The Alec Baldwin Trial

[George K]

Someone asked the question: "If Alec Baldwin had been told it's a 'cold' gun, would he put it to his head and pressed the trigger without personally checking it?"

[Jolly]

@George-K said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

Someone asked the question: "If Alec Baldwin had been told it's a 'cold' gun, would he put it to his head and pressed the trigger without personally checking it?"

Mr. Lee did it.

[Jolly]

Yeah, and if I checked every abnormal machine diff specified by most laboratory guidelines, the TAT on a CBC would be 4 hours. So, one prudently observes the guidelines and ignores them under some circumstances. But that presumes the person reading the hemogram knows what he is doing.

The SAG rule is the SAG rule. How many actors know how to press check a 1911? Look for the loaded indicator on a MP5? Most guys don't. The wife was watching one of those Hallmark mystery things the other night and the "detective" was waving his Glock around - with his finger in the trigger guard - like a drunken sailor. In real life, it's not a matter of whether the guns goes off in an accidental discharge, it's a matter of when it happens.

Granted, a Peacemaker is not a Glock or a 1911, but there's still a definitive way to check to see if it's loaded, and there is a very specific way to make sure it's carried with an empty chamber under the hammer (the Colt Army has no fire pin block). I don't expect a novice to know the correct manual of arms for a Colt 45 revolver.

[George K]

@Jolly said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

How many actors know how to press check a 1911? Look for the loaded indicator on a MP5? Most guys don't.

There were "safety" conferences on the set which Mr. Baldwin did not attend.

And, sorry, checking every lab machine is not the same as pointing a potentially lethal firearm at someone.

SAG guidelines:

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/safety_bulletins_amptp_part_1_9_3_0.pdf

Doesn't say the armorer is responsible, does it?

Much more at the link.

Baldwin failed many most of these guidelines, including using the weapon as a "pointer" to direct cast and crew while not filming.

[Jolly]

Boilerplate that I'm sure is rarely followed exactly.

[George K]

@Jolly said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

Boilerplate that I'm sure is rarely followed exactly.

Yeah. Let's see how well that argument works in a malpractice suit.

"Doctor, what was hospital policy...."

If you don't follow policy, you're doomed.

[Jolly]

No, doctors bury their mistakes.

[Copper]

@Jolly said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

Boilerplate that I'm sure is rarely followed exactly.

Exactly

Every step, every time

No exception

[George K]

I rephrase my question:

"If you had been told it's a 'cold' gun, would you put it to your head and press the trigger without personally checking it?"

I wouldn't.

[Jolly]

Neither would I. But I'm better with a firearm than anybody in this room.

And certainly more familiar with them than Baldwin.

[Mik]

@jon-nyc said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

@George-K said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

As I've said, the truth has little to do with justice, and justice has little to do with the law.

Which is ultimately why I’m not in favor of the death penalty. I don’t have a moral problem with it just a practical one.

Same here. We’re just not good enough at these things to take a life.

[LuFins Dad]

I still maintain that that Baldwin’s biggest culpability in all of this is from his role as the producer. He is the authority figure onsite. He is the one who is ultimately responsible for the appropriate safety precautions. He is the one responsible for making sure the Armorer is doing their job.

Yes , shit happens without the boss knowing, but that wasn’t the case, here. There were multiple close calls and crew members had left the set over safety concerns. That willful negligence on his part is quite literally criminal, and I wonder if he can face separate charges from that role?

At the very least, his Hollywood career needs to be over.

[kluurs]

@LuFins-Dad said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

I still maintain that that Baldwin’s biggest culpability in all of this is from his role as the producer. He is the authority figure onsite. He is the one who is ultimately responsible for the appropriate safety precautions. He is the one responsible for making sure the Armorer is doing their job.

Agreed - I told the story before of an instance where what was alleged to be a blank cartridge, still was able to penetrate the moderately heavy steel of an oil drum. On a set, no one should be pointing a weapon at another person.

This is Baldwin's Chappaquiddick.

[Doctor Phibes]

@LuFins-Dad said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

I still maintain that that Baldwin’s biggest culpability in all of this is from his role as the producer. He is the authority figure onsite. He is the one who is ultimately responsible for the appropriate safety precautions. He is the one responsible for making sure the Armorer is doing their job.

I agree. If you ignore all the Hollywood trappings and movie star stuff, this was a workplace safety incident. It's the responsibility of management to ensure that adequate safety procedures are in place and are adhered to.

[LuFins Dad]

I wonder if they can file new charges for criminal negligence not based on him pulling the trigger, but based on the lack of proper oversight?

[Doctor Phibes]

@LuFins-Dad said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

I wonder if they can file new charges for criminal negligence not based on him pulling the trigger, but based on the lack of proper oversight?

If they go after Baldwin, they really need to go after a bunch of other people too. He certainly wasn't solely responsible for safety on the set.

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

@LuFins-Dad said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:
If you ignore all the Hollywood trappings and movie star stuff, this was a workplace safety incident. It's the responsibility of management to ensure that adequate safety procedures are in place and are adhered to.

Back in March

https://nodebb.the-new-coffee-room.club/topic/30160/rust-armorer-guilty?_=1720914856867

on Tuesday, they had two expert witnesses from NM OSHA who testified that the workplace was unsafe, and that the ultimate responsibility for safety on set rests on the production company. It's their job to ensure training, staffing, etc are in place. Sounds like Hannah didn't have the resources, right?

Then THE NEXT DAY, they called another witness (a director/writer) who testified that many of the camera crew walked off the set because it was too dangerous. Then, when asked who can stop filming, he said, "Traditionally, only the director can yell 'Cut!' Then he goes on to say, but if there's anything dangerous about to happen, anyone, especially the armorer, can stop shooting a scene. And she didn't.

The defense claimed that Gutierrez-Reed didn't know how the live round got into Baldwin's pistol. Well, of course she didn't know - but it was her job to ensure that the weapon was safe.

The entire production was low-budget, sloppy and careless.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in The Alec Baldwin Trial:

The entire production was low-budget, sloppy and careless.

I wonder how commonplace that is on movie sets.

[George K]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/arts/alec-baldwin-rust-lawsuits.html

Now that the criminal case is over, his legal team will be able to focus on the civil litigation against Mr. Baldwin, who was also a producer on “Rust.”

A lawsuit that Ms. Hutchins’s husband, Matthew Hutchins, filed several months after the fatal shooting in October 2021 accuses Mr. Baldwin of reckless conduct while handling the gun, and the production of cost-cutting measures that endangered the crew. The suit says that the production failed to follow industry-standard gun safety rules, rushed filming and allowed an inexperienced armorer to handle weapons.

The lawsuit against Mr. Baldwin and Rust Movie Productions, the company overseeing the film, had at one point seemed to be resolved by a settlement agreement. But Mr. Hutchins’s lawyers wrote in a court filing this year that the “Rust” producers were behind on some of the settlement payments, which the filing said should have been paid in full by June 2023. Ms. Hutchins’s young son, who was 9 years old when she died, is a party to the settlement agreement.

“We respect the court’s decision,” Brian J. Panish, a lawyer for Mr. Hutchins, said in a statement on Friday after the criminal case was dismissed. “We look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr. Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna Hutchins.”

In a brief phone interview, Mr. Panish said that the producers were “in breach of the agreement” and that “the civil case is still proceeding.”
A lawyer for Mr. Baldwin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

His defense has argued that he was not negligent in his handling of the gun that day because he had no idea that the revolver contained a live round, which was banned on the set. Witnesses said that the gun was declared “cold,” meaning it did not contain any live ammunition. Two other members of the production failed to catch the live round that had been loaded into the gun.

“More than anyone else on that set, Baldwin has been wrongfully viewed as the perpetrator of this tragedy,” one of his lawyers, Luke Nikas, wrote in court papers in 2022, as the litigation was piling up.

The figures of the settlement between Mr. Hutchins and the “Rust” producers were not disclosed, but part of the agreement was that Mr. Hutchins would become an executive producer on a revived production of the film. Once his wife’s work was released to the world, the family could benefit from the film’s earnings.

Mr. Baldwin agreed to return to the role of Harland Rust, a hardened outlaw helping his grandson escape from the law. The production reconvened in Montana with the same director, Joel Souza, who was wounded in the shooting. A new armorer ensured that no guns capable of firing would be used on the set.

OJ was found not guilty of murder, but liable in a civil trial.

[Jolly]

I think Baldwin will be found guilty in the civil trial. The question will be his level of negligence and the size of the award.