Cont: Baldwin fatally shoots crewmember on set of movie with prop gun (2)

What a fiasco.
I think Baldwin's role in this stinks on ice, because the whole project was his baby, and he has to be held at least partially responsible for the horrid safety situation... but he never should have been criminally prosecuted.
And the prosecution was incredibly inept.
 
dudalb said:
What a fiasco.
I think Baldwin's role in this stinks on ice, because the whole project was his baby, and he has to be held at least partially responsible for the horrid safety situation... but he never should have been criminally prosecuted.
And the prosecution was incredibly inept.
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The Prosecution was hiding stuff and Lying from day one, anyone who ever dealt with one of these old guns knows that.
 
theprestige said:
It is a fundamental principle of gun safety that you can never know for sure if your gun is loaded, and therefore you should always treat it as if it is loaded. This is a concept so basic that we can reasonably expect that even someone like Alec Baldwin will understand it.
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Yes we can never know if a rocket engine has fuel so always point it towards space!
I think I can tell when a gun has an active charge and when it doesn't before I work on it.
 
KDLarsen said:
Having such a high profile case tossed on a Brady violation can'tshouldn't be good for any prosecutor's career.
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I don't think it's a good thing. But that doesn’t mean it's a career killer either.

I watched some of the 7 hour video link. Certainly not all of it. The defense lawyer asked the prosecutors a few questions and I didn’t believe her answers. I don't know her and have no opinion about her. She was asked if she called Baldwin a c sucker. She hemmed and hawed and wanted to know what the Defense attorney was talking about. That told me that she did.

Now I could care less if she despises Baldwin. But I didn't like she didn't own it.
 
dudalb said:
What a fiasco.
I think Baldwin's role in this stinks on ice, because the whole project was his baby, and he has to be held at least partially responsible for the horrid safety situation... but he never should have been criminally prosecuted.
And the prosecution was incredibly inept.
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He was held accountable. Just not criminally.
 
theprestige said:
It is a fundamental principle of gun safety that you can never know for sure if your gun is loaded, and therefore you should always treat it as if it is loaded. This is a concept so basic that we can reasonably expect that even someone like Alec Baldwin will understand it.
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dudalb said:
This. It was something that should have been left to Civil suits.
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Now Santa Fe may gave Lawsuits filed by Baldwin and Hannah and the People of New Mexico might have to pay them off.
 
It's a shame to see the trial collapse on a farcical technicality, when it would have been much better to see it collapse on its farcical merits.
 
carlosy said:
Sure, but all that doesn't do away that Baldwin actually pointed a real gun at a person, unnessecary, off-script, and very likely pulled the trigger.
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What happened isn't in dispute. It has to do with the defence against the involuntary manslaughter charge, part of which IMU requires negligence.

Because the judge found the state withheld evidence that the defence could use to negate at least part of the negligence, the jury will never get to decide the case.

I am sure we can agree that it is unfair to try anyone when the state withholds evidence that could be used by the defence.
 
JayUtah said:
Welcome to the present condition of American prosecution. I serve enough booze to enough public defenders (speaking of a "spirited" defense...) to hear all the stories of prosecutorial misconduct—mostly Brady violations—almost none of which gets pursued because the defense usually doesn't have the resources. Prosecutors count on the defense not to catch them. I've heard this from former prosecutors too, at least at my local and state level. This doesn't work with wealthy defendants.
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And thus Baldin walks out of court a free man, without the jury having a say in the matter. Really sad.

I wonder how much the special prosecutor being a defence attorney had to do with the apparent mistake in her judgement that allowed this. We can see that the sheriffs department in NM was not as sharp as the defence lawyers.
 
Pooneil said:
And thus Baldin walks out of court a free man, without the jury having a say in the matter. Really sad.

I wonder how much the special prosecutor being a defence attorney had to do with the apparent mistake in her judgement that allowed this. We can see that the sheriffs department in NM was not as sharp as the defence lawyers.
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What are you trying to say? Maybe it's me, but it seems as if you're implying that this was deliberate and nefarious.
 
Pooneil said:
Because justice is served by the case going to a jury. Not being dismissed for misconduct.

I think Baldwin is culpable. But no jury will ever have a chance to come to a conclusion on the matter.
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I don't think justice was ever going to be served. I absolutely believe Baldwin was culpable. But I am not sure there was justification for prosecuting him criminally.
 
acbytesla said:
What are you trying to say? Maybe it's me, but it seems as if you're implying that this was deliberate and nefarious.
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I did say "apparent mistake in her judgement" which pretty clearly shows I don't know if it was deliberate or not.

The judge thought is was sufficiently bad to dismiss with prejudice. IIRC, from her ruling, she thought it was deliberate. Morrissey called herself to testify in her own defence after being named as knowing the evidence was understood to be exculpatory. That is pretty damning. I'll let the process come to a conclusion if it develops further.

In her defence as an attorney, she wanted this all done in public.
 
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acbytesla said:
I don't think justice was ever going to be served. I absolutely believe Baldwin was culpable. But I am not sure there was justification for prosecuting him criminally.
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There is a solid argument for that to. I feel the trial was justified by his culpability.
 
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Pooneil said:
I did say "apparent mistake in her judgement" which pretty clearly shows I don't know if it was deliberate or not.

The judge thought is was sufficiently bad to dismiss with prejudice. IIRC, from her ruling, she thought it was deliberate. Morrissey called herself to testify in her own defence after being named as knowing the evidence was understood to be exculpatory. That is pretty damning. I'll let the process come to a conclusion if it develops further.
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Thank you for clearing that up.

In another Chat I was just in, there were people suggesting that the prosecutor and the judge were helping Baldwin because all three are Democrats. I think this is ridiculous because the prosecutor has had the power not to prosecute.
 
JayUtah said:
The other side to the story is that the defense has been alleging a number of Brady violations (which I finally found the briefs and orders for). However, a lot of them are being denied.
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Only one of them needs to catch. On this one, the defence landed the whopper of a violation.
 
acbytesla said:
Fair enough. I can't say I'm convinced either way.
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My propensity was the think guilty before hand through negligent handling. But I wasn't convinced on guilt because I don't know the NM law and the elements of it.
 
acbytesla said:
Thank you for clearing that up.

In another Chat I was just in, there were people suggesting that the prosecutor and the judge were helping Baldwin because all three are Democrats. I think this is ridiculous because the prosecutor has had the power not to prosecute.
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LOL Only conspiracy minded people could think that partisan politics would override legal professionalism here. That Morrissey would damage her career for her political party is laughable. She was a Special Prosecutor, hired to handle the case after the DA made several avoidable mistakes. That the county would mess this up is not a stretch at all.
 
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Pooneil said:
LOL Only conspiracy minded people could think that partisan politics would override legal professionalism here. That Morrissey would damage her career for her political party is laughable. She was a Special Prosecutor, hired to handle the case after the DA made several avoidable mistakes. That the county would mess this up is not a stretch at all.
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Yep, and they didn't have to mess it up, but they went into the case with fallacious beliefs, and they came out of it as liars, and frauds.
 
Crap I just finished watching the first day of trial. Should I watch day 2 or just skip to the climax?
 
Horhang said:
Crap I just finished watching the first day of trial. Should I watch day 2 or just skip to the climax?
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Well it could be appealed, if the powder in the rounds in Question is single based TiteGroup, or Trail Boss, single base powders, then Morrissey was right the rounds are not evidence in the Rust Case. If they are Bullseye or Winchester 231 a double based powder then they match the live rounds, and are evidence.
 
Crazy Chainsaw said:
Well it could be appealed, if the powder in the rounds in Question is single based TiteGroup, or Trail Boss, single base powders, then Morrissey was right the rounds are not evidence in the Rust Case. If they are Bullseye or Winchester 231 a double based powder then they match the live rounds, and are evidence.
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No, it can't be appealed. It was dismissed with prejudice.
 
carlosy said:
Sure, but all that doesn't do away that Baldwin actually pointed a real gun at a person, unnessecary, off-script, and very likely pulled the trigger.
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And had he not done that then another actor would have pointed the same gun at a real person, necessarily, according to the script, and pulled the trigger. I'm not seeing what the difference is.

As others have said, the prime directive wrt firearms is to treat them as if they are loaded. The second rule, which no one has mentioned, is that the first thing you do when you take possession of a firearm is to verify that it is unloaded. One question, it seems to me, is that, should that standard be applied to a movie set? Is it reasonable to expect every actor (think Gwyneth Paltrow) to be able to competently verify that a prop gun she is handed to use in a scene is unloaded, or should actors—people untrained in firearms usage—be able to rely on the statement of the responsible firearms expert on the set that the gun they are handed is unloaded.

I don't have an answer to this question. It just seems to me to be a central question in the case, and one that no one (at least not in this thread) has addressed.
 
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Caveat: I am not in either camp - I don't care whether Baldwin was culpable in the death Halyna Hutchins or not.

Pooneil said:
And thus Baldin walks out of court a free man, without the jury having a say in the matter.
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And who is responsible for that? Not Baldwin!

Pooneil said:
Really sad.
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I think that, in some ways, its a good thing. This time, the dishonesty and incompetence of the police and the prosecutors has backfired on them, and they don't get a do-over. There needs to be sanctions against all of those involved.

I remind you, He wasn't the one who received evidence for an existing trial, and assigned it a new case number. He wasn't the one who intentionally withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the other side.

I did cross my mind this could be going to happen when I watched crime scene technician Marissa Poppell's feet being held to the fire under a withering cross by Baldwin's defense attorney. You could see the general point where she became deeply uncomfortable as the magnitude of the mistakes she and her colleagues made began to dawn on her.

Brady exists for reasons - one of which is to ensure a fair trial, and to help keep corrupt or overzealous prosecutors from railroading innocent people and resulting in wrongful convictions. The penalty for Brady violations MUST be severe, especially when they are discovered after the jury is sworn, and jeopardy has attached.

For anyone interested, here is a transcript of judge Mary Marlowe Sommer 's verbal ruling. It makes very uncomfortable reading for the Santa Fe Country Sheriff's Office, and Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey.

Dismissal with prejudice is a very extreme sanction and case law is very clear that because it's very extreme I, have to go through every single element and I have to make a very good record as to what why I'm I'm seeing what I'm seeing.

In order to establish a Brady violation, the defendant must show that the prosecution suppressed evidence, the evidence was favorable to the accused and the evidence was material to the defense.

So let's go through the elements - suppression of evidence.

The definition of suppression of elements, this is Case v Hatch, is while the first element requires proof that the prosecution suppressed or withheld the evidence in question, it does not require a finding of bad faith or any other culpable state of mind on the part of the prosecutor. This prong is satisfied - the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and the prosecution failed to disclose the supplemental report to defense and provide defense an opportunity to inspect the rounds collected into evidence that Mr Tesky gave.

Is the evidence favorable to the accused? The second Brady element is whether the suppressed evidence was favorable to the accused either as impeachment or exculpatory evidence. This prong is satisfied - the suppressed evidence is favorable to the accused, it is impeachment evidence, has even been offered in this trial as impeachment evidence, and is potentially exculpatory to the defense. Critically, the exculpatory value cannot be analyzed at such a late juncture because of the non-disclosure.

Is the evidence material? While post-trial discovery of evidence under Brady requires a reasonable probability that the result of the
proceeding would have been different, discovery of evidence during trial requires an evaluation of whether the late tender has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it impacts the fundamental fairness of the proceedings and that is State v Castro. This evidence is material the late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings. The defense is not in a position to test the State's theory as to the source of the live rounds that killed Ms Hutchins.

I'm also going to take a look at State v Harper. The assessment of sanctions depends upon the extent of the government's culpability weighed against the amount of prejudice to the state. Quoting Shanard. Let's go through culpability. Our case law generally provides that the refusal to comply with a District Court's discovery order only rises to the level of exclusion or dismissal where the state's conduct is especially culpable such as where evidence is unilaterally withheld by the state in bad faith or all access to the evidencei is precluded by state intransience. The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide this discovery to the defendant. The state unilaterally withheld the supplemental report. Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office made the decision and apparently also with the with the prosecutor is pursuant to Hancock's testimony that the evidence was of no evidentiary value and failed to connect the evidence to the instant case. The case agent as well as pursuant to Hancock's testimony, Miss Morrisey (the prosecutor) was aware of the new evidence and yet did not make an effort to disclose it to defense. The State's willful with holding of this information was intentional and deliberate. If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching.

Prejudice. When discovery has been produced late, prejudice does not accrue unless the evidence is material and the disclosure is so late that it undermines the defendant's preparation for trial. The court concludes that this conduct is highly prejudicial to the defendant. The jury has been sworn, jeopardy has attached and this disclosure during the course of trial is so late that it undermines the defendant's preparation for trial. There is no way for the court right this wrong

Lesser sanctions under Harper. Trial courts possess broad discretionary authority to decide what sanction to impose when a discovery order is violated - State v Lamir. The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy. The jury has been sworn Jeopardy has attached and a mistrial would not be based upon manifest necessity. Further, the sanction of dismissal is warranted in this case. The State has repeatedly made representations to defense and to the court that they were compliant with all their Discovery obligations. Despite their repeated representations they have continued to fail to disclose critical evidence to the
defendant.

Brady and Harper satisfied - dismissal with prejudice is warranted. Court also has power inherent power per State v Lamir where Discovery
violations inject needless delay into the proceedings. Courts May impose meaningful sanctions to effectuate their inherent power and promote efficient judicial administration. The State's discovery violation has injected a needless incurable delay into the instant jury. Trial dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice.

Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted.​
 
jt512 said:
And had he not done that then another actor would have pointed the same gun at a real person, necessarily, according to the script, and pulled the trigger. I'm not seeing what the difference is.

As others have said, the prime directive wrt firearms is to treat them as if they are loaded. The second rule, which no one has mentioned, is that the first thing you do when you take possession of a firearm is to verify that it is unloaded. One question, it seems to me, is that, should that standard be applied to a movie set? Is it reasonable to expect every actor (think Gwyneth Paltrow) to be able to competently verify that a prop gun she is handed to use in a scene is unloaded, or should actors—people untrained in firearms usage—be able to rely on the statement of the responsible firearms expert on the set that the gun they are handed is unloaded.

I don't have an answer to this question. It just seems to me to be a central question in the case, and one that no one (at least not in this thread) has addressed.
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In fact, there is a real argument that, given the amazing level of special effects in modern movie making, it is not even necessary to use real guns of any kind, and that prop guns that look like the real thing but cannot be loaded are all that is necessary.

For revolvers, its not a problem. For magazine-fed handguns such as Glocks, Sig Sauers and the like, the manufacturer might need to design a system to make the slide operate - perhaps using a gas cartridge.

This surely would not be all that difficult?
 
Pooneil said:
LOL Only conspiracy minded people could think that partisan politics would override legal professionalism here. That Morrissey would damage her career for her political party is laughable. She was a Special Prosecutor, hired to handle the case after the DA made several avoidable mistakes. That the county would mess this up is not a stretch at all.
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:rolleyes:
Or those with knowledge of the level of political influence in US prosecutorial actions.
 
Yet another instance of failure to disclose evidence. At least it was uncovered during the trial.
 
Why can’t the prosecution be charged with perverting the course of justice? Maybe this is not an offence in the US. If not it should be.
 
acbytesla said:
No, it can't be appealed. It was dismissed with prejudice.
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It can be appeal to the New Mexico Appeals court, and they can declare a mistrial and send it back to the court in Santa Fe, Baldwin just can't be reindicted on the same charges.
 
catsmate said:
Not surprising, it was a disaster of a case.
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Bowles has filed a motion for dismissal of Hannah's case as well because Hancock knew about the live rounds in Arizona and didn't collect them as evidence.
I knew this case was screwed up from the start, they couldn't even be bothered to read the introduction on the starline website. A month after the shooting they didn't know Starline Manufactured Orphan brass for antique gun Calibers.
I told the Santa Fe Sheriff's office that on the phone before the Seth Kenney interview. They are natural screw ups, the Sheriff needs to resign, if he is still in office.
 
Crazy Chainsaw said:
It can be appeal to the New Mexico Appeals court, and they can declare a mistrial and send it back to the court in Santa Fe, Baldwin just can't be reindicted on the same charges.
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Sounds like double jeopardy to me. But I'd have to see what those charges would be.

I'm now wondering if the armorer is going to have the decision against her thrown out. I don't see how it can't be. But I've been wrong in my thinking before.

Ninja'd by Chainsaw.
 
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acbytesla said:
Sounds like double jeopardy to me. But I'd have to see what those charges would be.

I'm now wondering if the armorer is going to have the decision against her thrown out. I don't see how it can't be. But I've been wrong in my thinking before.
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She can Appeal the judges decision if the Judge made a mistake in Judgement, that's exactly why Morrissey took the witness stand, for the Appeals court.
 
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