you are referring to Halyna Hutchins. There were safety complaints filed by other production members, but not by her. The way you framed this statement also implies she may have been killed as retribution because she filed a safety complaint, which again, she did not.
If there is a credible source that the victim in this tragedy filed a safety complaint before her death, I will happily amend or delete my comment. I’m not trying to start a flame war or anything and this is certainly no attack on you personally, it just bothers me when I see misinformation.
I rarely comment, but your statement is factually incorrect on a few points. I assume when you stated “Alina”, you are referring to Halyna Hutchins
I apologize for a friggin typo. That’s not a factually incorrect statement, however.
There were safety complaints filed by other production members, but not by her. The way you framed this statement also implies she may have been killed as retribution because she filed a safety complaint, which again, she did not.
From Wikipedia:
There were safety complaints filed by other production members, but not by her. The way you framed this statement also implies she may have been killed as retribution because she filed a safety complaint, which again, she did not.
This makes her a whistleblower and provides (possible) motivation. Do you have any idea how much it costs for a single day of shooting? Proper safety protocols would have slowed down production, increasing costs.
I’ve been unable to find information on who actually filed those complaints, and assume the union wouldn’t tell management who did- and I would be shocked if they did (that’d make them rats.)
Something to think about when Baldwin puts on his most sincere act ever and insists it was an accident and not his fault.
Also as a side note, there’s apparently a small technical mistake that HGR was in fact not the armorer (her contract for that apparently expired a few days earlier.)(she was still acting as armorer even if she wasn’t technically designated as such,)
Should proofread your posts
what, and deprive you of the opportunity to add nothing of substance?
Seems like a little more than just Alec Baldwin heading an extraordinarily sloppy production. HG-R still did not do her job but if they both went to prison you’d feel like justice was done knowing evidence like this was withheld?
I don’t particularly think any kind of ballistics on the bullets is really going to change the out come of the trial. They could have easily omitted them and still had a rock-solid case.
Like, Baldwin is not disputing that he was holding the gun that killed her. Just that it was his fault.
HGR, that other producer. Baldwin. They can all share full guilt for what happened.
The armourer hands the actor a safe gun, the actor uses it.
If the gun isn’t safe it’s not the actor’s fault.
The issue isn’t that Baldwin held the gun, it’s that he was the producer of the entire production.
True. But that’s not how he was being charged. He was being charged because he was the actor firing the weapon. There is a difference.
If he was not a producer would we be talking about him being charged at all in this case?
If the issue is him being a producer, why aren’t all the other producers being charged for the same crime? What was different about Baldwin? If the issue isn’t that he fired the weapon.
The unfortunate answer is the prosecutors office is a very political position.
First, no. That’s wrong.
Hollywood movie industry doesn’t write law. New Mexico law says Baldwin was being negligent, and that negligence resulted in some one’s death. This is a crime.
If a lawyer tells you it’s okay to go 80 in a 55, and a cop writes you a speeding ticket, you don’t get to pull “advice of counsel” as a defense to get out of it, because the lawyers advice is obviously unreasonable and incorrect.
Alternatively, if you call a mechanic and describe some brake symptoms and he says it’s safe to get it into the shop without a tow, and you get into an accident because the brakes failed… the mechanic is not liable for that, ultimate liability rests with the driver. The mechanic didn’t know the full circumstances.
Similarly, even an idiot could be reasonably expected to recognize that it’s unsafe to point a functional firearm at people and pull the trigger (or otherwise waive it around like a toy.) therefore, an expert’s advice to the contrary is quite unreasonable and on its own face should have been ignored; and HGR was unaware of his actions with the weapon as she was not immediately present.
Therefore, Baldwin failed a duty of care to behave in a safe manner (aka he was negligent,) and some one died (homicide- probably invol. Manslaughter or whatever the specific term is.) It also goes out the window when you recognize that HGR was in fact not an expert. She was a laughably inexperienced neppo-baby and we all know it. (She was also hired because she was inexperienced and allowed things that she should not have. This benefitted the production by reducing slow downs in filming.
Now to the second point:
Baldwin did not receive the weapon from HGR- he received from an assistant producer (who plead guilty, too.)
So no. He didn’t receive it from your “expert”.
Doesn’t someone have to be convicted of a crime to have the law saying you’re negligent?
Nope.
The law describes behaviors/actions/stuffs that are or are not crime. Murder is defined as the unjustified killing of a human. (Usually.) there are then variations of “murder”.
Specifically to New Mexico, Involuntary manslaughter :
Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice.
….
B. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.So any behavior that fits that is, by definition invol. Manslaughter.
I’ve added emphasis to the relevant bit here. Let’s break it down.
- Baldwin was preparing to shoot a sequence of a western movie. This is a lawful act.
- he was handling a firearm. This might produce death.
- he was handling the weapon in an unsafe manner; that is, without due caution.
- these things resulted in Alina dying.
This also gets into presumption of innocence. It’s a procedural presumption. It’s a very important procedural stipulation meant to protect the civil liberties of the accused. (It’s violated on a regular basis but that’s a different matter.)
Regardless, the crime happened. If you’re guilty of a thing, you are guilty regardless of if you are caught, or discovered, or accused or even indicted or they blame some one else. None of that changed that you did that thing and are guilty. The trial doesn’t magically guilty- you are found to be guilty.
Like how fossils are found. They’re always there. Just because we don’t know that they’re there, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The fact of their existence is immaterial to any one’s knowledge of that fact.
Similarly, the fact of one’s guilt is immaterial to anyone’s knowledge of that fact. (For example, a drunk driver so heavily inebriated they don’t realize they ran some one over. Or hunters plinking in the woods unaware that kids were playing behind their targets.)
The court procedural rules say he is presumed to be guilty until the fact of his guilt is found in a court of law.
He committed actions which are defined as being involuntary manslaughter.
He doesn’t get to say he was behaving with due care because there was an inexperienced, inept armorer, somewhere around there. That’s not how it works.
From an occupational accident perspective, it doesn’t matter that there was a “safety coordinator”, it’s still unreasonable behavior that lead to Alina dying, as an employee (and employer, but that’s a different set of charged ) he has an obligation and duty of care to maintain a safe working environment- and to report unsafe environments.
But he’s not charged with a crime and will never be in relation to this tragic accident.
Is the movie still coming out?
lmao
I don’t think they finished filming.
That’s not exactly surprising - I’m pretty sure a first-year law student would do as much. The real question is will it actually get dismissed. Normally I would suspect not, but we live in the weirdest fucking timeline, so who the hell knows.
Sorry kid. Someone’s gotta swing and they weren’t ever going to let it be the rich guy.
This case is weird. You have Trumptards wanting Baldwin imprisoned because he mocked Trump once on tv. Then you have bleeding heart leftists who simp for Hannah because muh mysoggyknee, muh classism, muh wimmin never dun nufin wrong. It’s a perfect storm of shitty people coming together for a wrong cause.
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