Someone, claiming to be a ‘retired cop’, came to the authorities claiming that some jackass mixed real bullets in with the blanks in the hope of causing an issue on set. The ‘retired cop’ brought some of those bullets and offered to testify under oath. The bullets were not added to evidence in the rust investigation, rather they were filed under a different ID so it was never turned over to the defense. I quote ‘retired cop’ because when this came up at trial, no one was even able to verify if they were actually a retired cop at trial. It appears that they either didn’t bother to validate it, or knew he was a retired cop and it was pretty damming that they suppressed the evidence. (there’s a bunch of other things here too, like the prosecutor knowing about these bullets but used a cell phone picture of them to ‘compare’ them to the bullets recovered on set and magically knowing they were totally different and not worth perusing but not filing charges against the ‘retired cop’ for interfering in the investigation)

The prosecution was either grossly negligent and ‘accidentally’ withheld evidence that could have been exculpatory. Or more likely deliberately suppressed it. Why deliberately? Apparently multiple witnesses the prosecutors interviewed told the defense that the lead procedure said some pretty vile things about Baldwin during the interviews. The lead prosecutor, under oath, was asked if she said these horrible things, and instead of denying it, said she something to the effect of ‘I don’t recall’. If you can’t recall if you called Baldwin a cock sucker during an interview, you shouldn’t be a prosecutor.

This was an absolutely bonkers prosecution and trial. It’s like if your mechanic overfills your tires to 90 PSI and you have a blow out and kill someone, and being prosecuted because you should have personally validated the tires were safe to drive on.

If anyone wants to see some vids:

Defense listing all of the issues: https://youtu.be/KbSSa9_HPl8

Lead prosecutor, testifying under oath for some reason, trying to cover her butt... This is not normal: https://youtu.be/WpDDsOBDwy0

The entire channel has a bunch of great clips from the trail, no commentary, just what happened.

This was BONKERS.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 months ago (4 children)

There is no justice.

[–] chloyster 27 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Not a huge fan of him but I think this was the right call.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/alec-baldwin-trial-suspense-judge-mulls-motion-dismiss-charge-2024-07-12/

The prosecution and police intentionally withheld evidence to make him look worse

[–] Kissaki 21 points 4 months ago

Erlinda Johnson, one of the state prosecutors on the case, resigned on Friday, the fourth prosecutor to quit or be forced to step down.

Four?? In and during one case?

Many legal analysts said the case should never have been brought to trial by the Santa Fe County District Attorney's Office. "The prosecution felt it had to cheat to get the result it wanted," said legal analyst Duncan Levin, a New York defense attorney. "This is the worst of our system on display."

Judge Sommer asked Hancock who had decided to put Teske’s ammunition into a separate case file number.

Hancock said it was the decision of her supervisor, prosecutors and herself.

…

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 21 points 4 months ago

Guaranteed if anyone was on the other side and the police or DA was withholding evidence they'd have a field day and be screaming for a mistrial. We should never cheer for a corrupt system, no matter who is the defendant. They destroyed the case themselves by doing this.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 10 points 4 months ago

Ah so it was a police fuck up. I guess that makes sense.

[–] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In your view, what is he guilty of and how should he have been punished?

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The standard punishment for man slaughter. He did not follow the proper precautions and someone died. Though since the police and DA fucked up their really isn't much that can be done.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] SweetCitrusBuzz 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Correct because the courts, legal system and punitive 'justice' aren't justice. They're all about punishing people and creating narratives, letting rich and/or famous people never have to think about what they did or attempt to change and locking people away so they can have slaves (in the US at least it is baked into the consitituion).

The only real justice is transformative and restorative justice. Because it doesn't involve this showy bullshit and having to convince lots of people someone is guilty or innocent, they don't involve locking people up which has shown to either make things worse or for there to be no change time and time again.

They make people sit down and actually go through a process of change, helping out, even yes paying out reperations etc which is more useful if directly asked for from those effected because they know what they need.

Better yet transformative justice changes society so stuff like this is less likely.

Even if he had been found guilty there's no guarantee it would have led him or the industry to change or a potential amount charged would have ever been enough in the current 'justice' system, hopefully the industry has changed though and there are better/more frequent weapon etc checks now, hopefully either the actors themselves check or they ask for more to make sure or just don't do things like what led to this.

That is real justice imo because yes, a person did die and yes that is awful, but that should have never happened and hopefully it never will again if the industry actually cares.

I understand most people don't think like me (though hopefully they will someday) but I personally have never cared whether someone was 'guilty' or 'innocent' in these systems, what I have cared about is change, real change and getting folks to think about what they have done, work with the real victims/survivors, those who are still left and/or changing society etc so that things are better and the same things don't keep happening.

I do think it is awful this happened. However, these systems aren't and never been about 'justice', they've been about mitigation of even worse things, protecting those who can afford it and locking away everyone else.

[–] Kissaki 5 points 4 months ago

What do you mean? How so?