Celebrating Alec Baldwin’s Salvation

By now most people have heard that Alec Baldwin's trial on involuntary manslaughter has ended in a dismissal with prejudice (meaning he cannot be retried). This came about because potentially exculpatory evidence in the possession of the prosecutor was withheld from the defense. The evidence was apparently "live" rounds sent by the supplier of the "squibs" that were to be used in movie production. A major question was how a "live" round made it to the gun used in the filming. If it was sent by the supplier unknown to anyone in the production company, then Baldwin did not do anything wrong -- tragic as the shooting was. The prosecutor's theory was that someone in the production company knew that there were "live" rounds in the shipment and negligently included them in with the "squibs," setting the deadly incident in motion.

Baldwin did not help himself with his reputation as a bit of a hothead, blowhard and, possibly, a sloppy producer. That, and his theory that the gun fired without him pulling the trigger, was not credible. It wasn't credible because at various points he both claimed not to have pulled the trigger and at other times seemed to admit pulling the trigger. But the case was never about an intent to wound or kill anyone. It was always about grievous negligence that led to the taking of a life. And that negligence could only have been imputed to Baldwin as the producer and ultimately the one holding the gun, if someone in the company knew there was a risk of a "live" round being in that gun.

The prosecution always thought that someone knew there were live rounds in the armory. One of the reasons is that suppliers of squibs mark those rounds differently (color?). This I learned from an earlier program about the case. I don't recall whether it was Dateline, 20/20 or 48 Hours, but it was probably one of them. The armorer should be able to distinguish quickly "live" rounds from "squibs" and take steps to keep them separate. But if the supplier had furnished "live" rounds marked as "squibs", then the negligence occurred well before the gun was loaded and brought to Baldwin for that fatal event.

The defense had asked to examine all of the rounds collected by the prosecution from the movie set. The prosecution let the defense examine some, but not all. In other words, absent a full examination of all the rounds shipped to the movie set, the defense could not determine whether there had been any miss-marked rounds. The prosecutor contended that there weren't even though they did not provide the defense with all the rounds and may not have examined all of the rounds themselves. The defense had not found a miss-marked round in the evidence they were permitted to examine, but they had not examined all of the rounds.

When the judge found this out, she did the right thing: The jury had been sworn and evidence presented. There was no simple cure like postponing the trial briefly while the defense examined new evidence, and the prosecution's failure to provide the defense with the evidence was intentional. So the judge dismissed the case with prejudice.

I always thought the case was marginal. Civil liability was clear. And I believe a financial settlement with the family had already been reached. Baldwin's knowledge of guns was likely inadequate. But it wasn't a matter of not pointing a loaded gun at a person or checking to see if the gun was loaded. They were lining up a film shot aimed at the camera with the cinematographer and director in line with the camera to see whether they were going to get the movie image they desired. So having a gun pointed at them was unavoidable. And the gun was a revolver and was supposed to be loaded. It's just that it was supposed to be loaded with "squibs". Should Baldwin have emptied and reloaded after verifying that they were "squibs"? Would he have actually noticed a difference?

Accordingly, the case of involuntary manslaughter always seemed to be about Baldwin being responsible for the overall movie's production, not the fact that he held the gun that discharged and killed the cinematographer. I can't imagine that any actor who was not also in charge of filming would have been charged with manslaughter for failure to check a gun handed them by the armorer. Nor would such an actor likely be civilly liable -- that would be on the production company.

Would the evidence denied to the defense have been exculpatory? Maybe, maybe not. But the prosecutorial misconduct was clear. And it didn't help that there had been an earlier indictment dismissed at the request of the prosecution who thought that their case could be made better with a little more time. So I celebrate Baldwin's salvation from this prosecution. And I reflect on how many other cases out there are in need of the same.