So, understanding neither “ex post facto” nor “separation of powers”.
This one at least I can see how they got there. In a state like NM that has a part-time non-salaried “citizen legislature” (they get a per diem on meeting days, and regular session runs only Jan 17-Mar 18) that person’s primary employment is as a lawyer in private practice, the usual source for independent prosecutors. The defense brought up however that that the rule against holding office in two branches applies whether or not you are only actually doing or getting paid for one of the jobs at a given time, and you don’t stop holding the office of legislator in the downtime.
Does anything change other than a different prosecutor?
Definitely: everything gets delayed a year or so as the new prosecutor will probably re-start from scratch. The other possibility is that the county prosecuting attorney will offer basically no-punishment plea deals to Baldwin and the armorer like the one for assistant director Hall–which the armorer might accept but Baldwin won’t.
Thanks.
If anyone deserves legal punishment/jail time it would be the armorer in my opinion.
Shirley, not the whole investigation. I can see some time to read up on what’s already been done, but starting from scratch would be a nightmare for everyone. I also wonder how much Baldwin’s lawyers could push for a faster trial date, what with that whole “right to a speedy trial” thing.
The armorer should take whatever she can get. I think she’s the one that’s in real trouble. This all starts with her and the live ammo on the set. And not just the round in the gun. Baldwin and one other cast member also had live rounds in their gun belts/bandoleers. This was not a one off error.
I agree Baldwin won’t take a plea. Two people ahead of him cleared the gun, and the DA already slapped the wrist of the guy that actually delivered the gun to Baldwin.
This is all on her when you get down to it. If she does her job, none of this happens. I don’t really care if she had some kind of armorer/second job description. She totally screwed the pooch on this one. It doesn’t get more basic than “no live rounds on a set.”
Don’t call me surely.
I’m gonna continue to push back on this notion. IMHO, this all starts with an exploitative production scheme seeking to earn a windfall for Baldwin and other producers on a low-but-by-no-means-shoestring budget. For some reason, one of the areas they chose to shave a few extra bucks off the production budget was gun safety, as evidenced by hiring an inexperienced, part-time armorer.
Whether that amounts to criminal responsibility under our current systems, where low-income workers and the downright indigent are disproportionately likely to get crushed by the criminal “justice” system, is almost beside the point. Moral culpability, whether its embrace should spread to the armorer or not, must surely encompass the producers of this film at least.
This is what I keep coming back to when I think about the case. If Baldwin were just an actor in the movie, I’d look askance at him being charged (although in the first reports of the shooting, mention was made of what sounded like him fooling around with the weapon, pointing it at Hutchins). Because he’s a producer and theoretically at least in part responsible for the safety procedures being put in place and followed, it makes sense to hold him liable if the court decides there was liability.
I understand your POV, but the fact is that everything on this movie was done on the cheap. The total budget was $7 million. Nobody, not even Baldwin, was going to have a windfall on this movie. I would guess that if the shooting hadn’t happened, 99% of us would have never heard of this movie.
As far as I know, there is no minimum budget someone must spend on an armorer or props or catering. I think a “no live rounds on the set” rule is a pretty low bar to clear for an armorer, no matter how inexperienced. It’s not like she had to clear thousands of rounds. This isn’t an action movie with automatic weapons. She probably only needed to clear 100 rounds and all she needed to do was shake them. That’s what, 10 minutes on the first day and even less than that afterwards to retest.
I’m not knowledgeable about how movie crews are assembled, but I really doubt a producer has anything to do with hiring an armorer. I don’t even think a director would do it. It would be like having them interview gaffers and best boys.
If you want to stiffen the rules up now, I have no problem with it. It’s kind of a horse/barn door thing tho. As pointed out above, the last time someone was killed with a live round on set was 100+ years ago and they were purposely using live rounds. The fact that no one has been killed (or wounded as far as I know) in 100 years kind of rules out that money is a real problem in this case.
From the prospective of the court the issue revolves around safety standards. Movie productions are no different than any other profession in regards to those standards. Just as a construction site changes with each new project so do movie productions.
I would expect the court to review the safety standards set down for Rust. There should be a plan in place and a review of how it was followed.
Not Alec, but another person in a leadership role.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/rust-set-managers-plea-deal-be-considered-friday-2023-03-31/
District court judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sentenced Halls to a six-month suspended sentence with unsupervised probation, a $500 fine, 24 hours of community service and a firearms safety class.
Well I guess this creates a legal precedent?
Halls deal resulted in 6 months unsupervised probation. But it is an attempt to hold people responsible.
He pled guilty. This was part of a plea bargain. I don’t think it sets any precedent at all.
And he’s promised to testify against any and all who are charged.
Filming set to resume in Montana:
Still curious as to whether there is an expectation of earning a profit, or if the goal is simply to do the bare minimum required to claim a loss for insurance purposes. Maybe a little from column (a) and a little from column (b)? Regardless, one would hope they splurged a little more on weapons safety this time around.
I would not be surprised if this actually makes a butt-load of money, just from all the publicity and controversy around it. People love to look at the car wrecks.