Alec Baldwin Saunters Into Court
 

Alec actually showed up in court. He has humongous financial and other resources and has a top notch and expensive legal team. Should be interesting...

Alec Baldwin '''Rust''' trial: Actor saunters into court for pretrial hearing | Fox News

About time criminal court proceedings started
 

People will argue the point but he was indicted and has culpability for a manslaughter conviction. If that happens it will show the 'Hollywood Elite' that they are not teflon.

that's a big IF there.

You have to laugh at headline writers, who have made up their minds before a case has begun.
I just watched a video of Baldwin arriving, and he, to me, just walked into the court.
But 'saunter' is so much better if you have an agenda.

Uh-oh... What a preposterous ruling!

Alec Baldwin '''Rust''' trial: Judge makes major ruling in actor'''s favor | Fox News

Does not follow that as a producer of the movie that Baldwin is responsible for gun safety on a movie set. Good ruling.


Let's have tests on whether that specific gun went off without the trigger being pulled.

Exactly correct. Well said.

I thought this was going to be a joke. You know, like "a guy goes into a bar" kind of joke.
Maybe next time.

I’m glad New Mexico has all this extra cash to burn.

I’ve worked on film/tv sets for 30 years with plenty of guns. For the gun to get handed off to an actor is the full responsibility of the Armorer. That person’s job is to lock up the gun, NEVER have live rounds on set, only blanks, but most importantly, that gun cannot leave that persons hands until both the first AD and Armorer look inside the gun to make sure nothing is stuck in there ( Brandon Lee ) which was a union rule put in place because of Brandon Lee getting shot and killed on set years ago. Once that’s done the AD will yell out “cold gun on set” I’m also curious why they’d even use a real gun for a rehearsal instead of the rubber one. But so many things went wrong on this set. First, union camera crew quit days before due to safety issues. The armorer had just been fired from a Nick Cage movie because nobody felt safe with her. She was new to the job. IMO the Line Producer is just as guilty for hiring her and non union crews on a union shoot to save money. When shows try to save money and hire less experienced people bad things happen. I worked in Atlanta for 8 years on a tv series and one of our camera assistants was killed by a train because they were told they COULD NOT shoot on a live train track but the producer/director decided to take a small crew and call it a “rehearsal” but actually filmed and my friend was killed. That director was in prison all of maybe 2 years and is still making movies. Meanwhile, I wanted to shoot a scene on a sidewalk with a parking lot in between the train tracks and was told NOT SAFE so I picked another spot.

Is the trial televised?

I checked out the background of the judge. She was appointed by former governor Bill Richardson who largely is responsible for providing incentives to get the film industry into New Mexico. She should have recused herself.

Mary Marlowe Sommer - Ballotpedia

Again. Does not follow.

So what that Richardson appointed this woman? There is no evidence that she could not be objective in this case.

pay attention
 

The union camera crew quit days before days before because of safety concerns,,, they knew something was not right,, which was that target practice was going on with live rounds during off hours.
That is the responsibility of the producer,, to have a safe set to film a movie. Do you really think Baldwin did not know there was target practice taking place on set ,, kinda loud to miss. Why did the union cam crew quit for safety?
Baldwin was negligent in the least,, or who is in charge?
Nobody?

The weapons are the responsibility of the armorer.

You are correct. The NM state law governs, not "Hollywood rules".

Alec was criminally negligent both as a producer and as an individual. A scene was not being shot so he was not acting at that time. On his own hook he was fooling around with a loaded revolver without checking it for live rounds even though it had been used with live rounds to shoot at targets. He pointed the weapon at the poor woman and pulled the trigger, killing her and then denied pulling the trigger to the police. I hope and pray he ends up rotting in the state prison in Santa Fe but fear he will walk. The writing is on the wall with the ruling this judge already made. Very sad...

Even the "hollywood judge" ; he was paid to bring movies to New Mexico; cannot deny the facts and Baldwins culpability. It was his dam movie. I have faith he's not going scott free. :agree:

Question?
 

My question is why would ANYONE do this?

And who is responsible for the Armorer?

The PRODUCER (AKA Baldwin...)

Well, I guess we now understand the "saunters" comment in the heading.

If Baldwin voted for the other party, this thread, would probably have a totally different script.
That's Hollywood for you.
Funny old world.

This should be a simple case. Baldwin, who by his own admission is a firearms expert (at least the way he carries on about banning guns, he certainly must making that claim), took a loaded gun, pointed at a person and pulled the trigger.

I don't care how many people outside of him were "responsible". He pulled the trigger. He did not properly check the gun. It wasn't a prop. It was a real gun.

If I go into a gun range and rent a gun, and the range safety officer hands me a gun, tells me it is not loaded, and I point it at a person and shoot them...there is no scenario where I don't go to jail for manslaughter, at the very least. There is no difference here. He knew it was a real gun and he murdered a person with it.

A murder charge under these circumstances would definitely be a not guilty verdict.

Agreed.

People don't kill people, guns kill people.

Well, a gun and a person were certainly involved in the death of the poor lady.

That poor lady would be alive today if of the human half of this equation did their part.

The revolver knows 1 thing; trigger pulled = hammer falls on pin/primer. Everything else is up to the human.

I consider manslaughter a form of murder.

Wow how can they be so careless?

All the comments have been................it started at the top.

:ohdear:

Good job you're not a defense lawyer then.

True but quite a few of the people involved in this knew better

Guess if you are rich and famous you can get away with murder or perhaps manslaughter

Thankfully that was one smart judge!!!!!

George Zimmerman was neither rich or famous and actually did murder someone ON PURPOSE

Another killer will walk. Predictably this judge could not dismiss the case with prejudice fast enough.

"SANTA FE — The criminal case against actor Alec Baldwin imploded in spectacular fashion Friday when a judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter charge after finding that prosecutors had withheld evidence.

District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled on the third day of testimony that "dismissal with prejudice is warranted" because prosecutors failed to turn over live ammunition turned over in March to the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office. The case will not be refiled.

Baldwin, his attorneys and family members walked out of the Santa Fe District Courthouse without commenting to the throngs of reporters and camera crews asking for his response to the dismissal.


The Baldwin trial took a wild turn Friday morning when defense attorneys demanded that prosecutors produce ammunition that a "good Samaritan" turned over in March to the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office.

His attorneys also asked state District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to dismiss the case against Baldwin, alleging that prosecutors and investigators "hid" critical evidence from the defense.

The dramatic turn of events brought the trial to a crashing halt as Marlowe Sommer considers the defense motion to dismiss the case. The judge dismissed the jury about 10:15 a.m. and told them to return Monday. At 4:30 p.m. she made the jury's dismissal permanent.

"Dismissal with prejudice is a very extreme thing," Marlowe Sommer said before granting it.

"The defendant must show that the prosecution suppressed evidence, the evidence was favorable to the accused and the evidence was material to the defense," the judge said.

Marlowe Sommer found that Baldwin's legal team met all three prongs of a Brady violation, which allows a judge to dismiss all charges against defendant.

The surprise ending to the high-profile trial may have exceeded anything a Hollywood scriptwriter could have written. It included the lead special prosecutor Kari Morrissey testifying in the witness stand while being cross examined by a defense attorney.

The hour-long hearing involved an unusual scene in which the judge donned blue latex gloves and came down from her bench to examine about a dozen live rounds as attorneys and a crime scene investigator gathered around."

Judge tosses criminal charge against Baldwin | News | abqjournal.com

We seem to have a lot of really smart judges these days.

Well, at least on the US Supreme Court we do have some.

Except he didn't... Shooting someone who is on top of you, banging your head into the sidewalk is in no way murder... By ANY legal definition...

Case dismissed with prejudice. Can't be retried.

A fair result given the mishandling and lying about the evidence.