254
Lawyers for ‘Rust’ armourer move to get case dismissed after Baldwin trial collapses
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
254 points (97.0% liked)
News
23267 readers
3009 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Or, it really was a politically motivated trial and the prosecution was willing to cover up exculpatory evidence in order to manipulate the justice system. Either way, its damning.
I fail to see how the cartridges can possibly be exculpatory.
It doesn’t matter how they got in the gun, or if these were from a case on set. He doesn’t contest that that it went off while he was holding it. Only that it’s not his fault.
Manslaughter is about proving negligence or misconduct. The prosecution case was that Baldwin was at fault as he was negligent handling a gun with live ammunition.
Part of Baldwins defence was that he did not know the gun had a live round in it.
The new evidence was that the live ammo came from the props company, not the armourer, throwing doubt over whether the armourer or Baldwin knew there were live rounds on set or in the gun.
That's a hugely important part of the defence case, and also makes it much hard to prove involuntary manslaughter - it would be negligent to fire a gun knowing there is a live round in it, but if you did not know there were live rounds then does that meet the same level of negligence?
Personally I thought the case against Baldwin seemed tenuous so I'm not surprised this new evidence ended the trial.
This does raise serious questions about the safety of the armourers conviction. She might still be negligent as its unclear how live ammo from the prop company got on set without her knowing but she has not been able to answer that as the evidence was suppressed and she was convicted on the assumption it was entirely her fault the live ammo was on set.
It raises even more serious questions about the behaviour and motivations of the new mexico prosecution team and investigators.
The problem with this statement is that prop/inert cartridges are labeled and identified as such in ways that are usually fairly obvious.
Like “loading” the cartridge with a steel ball bearing, and a used/fired primer cap (which has a divot from the hammer.) Thorough inspection would have identified them as inert.
While it’s remotely possible they were so well crafted as to be virtually identical, that kind of thing would end the props company. They are very careful to always make the marking conspicuous- as long as you know to look for it. (Another common option is a somewhat large hole in the side of the casing.)
And the indicators should have been gone over in a safety briefing so everyone knows. (And is trained in what to do on seeing a live round. “Hey! Live round! armorer!”)
In any case Baldwin had a duty of care to handle the firearm safely. Part of that includes knowing its state. He did not clear the fire arm, and did not know its state. It becomes self evident they were not inert cartridges but rather live rounds given that we’re talking about Alina being shot.
Man, you really don't know anything about the case do you
If you're driving and your brakes mysteriously fail, consequently someone dies. Is it manslaughter?
Edit: clarity.
Not quite, you're ignoring the role of the armorer on set in your metaphor.
If you just picked up your car from the mechanic after they were expected to check everything, including the brakes, and the brakes then fail causing you to crash and kill someone... Is it manslaughter? And if so, who is at fault?
You were driving the vehicle, but you would obviously expect the brakes to be in working order since they were supposedly checked immediately before you started driving. The driver would almost certainly not be charged in that case, but the mechanic on the other hand would clearly be negligent, directly leading to the death.
I'm not tho. One of the implications of the bullets being a little bit of everywhere was that it implied another source.
Depends on why they failed and if you should have maintained your car better.
It’s usually not all that mysterious. Brakes don’t just randomly fail for no reason.
Let’s say they failed because of poor maintenance. Then yes.
Let’s say they failed because there was a defect in the brake line that caused it to rupture in the high temperatures of summer. Then no.
Baldwin failed a duty of care to ensure the weapon was cleared and in fact safe. He then failed a duty of care when handling that weapon in an extremely unsafe manner.
To go with the analogy, he knew his brakes were failing and drove anyway.
If you know your brakes are failing, and they fail... It's not mysterious.
Then your analogy sucks. This wasn’t a random failure.
As I said in the reply: Baldwin knew- or should have known- that he was handling the firearm unsafely, and that he shouldn’t handle it in an unsafe manner,
No. But with the withheld evidence now known... The armorer herself may not have been convicted and she's certainly getting retried.
Those mistakes didn't happen in a vacuum. But proving where that vacuum came from doesn't have the same certainty that it did.
That’s just it.
It doesn’t matter.
Baldwin had a duty of care to know. He didn’t know. And now someone is dead. Had he taken the 30 seconds to clear the firearm, “oh there’s something chambered. armorer identify these!” (Or taking one out and checking himself, cuz it’s that kind of production, I guess….”hey this doesn’t rattle!”)… Alina would probably be alive today.
While HGR does have blame as the armorer who allowed abysmally bad safety practices; she’s not alone in that blame.
And the other guy who pled out. Him too.
The only way they could get out of it is if the prop cartridges were so realistic that you can’t tell them apart. At all. And for obvious reasons no prop company will ever produce such cartridges.
According to the affidavit, Halls said he did not check all cylinder chambers, but he recalled seeing three rounds in the cylinder at the time. (After the shooting, Halls said in the affidavit, Gutierrez-Reed retrieved the weapon and opened it, and Halls said that he saw four rounds which were plainly blanks, and one which could have been the remaining shell of a discharged live round.)[44] In the warrant, it is further stated that Halls announced the term "cold gun", meaning that it did not contain live rounds.[42] Halls's lawyer, Lisa Torraco, later sought to assert that he did not take the gun off the cart and hand it to Baldwin as reported, but when pressed by a reporter to be clear, she refused to repeat that assertion.[45]
It's Wikipedia, but it matches what I've read elsewhere. He was told he had a cold gun. There is a division of responsibility and what's described doesn't match your assertion.
You can’t “divide” duty of care.
Even if he doesn’t have to behave in a personally safe manner, he had no personal knowledge. He was told something literally second hand.
He had an obligation- not as an actor, or producer, but as a person holding a firearm- to behave safely. He did not.
And you can have those moral convictions.
I'm not sure that's how it would be viewed in the eyes of the law, which has been the basis of my replies.
My convictions?
Go read the freaking law. It's pretty self explanatory. Show me where it says people are allowed to act unsafely because somebody else told them it was okay. I'll wait.
Naw.
I'm here for discussion, not argument. But you can post your first citation in this thread. I've already done one.
You've used a lot of words, made a lot of assertions but followed few of the standards of civil debate.
Manslaughter
Seriously Already linked it in the comments. Or you could just look up 'new mexico manslaughter' on google.
So. where's your sources?
The movie industry has a Standard of Operations where an expert ensures safety and provides better protection than individual actors can. We cannot expect them to police the props and I sure as hell don't want them deciding if it's a blank or not.
He followed that process.
Now the legal system has spoken and the prosecution made such a mess of it a proper trial cannot happen.
You can state your convictions all you want. Good faith would include "allegedly." You're full of certanties and cast judgement like it's your job. At him. At me. At others.
Have your certainty. Maybe that will keep you warm at night.
My link was posted on this thread and speaks directly to the events of that day. It's easier to find than your implication that if I want a citation I need to read all the next under the OP.
I'm on vacation with family. I'm not spending hours on you. You're just not worth it. You can feel free to read that last sentence a couple times, but I want to tell you the tone: these are events in New Mexico. We weren't on set. There are far more important things than if some person on the internet thinks I should spend time finding out what I already know. People on the internet aren't worth the judgement and vitriol you spew.
When you've re-proceszed my link, because it addresses your post (I'd think) and shows they my original metaphor works... Then we can consider contuing.
Or you can consider me not worth your time. And I'd support that. I'm just some dude on the internet. And it's just some actor who will never get a real trial. And it's not worth all the feels you're putting out there...
You'd have gotten further with me by talking about how poorly he handled the situation that lead to this. Instead you're back to checking the brakeline every time you drive.
He clearly didn’t.
First off there was no designated armorer (HGR’s contract expired.)
Secondly, according to that process, the armorer is supposed to be checking it in front of him, handing it directly to him, and watching him and the firearm to ensure safety.
That did not happen. We know that didn’t happen because if it did, nobody would be dead.
Further, as the person holding the weapon, it’s his final responsibility to handle it safely. If an expert tells him “this is safe,” and it’s obviously not safe… then it’s on him.
Pointing weapons at people and pulling the trigger; without at least checking its loading is unsafe, and Baldwin did not do that. He didn’t even see someone else that.
When the consequence of not being anal about something is death, you’re expected to be anal. The consequences of not following gun safety is death. And this is why.
See... Now you're making more sense but you're wavering between points about when he got gun and the on set practices generally.
No, they aren't required to see the armorer load it, although that sounds like a best practice. Sounds like standard is the AD gets it from the armorer and keeps direct control until handing it to the actor is also accepted practice and allegedly used as process on set.
A expired contract isn't ideal and, again, I agree it's not a good look. Did she lose her skill when the contract elapsed? Is this pedantey or how does this matter? After much searching I keep seeing that she was the head armorer. None of the articles I've reviewed bring that up, so it reads as a possibly interesting fact that all researched people decided wasn't germane.
I agree that a person fully trained in gun handling would go beyond the film industry's general practices. I'd be exceptionally cautious and I've only fired guns a handful of times in my life. No sweeps, no bullets and act as if it's always loaded. Never point at something you aren't willing to obliterate.
I hope you're checking your brake lines. Cars kill people. They see daily use and people have assimilated that risk and tend to think so little of it we see brake checkers and other offensive acts. We'd do well to always check our brake lines. The consequences of brake failures are very often severe, if not death.
I am NOT saying he's blameless. I'm not saying HGR is. I'm saying there's a standard to when a responsible person says that someone did x. It's typically criminal conviction. You have no such concerns. As such, it is opinion by accepted convention.
Separately, what you described is not supported by my various searches where I attempt to find the very thing you assert. In that light, I'd say I'm softening my original SOP assertion. They have practices, but it sounds like the practices vary by armorer, state or set. They've been effective for quite a while, but very obviously multiple mistakes were made on the set of Rust.
To continue my analogy: We should all check our brake lines. The consequences of failed brake lines is death (I know this isn't true, but same applies to guns - it depends on situation) . And this is why if you turn someone into pink mist, it's your fault. You need to double check your mechanic's actions after every service.
Or do you just kinda trust them with your life, the lives of loved ones and the lives of others in/near the roads you drive? I do.
Cars kill people. Remember, that's where you planted a flag. They are nothing alike. Right?
And now you want to litigate, with non-lawyer me, a trial that will never happen and would need a new round of investigation in light of the new revelation. That investigation , possibly moot, so where are two nerds on the internet going to find the resources for that?
Again, have your moral certainty. I just wouldn't act like it's proven. It sounds like a dick move on a good day.
This has always been what I believed.