What is your opinion on the case against Alec Baldwin being dismissed with prejudice due to a brady violation?

I don’t think charging him in the first place had much merit. The prosecution accusing an actor on a set of “playing make believe” demonstrates how desperate their case was.

I felt like it was an appropriate decision. Prosecutor hid information that was important to the case. They didn’t just forget to pass it on, they hid it by assigning a wrong number to it.
Now they will probably have to retry the woman already convicted.

The whole thing was a stretch. They said he was responsible not only because he pulled the trigger but because he is one of the “producer” and as such should have made sure the set was safe.

But producers don;t do that, and aren’t part of the day to day management of a production.

@zenvelo for this trial they were told not to discuss Baldwins role as a producer as that will be dealt with at a separate corporate manslaughter trial. This was specifically regarding his personal responsibility. If he hadn’t shot Halyna in the scene prep then there’s a very real chance someone else would have been shot later. Reading about it, the safety on the set was a joke. Crew had taken guns off set to pass time shooting beer cans but possibly not told anyone, the armorer didn’t check the weapons when they were prepped for the scene, The safety guy didnt properly check the weapon before he handed it to Baldwin. I think a corporate manslaughter charge against the producers has more chance of success as although as you state its not their responsibility to ensure the set is safe directly it is their responsibility to ensure that the people they employ are suitably qualified and do their job correctly.

It was a made-up case – it should never have been brought. The only reason it got this far is because the prosecutor wanted to enhance her reputation.
Baldwin should sue.

I agree with the dismissal. From what I read, the investigators and prosecturs did withhold the evidence from the defense, and that is a clear violation.

In terms of the original charge I’m of a few minds about it. Part of me agrees with the gun nuts that if a person is handed a gun it is the responsibility of that individual to understand gun safety to make sure it is not loaded with live ammunition.

However, why was there even a real gun anywhere on the set? Prop guns have been used for over a hundred years in movies. If I’m an actor on a busy set and I am handed a gun by a weapons master it is not unreasonable to make an assumption that a) it’s a fake gun, and b) it can’t kill anybody.

Part of the media storm on this is that Baldwin is a vocal supporter of Democrats and had brilliant imitations of Trump. The gun nuts went crazy trying to make hay out of this case.

They had to dismiss the case as a message to future cops and prosecutors.
But he aimed a real gun at a woman and killed her.
He’s a murderer-by-negligence.
Not to give any lenience to the armorer. The sloppy “guns are fun!” girl who target practiced during set breaks with live ammunition, which never should have been brought to the set.
She also never did the Final Check of the gun before handing it to the actors.
Her sloppy fetish for guns caused her to murder someone.

I never thought he’d be found guilty. I just couldn’t figure out exactly how he’d accomplish his release.

@Caravanfan the reason they need real guns on set is gun nerds complain on the internet if they use fake prop guns apparently

I think it was inappropriate to charge an actor, when their job includes pointing and shooting prop guns in the direction of people, which should at most only even have blanks. There are other people whose responsibility it is to keep real bullets out of those guns, and it is unreasonable to hold every actor personally responsible for every round they fire from a prop gun while acting.

I recently attended a live shootout comedy that uses real guns (and blanks). It runs for an hour several times a day, and involves countless weapon discharges . . . probably well over a hundred shots per show – call it about 500 shots per day. A few of those shots are fired by A RANDOMLY CHOSEN AUDIENCE MEMBER, AT a cast member. The whole audience is also right next to the stage. The cast are constantly reloading their own guns throughout the show, though a few are picked up from here or there.

Of course, that means they probably only have blanks on hand, and everyone is looking at what they’re putting in their guns, and would almost certainly notice if somehow they had an actual bullet in hand, but still . . . to me, I think it lends at least a bit of perspective.

The blame, I would put on whoever was responsible for getting a live bullet into the gun, and for not removing any/all live bullets from guns, if there ever was one for an actual reason. If the reason was really “to shoot at cans for fun”, the blame starts there. Did that include Baldwin? Did he even know there was anyone ever putting live bullets in the guns?

It’s probably the right answer. The issue becomes not whether he actually played a role in the killing or not, but rather that evidence was hidden that may have played a part in the decision of the court/jury. Because of that hidden evidence, it is deemed that he did not get a fair trial and so it is thrown out. Apparently it was such a gross violation that it was vacated with prejudice which means those same charges cannot be filed again by the prosecutors.

He was charged because he was also a producer for the film, and his actions endangered everyone on the set.
The prosecutors were wrong not to share evidence they collected. It’s a judgment call

@filmfann Which actions?

My understanding is that it’s normal to have real guns on set and prop guns. You also have blank rounds and dummy rounds. Dummy rounds have the real bullet looking “head” of the cartridge, but no powder in them, used for shots where actors are seen loading their weapons for example. Then you have blanks which are the cartridge and no projectile. Blanks can’t be fired from prop guns. Additionally you’re never supposed to point a gun directly at another person and pull the trigger on set. It’s the camera angles that make it look like the guns are “in plane” with the people being shot so there was definetly some negligence on Baldwin’s part.

Apparently there were previous accidents on set with the firearms, and the fact that the armorer was bringing live ammunition to target practice should have been cause for firing her. Keeping her on was negligent.

Also withholding exculpatory evidence in a criminal trial is grotesque and should be severely punished including disbarment of the prosecution and possibly other consequences like obstruction of justice charges. I’m not sure if it’s normal to dismiss such cases with prejudice or just declare a mistrial and redo it, but clearly the current trial had to be thrown out.

@Zaku Budget cuts caused him to lay off most of the (Union) crew. Hiring a gun master who didn’t control the guns is a deadly sin.

I’m surprised they didn’t go at it from the producer/director standpoint in that he hired her. But I suppose that would be a civil case. Is it not standard practice for the armorer to show the actor the empty/blank filled gun and hand it to them directly?

The reason it was thrown out was the DA and cops withheld evidence from defense which is NO NO. !

I really like Baldwin. It’s incredibly difficult, to think that he could have somehow been involved in this as a way to murder that woman.

Honestly though, years back his daughter had recorded several calls and messages from Alec. He was clearly intoxicated, and was extremely angry with his daughter. I believe he called her a fat piggy, and some other REALLY bad stuff.
There is a monster, in all of us…

He obviously has been a beloved public figure for a long time. Something, to me, never sat right with this whole thing.

Baldwin was quick to say, he knew very little about firearms. Although some of his previous films, contradict that a bit.

I don’t know if there was ever even an intended target, but I do believe it’s possible that someone put a live round in the weapon. From what I have heard, the firearms prop team, was pretty lax. Some reports seem to indicate that some of the firearms were left in unattended areas at times, and the girl who was in charge set off my radar a bit too.
I personally don’t think the movie should ever be shown.

Some things add up, others are oddly convenient for a potential murderer.
But.
In the end, our justice system, just can’t get things right. Which is a sadly frequent occurrence.

I do hope that it was just a terrible accident. But we’ll never know.

I am being told Baldwin was being tried as an actor here, not as a producer.
That case is now severely damaged.

Just to be clear, murder was never the charge. The charge was involuntary manslaughter.

I saw it coming from the start.
(Involuntary manslaughter is SOP whenever anyone is killed by another.)