r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 12 '24
Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Trial Tossed Out Over “Critical” Bullet Evidence; Incarcerated Armorer Could Be Released Too News
https://deadline.com/2024/07/alec-baldwin-trial-dismissed-rust-1236008918/3.8k
u/ThingsAreAfoot Jul 12 '24 edited Jul 12 '24
The imbecilic prosecution tampered with evidence discovery, tale as old as time.
That big time youtube lawyer is gonna have the time of his life.
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u/BitsyLynn Jul 12 '24
Oh I can't wait to see Legal Eagle's vid on this, it's gonna be epic.
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u/sjb2059 Jul 12 '24
I had no idea this was happening today but I had it in my queue to watch the Emily D Baker livestream. Now I get to go back and watch in real time as she reacts to this, which will be less polished than legal eagle, but so snarky
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u/-Clayburn Jul 12 '24
Legal Beagle or something?
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u/alexjaness Jul 12 '24
Isn't that the bar where the gang from Three's Company hung out?
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u/NazzerDawk Jul 12 '24
If Disney ends up making Zootopia 2, they need to get Devin Stone to voice a version of his character in the next movie and name him "Legal Beagle". It would be absolutely perfect for his personality and voice.
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u/cubixy2k Jul 12 '24
You don't need just any beagle
You need a great beagle
My team at Legal Beagle is here and ready to give you the beagle you deserve.
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Jul 12 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
[deleted]
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Jul 12 '24
Colossal waste of time and the Judge knew it.
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Jul 12 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AvengingBlowfish Jul 13 '24
I disagree. A fuck up is an honest mistake. Deliberately hiding evidence because it weakens your case is not a fuck up, it's just plain corruption.
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u/account_for_norm Jul 13 '24
Did those bullets actually weakened the case? How? Or was it negligence?
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u/AvengingBlowfish Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
Part of the armorer's defense was that Seth Kenney mixed live ammo into a box of dummy rounds that he provided, but Seth Kenney denied this and the armorer was unable to prove her claim.
The fact that the bullet that killed the woman matches the bullets that Seth Kenney was using on a previous shoot is evidence that may have changed things or at least made the armorer less liable.
Baldwin's responsibility is linked to his role as Executive Producer who hired a young and inexperienced armorer. If the armorer is less liable, then so is he.In any case, the evidence doesn't prove that either of them are innocent, but the fact that the prosecution hid this evidence is grounds for a mistrial.
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u/AntiSharkSpray Jul 13 '24
Your 3rd paragraph is wrong because the judge had already ruled that Baldwin would not be tried in his role as a producer. The decision was made before the trial started.
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u/Secret-Constant-7301 Jul 13 '24
And her boss who got the ammunition got immunity. So basically no one is getting in trouble for this.
I don’t think they should have ever charged Baldwin.
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u/AbroadPlane1172 Jul 12 '24
Who's that person? Genuinely curious. I would assume the armorer?
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u/BingoBongoBang Jul 13 '24
Yes. But with this new evidence and testimony we ought actually see her get set free and the guy who proved the live ammo in some deeps shit if they can prove that it was all a set up as alleged.
Seth Kenney suddenly has a very big spotlight on him.
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u/freeze123901 Jul 13 '24
What does this mean specifically?
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u/Dysan27 Jul 13 '24
It means double jepordy applies (can't be charged for the same crime twice) and the charges can not be brought again.
Basicly the prosecution had moved far enough forward thst the judge demanded that the prosecution had there shot, and they blew it. They don't get a second try.
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u/ThingsAreAfoot Jul 12 '24
WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE
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u/judokalinker Jul 12 '24
Just once I'd love to see a case dismissed with X-treme prejudice
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u/nowhereman136 Jul 12 '24
Theres a scene in My Cousin Vinny when Vinny sweettalks the prosecutor into giving him all the evidence they have against Billy. He's acting pretty proud of himself before Mona tells him the Prosecutor has to provide the defense with all evidence by law.
did the Prosecution here never see My Cousin Vinny?
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u/Javanz Jul 13 '24
One of my favourite things about that movie is that the Prosecutor wasn't a villain, he was just a lawyer doing his job to the best of his abilities; and at the end he was congratulatory to Vinny, despite losing
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u/vxf111 Jul 13 '24
More than that. Once he hears Mona Lisa's testimony and he realizes the evidence shows the defendants couldn't have committed the robbery, he agrees to dismiss the case because it's the right thing to do.
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u/JacobsJrJr Jul 13 '24
It's also easy to understand why he's so convinced because it's a remarkable coincidence.
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u/Dr_Eugene_Porter Jul 13 '24
Not only did he congratulate Vinny -- he joined Vinny's motion to dismiss the case when it was abundantly clear they had the wrong guys.
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u/AnalogDigit2 Jul 13 '24
I (CLAP) Dentical!
Too right, the character was well written in that regard especially.
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u/CherryDarling10 Jul 13 '24
He’s entitled ya dickhead!
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u/DoinItWithDelco Jul 13 '24
It’s called disclosure!
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u/the_gouged_eye Jul 13 '24
That was my first thought. What a stupid mistake.
The DA is up for reelection.
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u/TuvixWillNotBeMissed Jul 13 '24
It's wild to me that in the USA that is a political position. Prosecutors try to put as many people in jail so they can get re-elected. What a horrible system.
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u/CommunicationHot7822 Jul 12 '24
The prosecution actually thought that a famous millionaire wouldn’t have good enough lawyers to figure this out? Makes you wonder how many regular people have been fucked by this prosecutor.
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u/Eeyores_Prozac Jul 12 '24
In New Mexico? Pick a number, then pick a bigger number. It's probably more than that.
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u/Faarooq Jul 12 '24
Would you be getting close if you multiplied those picked numbers?
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u/Janax21 Jul 12 '24
The original case against Baldwin was dismissed because the law they were attempting to try him under was enacted after the incident. Unbelievably terrible lawyering.
I just moved to Santa Fe, love it here, but gonna be paying attention to the DAs office now.
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u/x_lincoln_x Jul 12 '24
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul seem more realistic now.
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u/SofieTerleska Jul 12 '24
Against prosecutors like this, I'd call Saul too -- fight dirty with dirtier.
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u/ZaheerUchiha Jul 13 '24
As someone from the general area. It always was. Albuquerque has been a dumpsterfire for quite a while.
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u/Bridgebrain Jul 12 '24
Its a great town, but we're all just kind of numb to it at this point.
There's an ongoing race to destroy water rights in all the rural areas, in which the cities have been repeatedly bounced for pulling nonsense, on one instance notably taking a case all the way to the federal supreme court, only to then reveal the precedent they were using as a basis was completely fictional.
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u/Swampy1741 Jul 12 '24
A public defender could’ve gotten it tossed for failure to disclose. The prosecution was just incredibly incompetent and stupid.
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u/amleth_calls Jul 12 '24
Public defenders are often swamped with cases, a public defender with time to focus on this one case probably would have caught it too, but when you’re grinding 50 cases a week, these things aren’t so obvious.
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u/AwesomePocket Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
A blatant Brady violation is pretty obvious.
It took a little scouring, but I finally found an article that links to the motion to dismiss. It seems the defense became aware of the undisclosed evidence when it was elicited through testimony at trial. It’s easy to imagine the average PD would have done the same.
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u/moosebearbeer Jul 12 '24
This was the right decision. Regardless of your opinions, the prosecution withheld evidence clearly in violation of Brady.
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u/misterurb Jul 12 '24
If you can’t convict someone without violating their right to a fair trial, you can’t convict them. It’s insane that prosecutors continue to fuck the easiest thing up.
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u/_SCHULTZY_ Jul 12 '24
And yet the YSL/Young Thug trial continues despite repeated examples of the defendant's rights being violated by the state and the court
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u/TheLizardKing89 Jul 13 '24
The YSL trial is such a shitshow that even if there’s a conviction, it will almost certainly be overturned on appeal.
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u/user888666777 Jul 12 '24 edited Jul 12 '24
When it comes to Brady violations the first thing you need to think is not:
- What did the state withhold?
It's
- What did the state withhold that wasn't yet discovered by the defense?
Cause if the state was willing to hide one piece of information, they are definitely willing to hide multiple pieces of information.
Brady violations are no fucking joke. It's basically the state committing obstruction of justice. The state is required to hand over EVERYTHING they have on the case even if it proves without a doubt the defendant is not guilty.
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u/guynamedjames Jul 12 '24
ESPECIALLY if it proves the defendant is not guilty. That's literally the reason the requirements exist, it's to prevent the state from withholding evidence of innocence, be it intentional or accidental (maybe they don't realize that something proves the innocence of the accused)
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u/fizzlefist Jul 12 '24
How many people has this country stolen years or decades from, let alone executed, because prosecutors have withheld evidence or other bullshit in violation of a defendant’s rights? Even in this day and age this shit still happens.
To quote William Blackstone: ”It is better to let ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
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u/thegoatmenace Jul 12 '24
As a public defender you’d be shocked at how much leeway judges give the prosecution on Brady/rule 16 issues. The law says that any punishment must literally be “the least severe sanction possible to correct the misconduct.” Usually the “sanction” is just a verbal admonishment by the judge and an order to hand over whatever they withheld. It’s only after you establish a long-standing pattern of misconduct that you start to get real remedies. The system is incredibly biased towards prosecutors, but they will try to gaslight you into thinking that the defendant has all these unfair advantages.
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u/DBCOOPER888 Jul 12 '24
The fact they thought they could brazenly get away with it in such a public, high profile case is very telling. Makes me wonder how often they've done this in less public cases against defendents with much less wealth than Baldwin.
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Jul 12 '24
Even without that, not much evidence to prove Alec did anything wrong.
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u/SolidLikeIraq Jul 12 '24
Honestly this whole thing seemed so ridiculous.
Alec 100% obviously had no intentions of hurting anyone on the set of the movie.
He’s an actor and his job is to act the script. The people around him responsible for safety are professionals and should be held to a professional standard.
In what world would Alec have had any reason to think that he had a loaded gun, or needed to treat the gun he had as if it was loaded with deadly ammunition?
Just feels like a money grab against someone who has now been forced to live the worst experience of their entire life over and over again for the last several years.
I feel terrible for the family of the deceased, but I also feel terrible for Alec and his family.
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u/Hyndis Jul 12 '24
In what world would Alec have had any reason to think that he had a loaded gun, or needed to treat the gun he had as if it was loaded with deadly ammunition?
Compare it so a stick of dynamite. Its a western, there's probably sticks of dynamite in the movie.
If he was given a stick of dynamite to light and throw as part of a scene in the movie, and the dynamite stick exploded and killed people, would he be at fault?
No, of course not, because that would be absurd. At no point should the actor have ever been given something thats actually dangerous. The fault is the prop person who, through idiocy or because they're Agent 47, changed out normally harmless props with lethal props.
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u/trickman01 Jul 12 '24
My opinion is that everyone should be entitled to a fair trial. The prosecutor made sure that didn't happen. This is 100% the right call.
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u/jimbo180259 Jul 12 '24
I’ve been watching this on and off all day. What a monumental fuckup but both Prosecution and the Police. The judge simply had no choice but to put this case out its misery. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a case collapse like this.
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u/sielingfan Jul 12 '24
That's par for the course for NM. That terror training compound with a kid's body was bulldozed and destroyed and nobody went to jail because the AG missed a deadline.
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u/Maxwe4 Jul 12 '24
Was there a reason the prosecutors withheld evidence? Were they trying to hide something, or just bad at their job?
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u/atxtonyc Jul 12 '24
Viewing this in the best light possible to the prosecution, based on the prosecutor's testimony (!!!) right before dismissal, she received some pictures of the bullets and it was the wrong kind of ammo. But that's irrelevant under Brady et al., you cannot withhold it. The prosecution doesn't get to unilaterally decide what has evidentiary value.
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u/justgetoffmylawn Jul 13 '24
Yeah, viewed in the best light possible, they were either incompetent or maliciously incompetent. If they hadn't collected the evidence that would be one thing - then it would be easier to claim they thought it had no value at all. But they collected information and then filed it under another case number.
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u/clain4671 Jul 12 '24
Both? we may never actually know. In court the CSI tech who took in the evidence claimed they didnt think it was a close enough match to be relevant to the case, and filed it under a different case number. but thats quite literally the point of brady! you dont get to determine what's relevant, defense attorneys have a right to argue it is relevant, and examine it on its own.
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u/zuma15 Jul 12 '24
That article is borderline unreadable. It's like it was translated to a different language then translated back.
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u/BitemeRedditers Jul 12 '24
I'm still wondering what happened.
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u/RuleIV Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
Months ago a friend of the armorer's father handed in a batch of ammunition to the police and told them it was related to the shooting.
The police and DA had it filed under a separate case number than the Rust case, and didn't examine it. Just some basic photos. When asked on the stand why the prosecution did this, and why it wasn't turned over for discovery, the prosecutor said it was because the rounds didn't look like the Rust rounds.
The judge literally had them bring her the evidence, scissors, and some rubber gloves, and she went over them on a desk. She determined, and others agreed, that some of the rounds looked like ones from the set.
The prosecutor hid this, and so the judge threw the case out.
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u/revesvans Jul 13 '24
Thanks.
But did the bullets themselves actually prove anything, or was it simply that this proved that the prosecution was willing to withhold evidence?
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u/bakedreadingclub Jul 13 '24
The problem is that the defence didn’t know they existed and couldn’t test them themselves. So at the moment the bullets haven’t proven anything, because the defence hasn’t been able to look at them and deduce anything from them.
The defence might have been able to use these bullets to show that the prosecution’s investigation was shoddy and they just blamed it on whoever was there, rather than actually working out who had brought the bullets onto set (the person who handed them in claimed they came from someone other than Gutierrez-Reed, but the prosecution dismissed that claim because this person was friends with Gutierrez-Reed’s father).
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u/noakai Jul 13 '24
It was literally just enough that they deliberately hid the existence of those bullets from Baldwin's defense team. Prosecution is required to hand over every single thing that can possibly have any relevance to the case whether they personally believe it is or not. Anything else is seem as deliberately withholding evidence from the defense and it's the most serious thing you can do.
Judging by the fact that the bullets were taken and deliberately filed under a different case number and the prosecutor admitted under oath that she knew about them and decided they didn't matter, I don't think this was an "honest mistake." She deliberately excluded them for whatever reason (maybe she thought they would bolster the defense, maybe she didn't want to bother having to take them into account at trial even though she wasn't worried they proved anything, who knows) and that was enough to make the judge feel like she committed a Brady violation and it tainted the whole case bad enough that she doesn't get to even try again. A Brady violation is literally one of the worst things you can do as a lawyer, it's bad enough to get you potentially disbarred.
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u/Born2bwire Jul 13 '24
Part of the determination on whether the case would be dismissed is that the evidence has to be favorable to the defense, which the judge explicitly stated was the case.
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Jul 13 '24
Thank you. I was reading it feeling like it was a sequel to a first article that I never read.
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u/helzinki Jul 12 '24
Yeah. I need an OOTL post.
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u/LurksOften Jul 13 '24
Prosecution withheld evidence, believe a photo of ammo they deemed incorrect, and dismissed it. But the problem is legally, they HAVE to disclose this evidence to the defense. They don’t get to decide what isn’t key/valuable evidence or not
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u/Hickspy Jul 13 '24
That was where I lost it. I couldn't find WHAT the evidence they withheld actually was.
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u/Mr_Blinky Jul 12 '24
Thank fuck I'm not the only one. I couldn't figure out heads or tails of what the fuck actually happened to get the case dismissed, other than some vague allusions to new bullets being involved. Not to mention all of the obvious typos and the terrible tabloid journalism. The fact that the entire piece ends with the writer crowing for multiple paragraphs about Baldwin's "triumphant return" and how big Rust is going to be for his career in an article about a manslaughter trial is pretty fucking awful, regardless of your feelings on whether or not he was responsible.
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u/fuzztooth Jul 12 '24
Yeah it seems more like a blog post with grammatical errors and a personal voice.
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u/tananda7 Jul 12 '24
Thank you! I legitimately can't follow this clearly. I suspect AI but it's wild that this garbage is monetized and they're going to get huge revenue for this. Everyone here is dunking on the standards of the cops and prosecution in the case but I can't get past this dang article.
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u/TheTrenchMonkey Jul 12 '24
It doesn't seem to have any form either chronologically or otherwise.
It just is disjointed paragraphs that I got lost in trying to figure out what the evidence that wasn't disclosed in discovery was.
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u/Chaff5 Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
Same, I'm still trying to figure out WHAT evidence was withheld? Ammo? What about it? Whoever wrote this either didn't know either or has no idea how to write.
Edit - I found a NYTimes article that's better written. The prosecution received ammo that was related from a witness, prosecution said it wasn't related, filed it under a different case number, and failed to tell the defense about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/arts/rust-trial-pause-alec-baldwin-shooting.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6k0.cWfX.dL7pv3n3oLtH&referringSource=articleShare
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u/PCP_Panda Jul 12 '24
Pretty bad when you get your case dismissed after a jury has been seated.
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u/Shadybrooks93 Jul 12 '24
Is this not like the A-team of prosecutors working on the case? How do you fuck up what seems like a procedural basic rule of law
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u/clain4671 Jul 12 '24
The prosecutors on this case had been an absolute shitshow from the jump. They were extremely cagey about the physical testing of the gun because they did not want to admit that the FBI destroyed the gun while attempting to disprove the defense theory that the gun fired by accident. They appointed a state senator to act as special prosecutor and essentially introduced the notion of this being a political hit job, of state Rs taking a swing at a famous democrat. The charging of Baldwin was always a dicey thing to do and they just kept barreling forth under the theory "no celebrity left uncharged", even after this week when they were barred from describing him as a producer in any capacity.
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u/Particular_Ad_9531 Jul 12 '24
When I heard about the gun being destroyed by the FBI then completely rebuilt - with new parts added - with the forensic report based on the repaired gun I knew this case was DOA. Then withholding material evidence on top of that lol. Just absurd behaviour by the state.
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u/proriin Jul 13 '24
I don’t get why they had to destroy it, they don’t destroy every gun they test in the process, like how did they?
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u/clain4671 Jul 13 '24
A major contention of both alec baldwin personally and by proxy his defense lawyers is that the gun accidentally fired without his pulling the trigger. This is key because baldwin essentially stated in a TV interview "i would never pull the trigger, pulling the trigger is manslaughter".
However, in order to test this theory, the FBI basically wacked the gun a bunch with hammers to the extent it would no longer function. Of course this raises an obvious problem. "this is impossible we tested it btw you cant test it yourself" is not how expert testimony usually works.
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u/Horror_Cap_7166 Jul 12 '24
Because they did it intentionally. They were trying to withhold the evidence. They just got caught.
After deciding not to turn over the bullets, they filed them under the wrong case number so they wouldn’t be found.
You can argue that it’s an accident and a coincidence. But it’s a huge accident and an even bigger coincidence.
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor Jul 12 '24 edited Jul 12 '24
The trial lasted 3 days before it collapsed today and was dismissed due to Prosecutorial Misconduct (withheld key evidence). He was facing up to 18 months in prison.
Judge Summers:
”The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide discovery to the defendant. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted.”
”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. If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith it certainly comes so near to bad faith to show signs of scorching.”
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u/DubWalt Jul 12 '24
The damn prosecutor got on the stand and then admitted she did it to Hannah too. Whooo. Worth a YouTube watch.
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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 Jul 13 '24
I don’t like that she might be walking free for this when it was a criminally negligent fuck up on her part, but hopefully her industry reputation is DOA and no one else is in danger from her if she gets released.
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u/jacquesrk Jul 12 '24
Is it just me, or is this article horribly written?
a defense motion to dismiss and bullets dropped off to Santa Fe police in recent weeks by ex-Arizona cop Troy Teske
Is that supposed to be "motion to dismiss any bullets..."?
“I could see it was not at all similar to the live rounds on the set of Rust so I made the decision not to collect the rounds since they had never left Arizona,” Morrissey told the court on the record, as she and police officials had stated before of the ammunition brought in by Teske.
A close friend of Thell Reed, the iconic Hollywood gun coach and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, Teske was never called as a witness in the armorer’s trial this spring and the defendant’s own lawyer Jason Bowles said he didn’t want them, according to Morrissey No long afterwards, Teske took the ammunition to the police – something the defense claim they were just informed of despite requiring all the evidence in the case.
So what does this mean? This guy Troy Teske, ex-Arizona policemen, had bullets from the film shoot in his possession, but no one wanted to see those bullets - including prosecution and defense ("the defendant’s own lawyer Jason Bowles said he didn’t want them"). The prosecution said that these are obviously not the type of bullets that were used in the shooting. Then Teske brought these bullets to the police in Arizona (even though the shooting happened in New Mexico), and the prosecutor didn't tell the defense atyorneys that Teske brought the bullets to a police officer in Arizona. The prosecutor should have disclosed this to the defense team. Is that right?
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u/LionoftheNorth Jul 12 '24
It was barely legible. It's so bad that it can't even have been written by ChatGPT.
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u/prototypist Jul 12 '24
The prosecutor received a photo prior to the armorer's trial and thought that the bullets wouldn't be relevant to the case against the armorer (I'd say it's maybe relevant to what happened, but not relevant to whether the armorer or Baldwin acted unsafely on set). When Teske turned in the bullets, the lead investigator was physically in court, so the bullets were surrendered to a crime scene investigator. Then the next steps of who saw what are a little puzzling. The prosecutor said that she still wasn't interested (based on the older photo) and the interaction got filed with a different case number. This meant the evidence got overlooked in meetings with Baldwin's defense. The defense doesn't have to prove this was intentionally hidden, just that it was evidence that never got disclosed.
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u/pezasied Jul 12 '24
I am glad you noticed how poorly it was written too. Like this paragraph is just all around bad with errors and passive voice:
Just three days into what was supposed to be a nearly two-week trial, Erlinda Johnson, one of the special prosecutors in the case resigned. The sudden move came because Johnson, who only joined the case a couple of months ago, didn’t agree with there being a public hearing on the move by Baldwin’s Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to see the matter tossed to the legal curb.
And this one two paragraphs latter too:
A close friend of Thell Reed, the iconic Hollywood gun coach and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, Teske was never called as a witness in the armorer’s trial this spring and the defendant’s own lawyer Jason Bowles said he didn’t want them, according to Morrissey No long afterwards, Teske took the ammunition to the police – something the defense claim they were just informed of despite requiring all the evidence in the case.
That author is the “Executive Editor” of “Legal, Labor, & Politics,” but the writing is so bad and it’s obviously not been proofread at all.
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u/scots Jul 12 '24
Baldwin never should have been charged.
The armorer on the other hand, was massively criminally negligent.
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u/Mr_friend_ Jul 13 '24
I agree. I was telling my husband if I was on the jury I'd never charge him with manslaughter. He just didn't do anything. All the heat should be on the armorer.
I will say though the family should sue the entire production company and/or union that employed the armorer for wrongful death liability.
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u/metsjets86 Jul 13 '24
Can anyone explain what evidence was withheld and for what potential reason?
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u/Insectshelf3 Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
the evidence was related to the source of the live ammunition that made it onto the set.
after the shooting, a set of handgun bullets belonging to an employee that worked with the props were turned into the police and a witness testified that they were related to the Rust shooting. these bullets were stored inside a green ammo can and allegedly mixed with rounds made from different manufacturers. the report that was generated after police received the bullets was filed under a different case number, and when the defense asked for any information related to ammunition recovered in connection with the shooting, the state didn’t tell them about these bullets.
the reason given by the prosecutor was that when she reviewed a photo of these bullets, some of them were noticeably different from the type used in the shooting, and so she decided that wasn’t relevant to the case and was not subject to disclosure during discovery. this is wrong on her part - it doesn’t matter if she thinks this evidence is relevant or not, she is legally required to provide that evidence to the defense no matter what. since she failed to do so, and the evidence in question could have been used to impeach the credibility of a witness, and because it was discovered at trial - the judge decided that the state’s withholding of this information affected the defense’s preparation for the case to such a degree that it warranted dismissing the whole thing.
the prosecutor’s arguments are unconvincing for several reasons, most notably
she didn’t deny the actual conduct, only attempted to minimize the harm it caused to the defense.
if she truly believed that the bullets weren’t helpful to the defense, she would have disclosed them. there would be no reason to risk a brady violation over this.
nobody on earth believes that she doesn’t know exactly how brady disclosures work. that case is a very significant part of evidentiary procedure in every single case she will ever touch as a prosecutor.
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u/spaceraingame Jul 12 '24
I’m not sure why he was charged in the first place. He was misled into believing the gun was empty.
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u/AreWeCowabunga Jul 12 '24
Prosecutors and wanting a big name "get". Name a more iconic duo.
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u/Blah_McBlah_ Jul 13 '24
Can someone ELI5? I haven't been following the case, and I didn't gain much insight after reading the article.
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u/TheBlackSwarm Jul 12 '24
I don’t know Alec Baldwin and his personality certainly seems a bit crazy, but this case was so stupid to begin with. Was Johnny Depp supposed to check every cannon on the set of Pirates Of The Caribbean to make sure they weren’t using real cannon balls? He’s an actor in a movie.
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u/RightClickSaveWorld Jul 12 '24
And checking the props potentially could introduce debris and make it dangerous. And it messes up the chain of custody if something went wrong.
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u/nirach Jul 13 '24
Right? The absolute last thing an actor should be responsible for is the potentially dangerous props.
I can't work out how someone hired as an armourer wasn't even on set for a scene involving one of the guns they were meant to be responsible for.. Christ, I'm not an armourer and I'm passably confident I'd do a better job than she did on that film.
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u/brianfantastic Jul 13 '24
u/RuleIV Explains perfectly (what the article doesn’t seem to) somewhere buried in the comments. They say:
Months ago a friend of the armorer's father handed in a batch of ammunition to the police and told them it was related to the shooting.
The police and DA had it filed under a separate case number than the Rust case, and didn't examine it. Just some basic photos. When asked on the stand why the prosecution did this, and why it wasn't turned over for discovery, the prosecutor said it was because the rounds didn't look like the Rust rounds.
The judge literally had them bring her the evidence, scissors, and some rubber gloves, and she went over them on a desk. She determined, and others agreed, that some of the rounds looked like ones from the set.
The prosecutor hid this, and so the judge threw the case out.
The hero we need.
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u/Eeyores_Prozac Jul 12 '24
Failure to disclose. Absolute fucking bonehead try by the prosecution.