Here’s an unpopular opinion in some quarters – it’s good that the judge dismissed the case against Alec Baldwin. Now, I don’t like Alec Baldwin. And I don’t like people who are irresponsible with guns. But you know what I like even less? A government that fails to follow the strict and unequivocal rules in prosecuting citizens and attempting to put them in prison. That’s what the judge found here – there doesn’t seem to be any debate that the prosecutors did withhold some evidence – and any time the government gets put in its place while attempting to imprison a citizen via misconduct is a good day.
Now, none of this means that Alec Baldwin’s conduct was not negligent (a person is negligent when he fails to act with reasonable care) or even criminal (criminality is a higher standard than routine negligence). We don’t know if his actions were criminal because, of course, the government screwed up the case by withholding evidence, and now we’ll never have the chance to find that out. But anybody who’s been around guns for any period of time and isn’t a complete moron knows that you don’t point a weapon at someone. You always assume that a gun is loaded with real bullets and treat it accordingly. Alec Baldwin didn’t obey that basic rule. He ended up pointing a gun that he says he didn’t know was loaded, but that he should have treated as loaded anyway, at other people on his movie set and ended up killing Halyna Hutchins and wounding the director. There are some arguments about what the armorer did and about other people’s misconduct, but what Baldwin did was still inexcusable. Imagine losing someone you love forever because some movie star was unbelievably irresponsible. It’s just horrible.
But what is more horrible is a government that feels it doesn’t have to play by the rules to put a citizen in prison. And the rules are very clear. If it has potentially exculpatory evidence, with “potentially” being the keyword, it must turn it over to the person that it wants to put in prison. And there doesn’t seem to be any dispute that the government failed to do that here. What’s the remedy? The government doesn’t get to prosecute the case. And, because the jury was already impaneled, double jeopardy has been attached. That means Alec Baldwin cannot be re-tried in a criminal court. Some people have called that a “technicality.” There is no such thing as a technicality in the law. There are rules and rights, and either the rules are obeyed or not, and either the accused’s rights are honored or not. Violating the rules or a citizen’s rights is not a technicality; it is some minor thing that can be hand-waved away and ignored. Rights and rules are the foundation of the legal system in a free society. It’s nice to see us acting like we are in a free society again for the first time in a while.
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Alec Baldwin will not be held accountable in criminal court because of the government's misconduct. What the jury would’ve decided had the government done its job is another matter. I don’t know if he was criminally liable because I haven’t watched the case. The trial has been overshadowed by that desiccated old weirdo’s bizarre, stumbling, and stubborn insistence that if he goes down, his whole party goes down with him. It’s been highly entertaining watching the Democrats as they have fallen and can’t get up. That’s why a trial that should’ve been a circus big-top attraction became a mere sideshow instead. But the trial was and is still important because it provided us (and the government) with an important lesson. The State can’t just do anything it wants. The State has obligations to us, the citizens. It’s nice to finally see the State held to them.
There’s been a lot of talk that this is part of a dual-track justice system and that Alec Baldwin got off because he’s a Democrat. There certainly is a dual-track justice system in America now, but this was not a symptom of it. This appears to be the government being held to account for once. The answer to the very real problem of two systems of justice is not to unjustly convict the Democrat. Applying the New Rules was never about manufacturing convictions; it was about how government discretion is applied and ensuring it is applied to everyone regardless of party. What we demand is one single standard for everyone. This includes the political prisoners being persecuted in the J6 kangaroo courts as well as Donald Trump himself. If you don’t think Jack Smith has withheld or misled regarding evidence, you have a lot more faith in that dime store Javert than I do. Tyranny results from the kind of focused fanaticism that justifies putting the rules aside to get a desired result. It’s good to see that the court upheld the rule of law in New Mexico even though the penalty potentially deprived not just the family but the people of justice – remember, criminal cases are brought in the name of the people and not the actual victims or their families, because a crime is convicted, is committed against the people, not individuals.
Maybe Alec Baldwin was guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Maybe he wasn’t. We will never know. We will never know because the prosecution and other government agents failed to do their jobs. It’s not because Alec Baldwin is a movie star. This should be the same result for any citizen, and too often, it’s not. Some people claim that the evidence that the prosecution withheld – some bullets related to the case – was immaterial and wouldn’t have changed anything had it been disclosed before trial. That might be true, but we don’t know that. We aren’t his defense attorneys. We don’t know what that evidence might have shown. We don’t know what those bullets proved or could have proven. We don’t know if that evidence could have convinced the jury to acquit. And it shouldn’t be up to the victim of prosecutorial misconduct to prove what might have been. We should assume that withheld evidence is material because you never know what evidence might prove critical. And we must hold the government to an unyielding and unwavering standard. It turns over all the evidence. And if it doesn’t turn over all the evidence, it loses its ability to prosecute the alleged crime.
That’s how it must be, not just for some idiot movie star but for all of us. We’ve seen how the justice system can be perverted and twisted to pursue the political ends of the people in power. Anything that limits that power is good. Anything that limits that power is necessary. I’m not happy that Alec Baldwin had his case dismissed, and I’m not happy that the people of New Mexico lost their opportunity to find out if he had committed a crime. But I am ecstatic that a judge held the prosecutors to the expected high standards. And again, I’m not some thug-hugger. My mom was a prosecutor for many years before she became a judge. I grew up around ethical prosecutors. There’s not a lot of patience for criminals running in my veins. But there’s even less for a government that fails to use the power we entrusted to it to do justice.
There may still be some justice for Halyna Hutchins and her family. The civil lawsuit – the lawsuit by the family for money damages – will still go forward. And Alec Baldwin’s got a big problem. Her family’s lawyer is Brian Panish of Los Angeles. Let me tell you a little something about Brian Panish. He’s the best lawyer I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched him in court. I’ve gone up against him. He’s unbelievably good. And he’s a good guy. If anybody out there will present the best possible case against Alec Baldwin, it’s Brian Panish and his team. And he’s going to do it ethically. Too bad the prosecutors didn’t.
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