Yesterday “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez was found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of low-budget Western “Rust” in New Mexico.
In today’s Law of Self Defense show, we discuss the highly anticipated upcoming manslaughter trial of Alec Baldwin, the man who actually fired the fatal bullet into Hutchins
As the trial looms, many are wondering what to expect and how the legal proceedings will unfold.
Stay tuned as we delve into the details and provide insight into this high-profile case.
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Welcome everybody. Welcome to today’s episode of the Law of self-defense. I am, of course, Attorney Andrew Branka for the law of self-defense.
Come on in. Come on in, make yourselves comfortable. We have a very interesting show for most of Hannah Guterres. The Armorer on the set of the low budget Western movie, Rust was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the death of Helena Hutchins. The theory of the state’s case, which the jury concluded was proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Is that as armor, Helena Hutchins loaded a live round into a single action army cult revolver handed that revolver onto the set as a cold gun and that revolver would then be used to shoot and kill Helena Hutchins and wound who was the cinematographer on the set and wound Joe Souza, the director on the set.
She is now but she is booked. I thought I had pulled up. This is her booked yesterday directly in remanded to jail by judge Morrow. So her case is done except for sentencing, which is supposed to happen sometime in April today. However, we’re here to talk about not her, but about the man who held the gun that fired the round, the gun loaded by Ham Guterres that fired the round that killed Helena Hutchins.
And that man, of course, is the actor Alec Baldwin. And we’re taking a sneak peek at what we should expect in his prosecution, which is coming up soon. Now, I will note, I think a lot of people are mistaken about the date of Alec Baldwin’s trial. I keep hearing July 9th, but this is the document I have from the court trial scheduling order which was filed on February 6th. So not that long ago, only about a month ago, it says there’s a docket call for July 9th, meaning the lawyers have to appear before the judge on July 9th and the last day for a change of plea is July 22nd. Well, obviously the trial can’t be in progress at that point and then it says pick and go trial dates for this matter are set for August 6th at 8:30 a.m.
By the way, the docket call is 1:30 p.m. It’s not likely they would begin a trial on the first day after lunch. So I think that’s just a last meeting between the lawyers and the judges, not the start date of the trial. I believe the start date of the trial is August 6th 2024 at 8:30 a.m. Which time the attorneys and the defendant shall appear for their specific days of trial? That makes a lot more sense to me, so I could be mistaken.
But honestly, I, I think a lot of journalists just read this July 9th date and assumed that was the start of the trial. I think they’re mistaken. I think it’s August 6th, but I will attempt to clarify as we move forward. Hey, folks, a quick correction to the, um, scheduling and judge assignment information. I just shared, um, a law self-defense member, an attorney, um, down the area was uh reached out to me to provide me with the correct information on all this.
So I wanted to share that with all of you to correct the, the mistaken information I just shared with you. Um Now first we have the judge assignment. So Judge Ellington had been assigned to the Alec Baldwin trial, but he’s now been excused from the case and Judge Morrow will be the trial judge. The same judge we had in the Hanna Guterres trial will be the judge in the Alec Baldwin trial. So that was the first thing I wanted to correct. The second had to do with scheduling. Uh So discovery order and trial scheduling lots of stuff about when things will come and go.
Uh But if we scroll all the way down, we get explicit about the trial. The second issue I wanted to address was around the scheduling. I had uh shown you some court documents uh that had some scheduling information. In fact, we have more recent information. Uh this from the 26th of February.
Uh, it’s a scheduling order as we can see here and it has lots of little details, but I’ll just get to the part about when the trial is to start. Uh, discovery needs to be completed, witness list, all that kind of stuff. Pretrial conference. And let’s see.
Uh, jury selection is scheduled for July 9th, 2024 and the trial is estimated to last eight days between July 10th and July 19th. So that is the corrected scheduling information. All right, folks back to the remainder of this show, a sneak peek at what we can expect during the Alec Baldwin trial. Sorry for the errors and glad to correct it. And thanks to Mike who brought this stuff to my attention. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today is the perspective, merits merits of the Alec Baldwin prosecution. I have statute.
I have jury instruction. I have case law. All New Mexico, of course. And we have the effectively undisputed facts of this case. So having said all that, let’s go ahead and launch the formal start of today’s show.
All right. So before we jump into all the things I do, of course, have to mention our sponsor of today’s show, which is none other than CCW safe, a provider of legal service membership. So many people mistakenly call self-defense insurance CCW safe promises to pay their members criminal legal defenses and provide civil liability coverage. If their member is involved in the use of force, event, compelled to use force to defend themselves, their family or property folks, these costs get very big, very fast. The cases I consult on not uncommon the killing cases, the manslaughter, the murder cases, not uncommon for the defense to run up $200,000 in legal expenses before they get to trial.
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And also there you can get a discount code for 10% off your membership at CCW Safe. When you join me there as a member again, that’s law of self defense.com/trust. All right. Now, let’s dive into what we’ve got. So what are the facts, the facts of the Alec Baldwin shooting of Helena Hutchins while he was holding the gun that fired the shot that killed Helena Hutchins. That’s undisputed.
The bullet that killed Helena Hutchins came out of his gun undisputed and it was the bullet that caused her death also undisputed. So, could Alec Baldwin have any legal defense against a criminal charge for the unlawful killing of Elena Hutchins? Uh In theory, he could, and I, and I wanna put this out of the way right at the front because in fact, it doesn’t exist. But in theory, we know that there was a replica version of Alec Baldwin’s Revo revolver, the the dedicated revolver, it was unique to his character in the movie had AAA substantially longer barrel than similar revolvers being used by other actors. In the movie. We know there was a replica of Alec Baldwin’s revolver. So hi his real revolver is a real gun that can fire real ammo, obviously, because that’s what ha what happened here. The replica looks identical to his gun.
Um And it, it, it’ll function in the sense that you can cock the hammer, you can drop the hammer with the trigger, the cylinder will turn, you can load rounds or dummy rounds, I guess into the chamber, but it cannot fire a live round. So it’s harmless for purposes of functioning as a firearm that can kill its inert. But the gun he typically used was not the replica.
It was the real version of the gun that can be loaded with live rounds, those live rounds can be discharged. And if they strike someone as they struck Helena hitch Hutchins, they can kill as they killed Helena Hutchins. If immediately when that gun in Alec Baldwin’s hand in that church on that set, immediately when it discharged, he had held it up and said, oh my God, I thought this was the replica. I had no idea this was a real gun that could actually kill people if he had said that.
And of course, presuming we believed him when he said it. But if he had said that, then that would have left him off the hook probably for any criminal liability for the death of Hutchins. Because the basis of his liability is that he, he, he knowingly created a risk of death, an unjustified risk of death to Helena Hutchins. Ignored that risk and she died as a result. This is the analogy. The classic analogy would be a drunk driving vehicular homicide death. So someone goes to a bar, they get drunk, they have to drive home.
They don’t have to, they choose to drive home. Uh And they know if they’re driving drunk, they’re creating an unjustified risk of death to others in public, but they ignored that risk. Now they’re not intending to run anybody over on the right home. They’re just intending to get home from the bar.
But driving drunk on the way home, they run over some old lady in the crosswalk and kill her. That is an involuntary manslaughter. They did not intend to kill, but they acted recklessly in knowing they were creating an unjustified risk of death to others, ignoring that risk and then death results that is involuntary manslaughter. The manslaughter, the killing was not voluntary. It was not intentional. It was involuntary, but because it was based on reckless conduct, it’s a criminal offense, not merely some kind of accident.
And that’s the basis for Alec Baldwin’s liability here, uh, that he pointed a real gun at Helena Hutchins and she died as a result. And if you know, it’s a real gun, you know, it’s capable of killing unless you ensure there’s no live ammo in it, which we know he didn’t do because a live round fired from the gun if he had said immediately, oh my God, I thought this was the replica, then he could credibly argue certainly enough to raise a reasonable doubt about guilt that he didn’t know that he was creating an unjustified risk of death to Helena Hutchins when he pointed the gun at her because he thought it was an inert prop. One not capable of firing around. The problem with that is Alec Baldwin did something very foolish and that is, he’s, he spent an hour plus talking with Santa Fe sheriff’s office. Investigators without a lawyer present was given a Miranda waiver and signed it and just started talking to the investigators.
And I think we’ll find much as we did with Hannah Guterres. Much of the evidence used to convict Hannah Guterres on her involuntary manslaughter charge came from Hannah Guterres in her three hours plus of police interrogations. The majority of which were done with a lawyer, her lawyer beside her who did absolutely nothing, virtually nothing in the course of that two hour plus investigation in which he was present. But in any case, much of the much of the evidence that locked Hannah Guterres into a involuntary manslaughter conviction came from her own mouth recorded on cameras during those police interrogations. And the same is true of Alec Baldwin. For example, the possibility that he could claim that he did not know he did not know he was handling a real firearm.
This is about 2025 minutes into his hour and 15 minute interview, uh with police. Let’s take a look at what he has to say he’s talking here about Hannah’s handling of uh of the prop, he calls them prop firearms just to be clear. Um, we need to distinguish there are various kinds of quote unquote firearms used on a movie set. Um, some are just inert plastic, no moving parts, they’re just rubber guns.
Uh, obviously they can’t fire around others are replicas that function like a real gun. But for the inability to fire a live round, but mostly is at least the lead actors use real firearms on movie sets, real firearms that are capable of firing real bullets and they know that they’re real guns and dummies are used to replicate the presence of live ammo dummy that rattles when you shake it or has a hole drilled in the side or is missing a primer. So it can be distinguished from an actual live round because obviously, you don’t want a live round in a gun on a movie set because it could kill somebody as happened here. So in this context, as as this video will make clear, although Baldwin refers to these as props, there are only props in the sense that there are items being used on a on a set. These are real guns as he tells investigators and as the jury will hear right here responsibility to, to uh secure the prop weapons which are real gun, a real gun.
So there goes that excuse by Alec Alec Baldwin, he knew the gun in his hand was real, which means because guns are inherently dangerous instruments that all people recognize can cause death or serious bodily injury, particularly Alec Baldwin by the way, because he’s on the board of a gun control organization that exists specifically because they, the people involved recognize guns as causing death and serious bodily injury. Now, they stupidly want to disarm law abiding people instead of criminals. But regardless, he can hardly claim he doesn’t know guns are dangerous, particularly given he’s been in 75 movies, many of them involving firearms his handling of firearms.
He’s been trained dozens of times on movie and TV sets about the safe handling of firearms and what risks are incurred when handling real firearms on a movie set. So he certainly cannot claim ignorance of the dangers of real guns. Really.
Nobody can. Everybody living in a western nation knows that real guns are dangerous and he lost a key defense right there. If he’d had a lawyer present or he’d simply chosen not to speak with police until he had a lawyer present. His lawyer would not have allowed him to make that kind of statement. A good lawyer, a competent lawyer, not a Jason Bowles kind of lawyer, but I expect Alec lawyers to be substantially better than those that were purporting to represent Hannah Guterres. But it’s too late for that. He chose to talk for an hour and 15 minutes to investigators.
Um including of course, detective Alexandra Hooters Hancock, the lead investigator on this case for both the, the Hanna Guterres a trial and for the uh Alec Baldwin trial as well. So key defense loss there. So knowing he had a real gun, what are the relevant facts that are essentially established and for practical purposes not disputed. There, there was, there is one fact disputed by Alec Baldwin, but it’s, it’s, it’s so not credible uh that I don’t think it’ll be a serious barrier to a conviction in this case. Um So some of the assumed facts are, it was Alec Baldwin who was holding manipulating the gun that fired the projectile that killed Helena Hutchins.
No one is saying some other gun fired the shot, right? It was the gun in his hand. Uh Now here’s the fact that Baldwin disputes the gun discharged because the trigger was depressed by Alec Baldwin. Now he says he never pressed the trigger. Two problems with that one is, although we don’t have any video footage of the shooting itself, we do have video footage of Alec Baldwin rehearsing four. The motion that would result in the killing of Helena Hutchins. And he’s presenting the pistol the revolver from a cross draw holster.
And every time he does that in practice, when the gun comes out, he cocks the hammer and his finger is on the trigger. Like here, like here, finger on the trigger, obviously very clear. He lowers the hammer, gets it back in the holster. Does another practice presentation of the revolver. Come on, Alec, there he goes and the finger on the trigger very clearly again. So first we have to believe that he put the finger on the trigger in while rehearsing but didn’t put his finger on the trigger when the gun actually discharged.
Is there reason to believe that’s not true? Now, he may believe it’s true in his mind but can a reasonable jury infer that he’s mistaken or lying? Of course, especially based on this video, but even more important. We have expert witness testimony or we will have expert witness testimony that that can happen, that the gun cannot be discharged without the hammer being dropped. And by the way, in Hannah’s trial, we heard that from Luke Haig, the uh firearms expert for the state in the Guterres prosecution, we heard it from uh, the FBI uh firearms inspector and that you can’t drop the hammer on that gun without pressing the trigger, in fact, to decock it. So in this practice run, we just saw the rehearsal. Alec was cocking the pistol getting his finger on the trigger and then the decock, he had to put his finger on the trigger. That’s the only way to decock that gun if it’s functional.
And all the evidence is that at the set, the gun was perfectly functional. By the way, the witnesses against Alec Baldwin for his trial are going to be largely the same as the witnesses were the state’s witnesses against Hannah Guterres. So let’s take a quick look at the witness list.
Ross Ad Diego. He testified uh in the Guterres trial. Uh Lieutenant Benavidez, he was the first, oh, not the first, the second sheriff’s office officer present. Uh Detective Joel Cano, uh Brian Carpenter was the uh the well experienced armorer brought in by the prosecution to talk about how armor should function on a set. Uh Lyn Conway, one of the FBI investigators, DNA Robert Gillette FBI explosives, Corporal Alexandra Fish lips Hooters, Hancock, the lead investigator for the sheriff’s office on this case, Heather Gerald, the medical examiner, all these people, Deputy Lujan Seth Kenney, Detective Lafleur. He was the first, at that time, he was a sheriff’s deputy. He was the first officer on the scene.
Mammy, the script supervisor, Marissa Popple, Dana Fera’s office. She took the crime scene photos, evidence, photos, Jensen Ackles. That’s the actor. So he wasn’t in the Guterres uh trial, but apparently he’s at least on the witness list for the care family business, beer companies. I guess he has a beer company.
Uh So I thought his name was spelled with two es. Hm uh Sherilyn Schafer, she was the traumatized medic testified in the first trial, Joel Souza, the director testified, Sarah Zachary testified, John Zillo testified, Bryce Ziegler was the FBI um uh tool and mark examiner. He’s the one that tested the revolver to destruction, but it was working when it arrived at working properly. Um when it arrived. Uh Lorenzo Montoya, that’s the OSHA investigator um on the state’s witness list.
Uh Samantha Talee, I don’t remember Teleman that. Oh Sam, Sam. Sam was the um Sam was the second detective present in the first interview.
Um So this is Detective Alexander Hooters Hancock on the left here and this is uh Samantha Tlee here on the right. Um She doesn’t stay with the case very long to my knowledge, but she was involved in the interview of Baldwin. That’s why she’s here. Um, let’s see, uh Christina Espinoza, another, she wasn’t in the first trial, but I guess she’s gonna bring some OSHA records. Uh, Luke Haig, he was the firearms expert for the state in the Guterres trial. Wyatt Mortenson.
I don’t remember who he is. Lane Looper, the camera guy who quit, uh, the night before this tragic event, the, the evening of October 20th, the camera crew resigned and they picked up all the gear the morning of the 21st causing a delay in um in armor functions. The day of the 21st, Mike Primo pri pri Primo Primo, I think it’s pronounced. He was the uh uh video and photographic uh enhancement expert who wasn’t very impressive um in the Guterres trial. But nevertheless, he testified, Nathan Klinger, he testified, uh Shannon Prince, FBI Linton Prince testified Michael Haig. So funny, funny. So Luke Haig is uh was a firearms expert for the state in the uh Guterres trial.
Uh He’s 80 something years old has all his wits. He was very good, very competent on the witness stand. But a number of times he, he seemed to be promoting his youngest son, Michael, who, who worked with him on some of this analysis. And now his son Michael is on the witness list.
So maybe, maybe Luke’s being a good dad and trying to kind of slide his son Michael into the um firearms expert witness testimony business. Not a bad thing to do if the sun is competent. Uh, Hannah Guterres is on the witness list for the state for the Alec Baldwin trial. And now that she’s been convicted, can she plead the fifth? I don’t know. I mean, she might appeal her conviction. She might say, hey, I’m gonna appeal so I’m still not gonna testify against myself.
Uh, maybe, maybe it could be a factor in sentencing because she’s not sentenced till April. Maybe she could cut a deal with the prosecution on sentencing sentencing recommendation. Jonah Fox man. I don’t know who that is. Uh Gabrielle Pickle, of course, was, uh I think a unit line manager, some management position on the set of Rust um address in Santa Monica, that’s her law firm Santa Monica. So there we are now, Carrie Morrissey will be the prosecutor uh in the Alec Baldwin case as well. Now I’ve been saying that Judge Morrow who was the judge in the Guterres case will be the judge in the Alec Baldwin case, which is normally how it’s done two very similar cases.
The judge is familiar uh with at least, you know, the prosecution team familiar with many of the witnesses and, and the issues in the case and the arguments that are likely to be made. But in fact, I don’t think Judge Morrow is going to be on the Alec Baldwin case because on this witness list, the judge listed is Judge Glenn Ellington, also a trial judge in this district. And, uh, so there we go, we may have a different judge for the second trial, which means we could get some different rulings on evidence and, and so forth, which could happen even with the same judge, but tends not to happen if you have the same judge. Ok. So where are we? Now? Let’s get back to discussing the merits, the legal merits. So I talked about Alec was a guy manipulating the gun that fired the projectile that killed MS Hutchins.
The gun discharged because the trigger was depressed. I think that’s incontrovertible in rehearsal. He’s got his finger on the trigger and the experts are gonna testify, the gun could not have fired without the trigger being depressed. By the way, if you do cock the gun all the way back, you only need about £2 of pressure on the trigger, which is tiny, tiny amount of pressure on the trigger. Uh In order for that trigger to be dropped, inadvertently touching the trigger could easily drop the hammer.
Um The muzzle of the weapon we have to believe was directed at MS Hutchins by Baldwin when it fired. In other words, she wasn’t killed by some kind of unpredictable ricochet. And we, we know that to be the case, uh the bullet went through Hutchins into the shoulder of director Joel Souza was recovered from his shoulder and while it’s, it’s uh imperfect because of the, the passage through these physical bodies. Um And maybe if the barrel of the rover was a bit fouled as well, it’s, it still obviously did not ricochet off some hard object that would have been necessary for it to maintain the velocity to kill Hutchins pass through her completely and then wound Joel Souza’s shoulder. We have to believe the gun contained a live round, which of course is the bullet that killed Hutchins. So it obviously did. We have to believe that Baldwin had the opportunity to inspect the weapon for live ammo before he pointed the muzzle at Hutchins and pressed the trigger.
And we know that inspection of this gun takes less than a minute. And you always have a minute on a movie set. If you’re the lead actor and the producer, the most powerful person on that set, who every witness who testified in the guitarist trial when asked was Baldwin effectively in charge of that movie said, said yes. So if he’d wanted to inspect the gun, now, he could have, if not inspected it himself, the standard would be for the armorer to be called over the armor to dump the rounds out of the gun. Shake them for everybody so they could hear them rattle, shake them by Baldwin’s ear or show him the hole in the cartridge. There’s only six thing, six cartridges in her hand. Each of them is checked and then those six are put back into the gun that would take a minute.
So he had the opportunity to ensure there were no live rounds in the gun and he did not take it if you point what you know, to be a real gun at another human being and you have not ensured there’s no life around. There’s no am on the gun. Are you creating an unjustified risk of death? Yes, of course, you are because for all, you know, there is live ammo in the gun and if you point a live gun with live ammo at another person and manipulate the hammer and trigger, you’re creating an unjustified risk of death unless you have a justification like self-defense, which of course we’re presuming is not here that there was no justifications for the shooting of Hutchins. And I’m also assuming that Baldwin did not intend to shoot and kill Helena Hutchins. In which case we’d be talking about murder, right? Not manslaughter. So that’s what he’s been charged with involuntary manslaughter under New Mexico statute section 30-2 dash three. So let’s go ahead and take a look at that statute and here it is, let me blow it up a bit.
So it’s a little easier to read. Now, it’s a general manslaughter statute. So it covers both voluntary manslaughter in involuntary manslaughter.
Now, voluntary manslaughter is when you intend to cause harm to that other person intend even to kill them. So why is it not murder? It’s not murder because you’re in the heat of passion. It’s a hot blooded killing, not a cold blooded blooded killing. Uh, maybe it was in the course of, of, of a fight you were having. Um, some, the classic example is somebody comes home and finds their spouse in bed with a lover and kills him. That’s not a lawful killing.
But the law says because of the heat of passion, because of the excited state of the killer, they were incapable of forming the specific intent necessary for murder. We mitigate the offense from murder down to manslaughter. Um, so this statue covers voluntary manslaughter and here it is voluntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed upon a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. Whoever commits voluntary manslaughter is guilty of a third degree felony resulting in the death of a human being. So this would normally, it’s an intentional killing would normally be murder, but it’s mitigated to manslaughter because of the sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
But that of course, is not what we’re dealing with. Here, we’re dealing here with involuntary manslaughter and there are two paths to involuntary manslaughter. Under New Mexico law. Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to a felony or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner, meaning without justification or without due caution and circumspection and whoever commits involuntary manslaughter is guilty of 1/4 degree felony So the state here is arguing that if we take the first path, involuntary manslaughter, the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony.
Because if you’re committing a felony and someone dies as a result, that would just be felony murder, the penalty is the same as murder. Um, but what if you’re not committing a felony? You’re committing a misdemeanor unlawful act and someone dies as a result. Well, that would not be felony murder. That would be this form of involuntary manslaughter. And the state is arguing one theory of involuntary manslaughter that Alec Baldwin was handling his firearm, negligently, negligent handling of a firearm under New Mexico law is a misdemeanor. So it’s an unlawful act. That’s a misdemeanor not amounting to a felony, someone dies as a result.
That would be this first theory of getting Alec Baldwin convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The other path to involuntary manslaughter is that Alec Baldwin was engaged, engaged in the commission of a lawful act, but without due caution and circumspection. In other words, he was doing something inherently dangerous handling a firearm and he failed to take a practical step to ensure that death would not occur.
He failed to make sure there were not live rounds in the gun. That’s the without due caution and circumspection. And if either of these are true, then he’s guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Now, interestingly enough, the jury does not have to be unanimous on which theory and I disagree with that. But the law is, if six members of the jury believe that he committed manslaughter in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to a felony. And six of the jurors believe while he didn’t commit an unlawful act, he was committing a lawful act without due caution and circumspection.
We really don’t have 12 juries who agree on one theory, we have two halves of the jury, each half of which agrees on a different theory believes different facts have been proven. But both theories arrive at involuntary manslaughter. And the law says that’s good enough for a conviction on involuntary manslaughter. If I were in charge of things, which I’m not, I would demand that the state has to prove, has to convince the jury unanimous unanimously of one theory of guilt. Otherwise, you could have the possibility where, you know, a, a jury is offered 12 theories of guilt, all distinct from each other and you’re just convincing one in individual juror of each theory. And I don’t think that’s what unanimity in a jury verdict is supposed to mean just one guy’s opinion. But anyway, that’s the statutory framework that we’re dealing with, with respect to Alec Baldwin, sorry, just trying to get some.
Um, now, generally speaking, it anytime you’re handling an inherently dangerous instrument and you do it in a negligent manner that negligence automatically gets bumped up to recklessness. And why is that important? It’s important because negligence mere negligence. So you didn’t know you were creating a risk, but you should have known you were creating a risk and a bad outcome occurred. That’s negligence and it’s not enough for criminal liability. It’s only enough for civil liability. So you can get sued in civil court for damages.
And if they can prove negligence, you’re liable for the damages, but you can’t be prosecuted for mere negligence. Recklessness is where, you know, you’re creating an unjustified risk and you ignore that risk and you have the bad outcome that is enough for criminal liability. But if you’re engaged in negligent con conduct with an inherently dangerous instrument, it automatically gets bumped up to recklessness. What’s an inherently dangerous instrument? It could be explosives, it could be dangerous chemicals, dangerous drugs, uh uh heavy equipment or guns because in all these categories, these are things that we know if they’re handled inappropriately death or serious bodily injury can readily result and you’re presumed to know that that’s the case. So there’s nobody in modern society who doesn’t know that guns are dangerous, that guns are readily capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. So if you’re handling a gun, it’s not a negligence standard that’s applied although the law may call it that. But what they really mean is a recklessness standard, hence the criminal liability.
And sometimes they do get sloppy with the terminology. So like New Mexico has a negligent handling of a deadly weapon misdemeanor crime on the books. But strictly speaking, negligence is not enough for criminal liability, but because it involves a deadly weapon, it’s effectively bumped up to recklessness, which is enough for criminal liability, negligence and recklessness. Of course, being states of mind. So how do you know whether or not someone’s handling a gun in a responsible way or a reckless way? Well, fortunately, there are well-established rules of gun safety, redundant rules of gun safety that define what safe handling of a firearm is.
And those rules are one that all guns are presumed to be loaded until proven otherwise. And that means proven to the person who’s holding the gun. Typically, that means he inspects the firearm, but by whatever means, the gun he’s holding is presumed to be loaded until demonstrated to him. Unequivocally, there are not live rounds in the gun and if that gun leaves the holder’s hand for even a moment and then comes back, it gets checked again.
I’ve been in groups where guys are showing a gun to each other. 78 guys, we’re all standing in a circle just waiting for our turn to get that gun in our hands. We see the guy two over from us, check it unloaded, hands it to the next guy, one over from us, he checks it unload. You get the gun, you check it unloaded, you hand it to the next guy, he checks it, make sure it’s unloaded. That’s how that rule works. The second rule never point the muzzle of a firearm, a real firearm in anything you’re not willing to kill or destroy. Three, never press the trigger of a firearm unless you intend to fire a bullet from the barrel.
Four know your target and what is beyond your target. So don’t just shoot over a hill or a can tied in a tree if you, if you don’t have a good backstop, that one’s not particularly relevant to this particular case. Um But the first three are the guns presumed to be loaded until proven otherwise, don’t point the muzzle at anything you’re not willing to kill. Don’t press the trigger unless you want a loud noise. And the beauty of these rules is that they are redundant.
In other words, you could violate one of them and not have a terribly bad outcome. You really need to violate more than one to have a bad outcome. So if you violate just, you fail to check that the guns loaded, the gun goes off, but the muzzle was not pointed at anything important, not good that the gun went off. But no, nobody died.
Nothing important was destroyed. Or um, you put your finger on the trigger when you shouldn’t, you’re not intending for the gun to go off, the gun goes off or you drop the hammer on the gun. But if there’s no ammo in the gun, no bad outcome results. The problem for Alec Baldwin is he violated all of these, all three of these. He did not check to make sure there were no live rounds in the gun. So the guns presumed to be loaded, he pointed the muzzle directly at Helena Hutchins, which s a safety rules say you are not supposed to do.
I didn’t, I forgot to pull those up again. Let me see if I can find those quickly. I think I did those very early, do a quick search. Uh Oops, got it. How good am I? Let me pull this up.
Not only is not pointing a muzzle at anything you’re not willing to kill or destroy a basic rule of gun safety. And remember Alec Baldwin’s been in 75 movies, many of which involved his handling of guns and the training that comes with that on every movie. Uh Let’s see. Here we go. Not only is it a fundamental rule of gun safety? It’s in the s a safety bulletin.
Number one, the safety bulletin for firearms is numbered. Number one. That’s how important it is. General safe use in handling of firearms.
Refrain from pointing a firearm at anyone, any object at which you point a firearm could be destroyed. And what did Baldwin do? Baldwin pointed that muzzle directly at Helena Hutchins. Now, we have two safety violations. He didn’t check to make sure there was no live ammo on the gun or have someone do it in his presence and he’s pointing the muzzle directly at Elena Hutchins. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough for, um, killing someone in the course of lawful conduct that without due care and circumspection or negligent handling of a firearm right there, engage in an unlawful act when somebody dies as a result, either one is involuntary manslaughter, but of course, it gets worse than that, it gets worse because we also have that third rule, never press the trigger of a firearm unless you intend to discharge it. And we know that Alec Baldwin did exactly that because we saw it in rehearsal and we have the expert testimony coming that this gun which was functioning properly when it got to the FBI for inspection examination. So we know it was functioning properly in the movie set, the hammer could not be dropped without the trigger being pressed and the hammer would need to be fully cocked or it would have fallen into one of the safety notches.
In any case, the trigger still needs to be pressed to have the hammer come forward. So three safety rules violated that is without due care and circumspection or it is negligent handling of a firearm. E either of which locks in involuntary manslaughter with the death of Elena Hutchins. All right, let’s take a look now at the, we looked at the statute. Let’s take a look at the relevant jury instruction.
This is the instruction we can expect the jury to get blow that up. So it’s easier to see. Uh Now the uh the standard, the pattern New Mexico calls them uniform jury instructions, criminal. Uh They have their own numbers in the jury instruction book when they’re presented in court.
Um the court will, um the parties will argue for jury instructions. There, there’s many hundreds of jury instructions for different kinds of criminal cases. Um The parties will argue about which of those instructions they want applied to this particular case on this particular law and facts. And the judge will finalize a list and when the judge finalizes the list from the ones to be included, they typically renumber them for the convenience of the jury. Just 1234567.
I think there was something like 20 or 24 uh, sequentially numbered jury instructions, but the actual identifying number for the jury instruction is what’s in the book. That’s what we’re looking here. 14-2 31 involuntary manslaughter, essential elements. And it’s a fill in the blanks kind of form. This is very common for uniform, standardized pattern jury instructions. So let me share with you how I’ve written this up before when I did an analysis of this jury instruction previously more than a year ago at this point. Uh, let’s see where, where is that? That’s here.
All right. When we fill in the blanks in that, fill in the blank jury instruction with the relevant information from this case, the jury instruction will read as follows to the jury for you to find the defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The state must prove to your satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt, each of the following elements of the crime, Alec Baldwin pointed a loaded firearm at Miss Hudgins and depressed the trigger, firing a bullet into her. Do we believe that beyond a reasonable doubt? Is there any contrary evidence except for Alex’s self serving statement that’s really not credible. Uh Given that he didn’t press the trigger, I don’t think so. I don’t think his self serving statement is enough to create reasonable doubt, contrary to the other evidence in this case. Secondly, Alec Baldwin should have known of the danger involved by his actions pointing a loaded firearm.
Remember the firearms presumed to be loaded unless proven otherwise should have known of the danger involved by his actions. Well, yes, anybody would know that a loaded, pointing a loaded firearm at another human being creates a risk, a danger of death or serious bodily injury, especially when you pull the trigger. Alec Baldwin acted with willful disregard for the safety of others. The willful me merely means he could not have not known of the risk. Now, this is where the replica would have saved him.
If he’d said, holy cow. I thought this was the nonfunctioning replica. Then there is no willful disregard of the risk because there’s no known risk. There’s no reason to believe you’re creating the risk. But here as we saw, he knew, he knew he was holding a real gun and that Alec Baldwin’s act caused the death of Miss Hutchins. There’s no question about that. It’s the bullet fired from his gun that struck her directly and killed her.
And this happened in New Mexico on or about the 21st day of October 2021 just with the evidence we know. Now, is there any way that Alec Baldwin escapes conviction for involuntary manslaughter on the legal merits? Now, juries are dangerous and unpredictable creatures. We never really know for sure what they’re going to do. But if they act on the legal merits, this is a, a lock conviction for Kerry Morrissey special prosecutor in this case on involuntary manslaughter with regard to Alec Baldwin. Now, I want, I do want to touch on something else because people talk about this all the time. I think it’s mostly Alec Baldwin’s pr team which has been very active on social media.
These little low follower counts, uh, accounts on social media, uh raising all kinds of legally nonsensical arguments about why Alec Baldwin should not be held accountable. And the biggest one of these is that, hey, he’s just an actor, he’s just an actor. He’s not a gun guy. It’s not his responsibility to make sure there’s no live rounds in the gun. That’s the armorer’s responsibility. And after her, it’s the first ad David Halls he’s the general umbrella person responsible for safety on the set.
Not, not an actor. You can’t expect an actor to be responsible for that kind of thing except folks, when we look at the, at the manslaughter statute, where’s the exception for actors for Hollywood sets? There is none. This manslaughter law applies to everybody. You don’t get to kill people recklessly on a movie set and not have it be involuntary manslaughter just because you’re an actor. As Jason Bowles would say an a list actor and as Kerri Morrissey would say really a list.
She did that twice during Hannah’s trial. Very funny. Um Yeah, she’s not cowed by, by Alec Baldwin, that’s for sure. So there’s no, there’s no exception for Hollywood here. And of course, we do know that someone else loaded the live round into the gun that Hannah Guterres loaded the live round into the gun.
That’s what the overwhelming evidence. She said that herself, she loaded the gun. Hannah Guterres said, Hannah Guterres me loaded that gun before I handed it on to the set as a cold gun. Now she said she loaded six dummy rounds.
But of course, we know that’s not true because a live round from the gun killed Elena Hutchins. So we know there was a live round in the gun unless you believe that in that small church interior with 8, 1012 people in there, the camera crew, the cinematographer Helena Hutchins who would die Joel Souza, who’d be shot in the shoulder, script supervisor, Mammy Wardrobe, David Halls, Alec Baldwin, the um, other people too special effects lighting with all those people in there, we would have to believe that David Halls opened up the loading gate, pulled the hammer at half cock, rotated that cylinder, took out a dummy round and slipped in a live round in front of all those people. Or we’d have to believe that, you know, that’s it. Nobody believes that there’s zero evidence of that. And of course, a reasonable doubt has to be based on reason, not speculation or conjecture, the absence of evidence. So there’s no exception but, but on an emotional level, on a court TV, estrogenic legal analysis level, you might say, well, it seems unfair, it seems unfair that it was someone else who put the live bullet in the gun.
New Mexico law does not care, does not care who put the bullet in the gun. And we know this because we have case law on this from the Supreme Court of New Mexico State V Guilliam. And if we scroll down to the relevant portion of this decision, it addresses this topic explicitly. Now, this involved a involuntary manslaughter conviction, uh where someone claimed that uh, they didn’t load the gun, someone else loaded the gun. And therefore, they should not be responsible for involuntary manslaughter when the gun was in their hand and discharged and killed somebody. So the relevant portion of that case is here. This is the New Mexico Supreme Court.
It could have made no difference to the trial of a charge of involuntary manslaughter as to who loaded the gun. All that is necessary to establish for involuntary manslaughter by the use of a loaded firearm is that a defendant had in his hands, a gun which at some time had been loaded and that he handled it without due caution and circumspection and that death resulted. And of course, the due caution and circumspection is the, the lack of that is the pointing the muzzle at another human being without ensuring there was no live ammo in the gun and then dropping the hammer with the trigger. This is the Alec Baldwin case folks. Exactly see if there’s yes, another thing I wanted to touch on, um, other people did things wrong here and have been held criminally liable.
First assistant director David Halls took a plea deal, negligent handling of a fire misdemeanor sentenced to six months unsupervised probation. Now he got that deal, uh because he took the plea, he didn’t compel the state to take him to trial. And as Kerri Morris, he said, when you do that, you get the benefit of taking that plea and not making us go through the effort of convicting you in a week long trial. He Guterres, of course, the armor who loaded the live round into the gun and handed it on to the set as a purportedly cold gun was just held criminally liable. Yesterday, convicted of involuntary manslaughter immediately remanded into jail will be sentenced in April sometime looking at a maximum of 18 months, which by the way is also the maximum that Alec Baldwin’s looking at, uh, lawsuits are flying everywhere. So I guarantee you a lot of money is gonna be changing hands in civil lawsuits as well.
Uh, particularly against the production company. The production company has already been fined $100,000 by New Mexico’s version of OSHA. Uh but there could be millions of dollars in settlements and, and legal civil liability being found in this case. So, yeah, lots of people have responsibility and lots of people are being held accountable in different ways. But it’s important to understand that what we’re talking about here is not one giant pie that is split up among different people and when it’s already been split up enough, there’s not, there’s no liability left for Alec Baldwin. That’s not how it works.
Every individual has their own pie of liability. First director David Halls, 100% liable for his conduct and Hannah is 100% liable for her conduct. And Alec Baldwin is 100% liable for his conduct, his liability, his criminal culpability does not diminish because other people also played a role if the facts of the case are enough to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either he was engaged in the unlawful act of negligent handling of a firearm when his conduct killed Helena Hutchins or he was handling that gun without due care and circumspection when he killed Helena Hutchins with that gun.
And I don’t think there’s really much contest in either one of those. All right, let’s take a look at the questions. We now have we answer questions first from our law of self-defense members for free. The good news is it’s easy to be a law self-defense member. You can become a member for just 99 cents a two week trial membership for 99 cents. You’re instantly email directions for how to access the member live stream and the member chat. And that’s where I go to, to answer questions and comments for free when the two weeks expires if you remain a member and just about everybody does, it’s still dirt cheap.
It’s only about 30 cents a day, folks, less than $10 a month to be a law of self defense member. Get all your legal questions and comments answered for free on our live streams if you don’t want to do that, which I don’t get, I mean, if you’re here, it must mean you like the content. Why wouldn’t it be worth 30 cents a day? But that’s your call to make fair enough. Uh You can, if you’re, if you wanna stay in youtube, you can post questions and comments on youtube and I’ll address those too.
If they’re in the form of a minimum $10 Super Chat, I don’t know why you’d spend $10 for one question. When, for 10 bucks a month you can get a month’s worth of questions answered. But that’s your call to make. So, first, the law of self defense members, let’s see what we have, by the way, a lot of the members I know do actually watch the live stream on youtube because they can do stuff like, uh, rewind and participate in polls. Um, but chat in the member chat so they get their questions and comments answered for free. So you can take that kind of blended approach and I know many people do.
Um, but seeing law self defense member Phillips says, I suspect if Baldwin is found guilty, the production insurance claims will be denied when the civil lawsuits hit Baldwin and his co-produced may have a lot of their money riding on this trial outcome. Um, well, any, I mean, any personal insurance Baldwin would have, uh, would be done if he’s convicted, then if, if you’re proven guilty in a criminal court, it’s basically assumed that you’re liable in civil court, right? Because, um, guilty in a criminal court is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a very high threshold liable in civil courts only 51%. So, if you’ve been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that’s well past 51%. They, they’ve well exceeded the threshold for civil liability, but there’s gonna be a lot of layers of insurance here. I mean, movie production is a very complicated, lots of rounds of financing and different corporations and it’s, uh, it’s, I’m sure it’s gonna be a hot mess.
And, uh, the civil litigation attorneys, um, guys like my friend Kurt Schlichter, um, are gonna make a lot of money off this case for sure. Uh, let’s see. Yeah, a bunch of people missed the verdict live.
I managed to catch a live stream of the verdict yesterday. How lucky was that? I mean, I did prepare for it but I just barely caught it. Uh But I put the replay of my coverage up on the law self-defense. Uh the blog version of this content, the playback version of my content uh for the members.
Let’s see. David says seems like an unusually competent jury. Um Now I did see a very brief like sidewalk interview with one of the jurors. Um I wonder if I can pull that up quickly that I save that I should have saved it. Well, I’ll be disappointed if I didn’t save it in a bookmark. Let me see.
Maybe I did save it. All right. So let’s watch this.
It was on Twitter. This is one of the jurors and that turns out he’s an expert in safety in the Los Alamos area, which is not far from Santa Fe. Um Famously enough, Los Alamos, of course, very pretty by the way, not much of New Mexico is pretty, in my opinion, but Los Alamos is in the part, the northern part where there’s trees and stuff. It’s very nice.
Um, but it’s a sidewalk interview with this guy. So let’s hear what he has to say. What has been your overall thoughts about the trial, everything you heard. Um, throughout these 10 days, it’s pretty much, uh, very unsafe conditions. It was obvious. I mean, nothing to be.
Yes. While you guys were in there, it was pretty quick that you guys came to a decision. Um, you know, what was the things that you guys took into consideration? And was the thing that really convinced you guys that she was guilty? It was, uh, a lot of the safety issues that she could have paused work, stopped, cleared it all up and just never did. I deal a lot with safety up there. I work in Los Amos. So I deal a lot with it and they say you don’t stop work, just pause work. Was there a particular witness or a particular moment? A piece of video? Something that the prosecution said that really sank in with you pretty much.
It’s just that all the never did the safety checks, never check the rounds to pull them out to look at them, shake them. I mean, if you’d done that this wouldn’t happen. Was there any moment that anyone in the jury maybe didn’t agree with the guilty verdict, um, they had their ideas or their concerns but after talking it all out, it pretty much, uh, they were convinced. How do you feel about the decision today? I think it was fair.
Yeah. And if you, someone died, I mean, you gotta take responsibility, especially when you’re handling weapons and you’re in charge of those. That’s, that’s your job. Inherently dangerous instruments. Right. It’s not just that somebody died because people can die by accident without criminal culpability on anybody’s part.
But once it happens because you’re handling weapons and it’s your job to make sure those weapons have no live rounds, then then you, you bump up to a strict liability kind of environment, that recklessness instead of mere accident or mere negligence, lack of experience or whatever you wanna call it. You took the job, how much is a difficult decision for you to come to? What was this a difficult decision for you to come to? Uh Yeah. No. Well, after hearing everything and then thinking about it mostly because I deal with a lot in safety being in Los Alamos and all the things around and being in other jobs over the same way, especially driving the CD L driver. I, I have to check in my vehicle, make sure I’m not gonna slam into people or do something like that.
That was her job to check those rounds, those firearms and if no one wanted to pay attention or do that then she would stop the work. Was there anything that the defense said that maybe convinced you or made you think that Hannah Gutierrez Reed was actually being scapegoated? No, I don’t think so. Do you believe she brought live rounds on set? Oh, if she did, she didn’t, if she didn’t know it and she did. But yeah, we think she did much but it doesn’t even matter.
It doesn’t matter if she brought the live rounds in. If, if everybody in that cast, the crew had brought live ammo to the set, if there was a mountain of live ammo on that set, none of this happens. If Hannah Guterres simply does her job. And when she preps the gun for the set, she ensures that gun, those six cylinders, those six chambers in that cylinder have no live rounds in them. That’s it. That’s why the checks are required.
That’s why they rattle the dummies when you shake them or they have a hole in them or there’s a primer missing because it’s always possible that a live round could get its way into that gun. That’s why we care. That’s why we do the inspections. That’s why we have an armor. If at all did actor Alec Baldwin play a part in your deliberations or any other cast or crew members that were in there.
Well, they’re, they’re gonna have their day his day. So we really didn’t take that into consideration. It wasn’t part of it. What was her reaction when the, when the decision came up? I don’t know, I didn’t see nothing. I didn’t look at her so I’ll sit in the back. That’s, that’s about it.
Can you spell your name? A lbe RT Os A Nchez. Alberto Sanchez. Yeah, thank you, Alberto. All right. By the way, there was a very interesting tweet that, uh, I thought, I thought was interesting. Let’s see if I can find it.
Now, here it is. Um, let me pull it up. It was by a, a law tuber who’s that, whose legal analysis I’ve disagreed with before. Um There’s some law tubers are excellent and, and some are, um, perhaps not as excellent, but, uh I thought this was very telling and this happens to be a, a female lawyer, law tuber. Um And we know that Court T V’s audience is, you know, 90% female.
And so they, they tend to spend things in a very, they do their quote unquote legal analysis from a very feminine estrogenic emotional type of perspective, which is why their polls and um and, and chat tends to be so different than my community. But uh here it is, it’s this. So this is, of course, the guy we just watched Legal Bites, uh says I keep thinking about this juror and how huge an error it was that the defense didn’t strike him from the jury, given his background with someone like that present his background and safety. It’s no wonder it was a quick guilty verdict.
So, a couple things here, one is, of course, if you’re a defense counsel and, you know, this guy is, you know, an expert in safety, you’re gonna strike them. If you have a peremptory strike, a strike, you can use without having to give a reason you’re gonna strike him. But what’s that say about your client? Because there, there’s nothing about this guy that says he can’t be unbiased, fair, impartial. What you’re saying is your client can’t risk an objective, impartial safety expert evaluating her conduct because he’s gonna conclude that it was unsafe without due care and circumspection. So what you’re saying when you strike, the safety expert is you’re saying your client’s guilty and this guy, he, he’s not gonna railroad your client.
He’s gonna rationally conclude that your client needs to be convicted. And if your defense counsel, of course, that’s what you’re trying to prevent. So, defense counsel is not unbiased and impartial. Defense counsel wants to bias everything in their client’s favor. That’s what they should do.
But if you’re doing legal analysis on this case, you’re now part of the defense team, you have to understand that when you say you can’t believe this guy was allowed in the jury, he should have been struck. You’re conceding the guilt of Helena Guterres of involuntary manslaughter. That’s what you’re saying. And hence my comment there at the bottom. Um, on what grounds would you strike this juror assuming you had to provide grounds? Right? You didn’t have any more peremptory strikes on what grounds, what rationale would you provide to the court saying we want this guy struck for cause? Except that if he believed your client had recklessly killed someone, he’d be likely to convict her for recklessly killing someone. There’s nothing about this juror that indicated he couldn’t be fair or impartial and no defendant is entitled to a jury that consists only of people that would be unwilling to rightfully convict. The jury is just supposed to be unbiased, impartial.
It doesn’t mean they can’t have an understanding of what safety is when you’re charged with a crime that alleges unsafe conduct. Very interesting how people have, uh, different, different views of similar subject matter. All right. Let me get back to the member comments here. Uh, member David says it’s a, it’s tragically sad because it was so preventable.
100% prevent preventable. Right. And we know that. Well, how do we know that? Because real guns are used on movie and TV sets maybe a million times a year and we’ve had five or six fatalities in 100 years of filming. So this doesn’t have to happen.
It, it’s prevented 99.999% of the time because the safety rules are followed, which is precisely what Hannah Guterres violated. And that’s why we have the death. Um, Chris says hello from New Brown Fells, Texas. Yes, I like that part of Texas. Jeffrey says I’m taking a vacation in Frederick Fredericksburg this year. Around the corner.
Yeah, I like Fredericksburg quite a lot. I like Bernie Fredericksburg, that whole area of Texas. I’ll be in San Antonio, by the way, in about a month, less than a month, three weeks. I’ll be in San Antonio in three weeks in the Bernie area and downtown, I’m staying downtown San Antonio, but I’ll be traveling around the burning area.
So if you see, uh if you see a guy on a GS motorcycle that looks like this, do I still have the picture up? Do I close it? I guess I closed it. Oh, that’s too bad. Uh Let’s see.
Did I just have it on my desktop? So if you see a guy riding around San Antonio on the uh like the third week of March on a bike that looks like this. Go ahead and give a wave. That’ll be, that’ll be me. I’ll have, I’ll have, I’ll have big metal boxes in the back of the bike, panniers on the bike. That’s how I usually travel, but that is my motorcycle. So give away and don’t hit me, please. Um uh Member Robert says I did not follow the whole whole case.
What was the evidence? And Hannah loaded a live round into the revolver. The an the evidence comes from Hannah Guterres who told police I’m the one who loaded the gun, I loaded five rounds before lunch because the chamber needed to be cleaned. And after lunch, I cleaned the chamber and I loaded the sixth round. And then she took that gun, handed it onto the set in the church as a cold gun. And by her own testimony, within five or 10 minutes, the gun discharge and killed Helena Hutchins. So unless you believe David Halls or Alec Baldwin in the company of 1012 other people inside that small church, put the hammer on half cock, opened the loading gate, rotated the cylinder, took out a dummy round, reached in her pocket, inserted a live round, lowered the hammer gently back into the safety position.
Unless you believe David Halls and, or Alec Baldwin did that. They were the only other two people who could have handled the gun before the discharge. Then the live round had to come from Hannah Guitarist. That’s the evidence recorded in her police interrogation. Uh, distance says, do you think Baldwin will try to keep cameras out of the courtroom? I would certainly try if I were him, but I hope I sure hope he’s not gonna be successful.
There’s no, no reason why he should be. Jeffrey says you need to give Emily a lot of quality time. After these two weeks, we do have some family travel coming up.
So she’s, she’s going to be well rewarded. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back, uh, for the members, by the way, that means there’s gonna be some, uh, pre-recorded content coming out pretty soon. I’m in the process of recording it all now. So I don’t have to do it while I’m traveling.
Uh, let’s see. Uh, member Jeffrey said, even if Baldwin said he thought he was holding the replica, the state could still attack that by bringing people in who would say he always wanted his hero gun. Yeah, maybe. And the, and the state could say, well, you need to confirm it’s the replica.
You can’t just assume it’s a replica any more than you can assume the guns unloaded. So, yeah, claiming the replica is not a lock defense, but it would have been really helpful and it, it would have made the state’s narrative. It would have made the defense narrative much more sympathetic member. Liu says, can Hanna requests a retrial due to incompetent representation? Sure. Of course, you can always do that, ineffective assistance of counsel. And I think she’d have pretty good grounds for that argument to be honest with you, especially the fact that the defense screwed up having a competent firearms expert available to testify instead of the guy they used was the guy who muzzled the entire courtroom and pointed the gun, arguably the Dennis gun, but who knows, um, the muzzle of that gun right at the judge’s head. Um So I think there’s grounds for arguing ineffective assistance of counsel Jason Bowles is terrible.
Uh especially in that interview, that second interrogation where he just sat there taking a lot of notes chortling at, at detective uh Alexander Hooter’s Hancock when he discovered she had been a Hooters waitress before being a police officer. The trouble is Hannah is only doing 18 months effectively from today. So she was remanded yesterday, the sentence her in April but she’ll get credit for time served. So really, it’s 18 months from today. It, it’ll take much more than 18 months for any appeal to be heard.
And if the appeal is heard and you have a positive outcome, meaningful relief, which happens less than 1% of the time. Um, you, uh, what do you get, you get a new trial? So she gets to go through all this again for what she’ll, she’ll already have served the 18 months. What’s she getting out of now? She could arguably get out of the felony conviction. The trouble is given the overwhelming evidence in this case. If she’d had competent counsel, would the outcome, would the verdict be different or is this error on the part of her lawyers? But harmless error? And I think the court, the appeals court would just say it’s harmless error. The, the evidence against her was overwhelming. Competent counsel would not have helped her.
For example, I expect Alec Baldwin’s, uh, counsel to be much more effective than Jason Bowles. And I still expect him to get convicted on the merits. Uh, let’s see.
Uh, no, the defense witness list for Alex Kate trial is available. I just haven’t pulled it up. I’ll, I’ll cover it at some future show. Let’s see. Papa Tom. Safety rule number five. Make sure you point the gun at a sitting judge.
Yeah, let’s not do that. Phillips says the fourth rule may be relevant. The bullet passed through one person and hit another. I mean, there, there was no safe direction here. So, yeah, it was violated, but it, it’s kind of a given.
Oh, ok. Remember Kyle says, then the um the state’s experts say that even with the broken sear, the hammer would have stopped at half cock if the trigger wasn’t pulled. Right. That’s right.
So the trigger had to have been pulled. Um Ryan says, I wish you Andrew could testify for the state in the Baldwin trial so that you can help ensure Baldwin is convicted. I, I, why, what do I know? I have no, I have no personal knowledge of this case and my area of expertise wouldn’t be relevant. There’s no justification claim here. So there’d be no role for me. Um Donnie remember Donnie asked that the prosecution present evidence of the accuracy of the firearms so that she could argue the bullet went to exactly where Baldwin was pointing.
The distance is so short. It doesn’t, it wouldn’t be a relevant factor. Uh Distance says not all wheel guns have that. My, my revolver, he has had no half cock at all. Yes, but this gun did.
So that’s what’s relevant. Morrisey is going to eat Baldwin alive. She’s very good. I really like uh Carrie Morrissey as a lawyer. She’s very disciplined, smart, focused, organized, uh, knows what she wants to do.
She’s not perfect. She made mistakes in this trial, um, when she was arguing and closing for the evidence tampering. she didn’t mention the, the weeks of text messages Hannah sent, trying to recover the powder she claimed was not a drug. Um I would, I mean that to me that’s the circumstantial evidence that’s required to have any hope that the jury would have convicted on the evidence tampering. That’s the, the purported cocaine uh event. Uh And, and I think she missed a big opportunity when a number of witnesses during the state’s case in chief were asked, did they feel that the set was safe? Did they feel that Hannah was doing her job? And uh they asked a couple of the crew and they asked, uh uh one maybe an actor or maybe I just saw that in the Jensen Ackles interview and that he didn’t testify in the trial.
But when people were asked, they said, yeah, II I wasn’t afraid. Uh Now there were a couple of people who were concerned about uh guns being left out that that was in there too. But there were people who said I felt safe, which is not helpful for the state. Right. It’s helpful for the defense and, and Carey should have followed up and said, well, that was then before Helena was killed. Has your opinion changed now that there’s a dead person? And of course they would have said, yeah. No.
Well, now we know it wasn’t safe. Um, she’s very good. I’ve said before I say it again. In fact, I was just, I was just talking with Adam Baldwin. Uh, just yesterday as a verdict came in, he reached out to me to talk about the case, share some thoughts he had and, and I told him as I’ve told others, listen, if I’m ever charged with murder in New Mexico, I’m hiring Kerri Morrissey as my defense counsel. She’s, she’s sharp. She’s good.
Imagine us as a team. Uh, um, Jeffrey says, uh, you need to look at, do a show about Arizona. Hb 2843 seems to expand curtilage to your whole property. You know, I, I’m not gonna remember that from here and I have to run out right after the show. But if you, um, if you email support at law Self defense.com and tell them, uh, to tell me to look at it, you know, include the bill number and ask them to forward the message to me, they’ll do that. Uh, and then I’ll, I’ll be sure to look into it.
Let’s see. Yeah, in Arizona, because of all the, um, illegal migrants, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens. Um, Kyle Writes, um, I dropped in an E DB. That would be Emily Baker’s Stream.
Uh, and the whole lot seemed to dislike the prosecutor but ultimately agreed with the conviction. Yeah. Nobody hates women, like women and they’re the worst, by the way, Emily, uh, Baker, whatever you wanna say about, uh, her, her show or cover that. She’s enormously successful, uh, law to content creator on youtube. Very successful. Um You know, I’m sure I’m sure that if I were, if I, if I were able to take a kind of a feminine legal analysis approach, I, I’d probably have a couple of 100,000 subscribers too, but I just don’t know how to do that. I just do straight up legal analysis.
Um Yeah, DJ says never interrupt a safety task. Yeah, that’s right. Uh By the way, a couple of times I’ve lost stuff off my motorcycle on motorcycle trips like um a bag of stuff. Um, sometimes expensive stuff. Uh And I don’t know until my next stop, which is, you know, a couple of hours down the road and then I have to ride back and look for the bag and I never find it. Um And when that happens, it’s typically because I was packing up my gear on the bike and I got interrupted, someone came up and started chatting about motorcycles or I got a phone call and that interruption prevented me from completing my normal process to make sure everything was adequately insured. Of course, all I lost in those cases was a, was a bag of stuff.
But, um, yeah, with guns people can die. Yeah, even Joel Sousa said they felt she was doing a good job. By the way, they probably have to say that.
Right. Because if they were to say now, now we were really worried about her, but they left her in the position, imagine what that would do to their civil liability. So they pretty much have to say that they thought she was safe. But they, they would, none of these people, David halls, Joe Susan, none of them know anything about guns. So if, if she appears to be going through the motions, they, they wouldn’t know any different Eric.
Uh yeah, Jason B’s defense attorney was so disingenuous, disingenuous about the second charge, the tampering charge, the cocaine stuff on its closing saying there can be no evidence tampering charge if we don’t have the evidence, no, the the tampering is the destruction of the evidence. So of course, you don’t have it but it was destroyed. And if there’s circumstantial evidence that it was evidence, the jury could conclude tampering, I think that was a missed opportunity by Kerry to fail to talk about the text messages.
I think if somehow Hannah had been acquitted on the manslaughter, she really would have regretted that oversight, but it worked out. Ok. Even if she’d been convicted on both the manslaughter and the tampering, it still would have been a maximum sentence of 18 months. It would have been 2, 18 month sentences served concurrently.
All right. So let me check if there’s any Super Chats need to be $10 Super Chats if you want me to read them. I, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I wish you would instead become a law self defense member. That’s the smart thing to do.
Just 99 cents. Folks to try it out for two weeks, less than $10 a month after that, about 30 cents a day. That’s what I would recommend.
Uh, let’s see, um, Gregory, Gregory Narramore on youtube $10. Thank you very much, Gregory. Much appreciate it. He asks, uh, instructions require the element of willful disregard as an element of the crime. Was there. Willful disregard.
Yeah, because the Willful can be an act of either commission or a mission. So it, it, it just means you, you know, you have the option to do it and you choose not to do it. So the, the act, the Willful Act of omission by Alec Baldwin is he knows he can ask for the gun to be cleared in his presence to make sure there’s no live rounds in it. Anybody can, a crew member could do that. Alec Baldwin knows he can do that.
He’s the most powerful man on the set. So that’s the act of omission. He did not act, commit the act of making sure the gun was not loaded. Doesn’t mean he has to handle the ammo. You call over the armor who is right outside the church? Call her in. Say here I need you to unload this for me. I wanna, I wanna know these are dummies.
Shake em so I can hear the rattle. Show me the whole show me. No primer and then we’ll load those six back into the gun and, and we’re good. So that was the act of omission. The act of Co mission, uh, was pointing the muzzle at Helena Hutchins while depressing the trigger. That’s willful. So none of these things are unconscious.
They’re, they’re all known or you have to presume to be known. He knows he’s allowed to have the gun inspected for safety and anybody can do that because a fire truck, I can’t wait to get out of this office. Move into my new office in Huntsville, Alabama or maybe Louisville Kentucky or maybe Texas hill country or Florida. We haven’t decided yet. Florida, Florida and Texas are looking pretty, have fallen in priority.
All right, folks, that’s all the questions I have for everybody today. That’s our show. So I’ll just remind all of you. Uh, not sure if there’ll be a show tomorrow, Friday. By the way, folks, I have to, I have to check in with the wife.
I’ve been spending 15 hours a day. Plus on this, uh, Hannah Guterres trial, there’s other stuff I need to catch up on. So it’s possible there may not be a show tomorrow. We’ll see.
But if not tomorrow, definitely there’ll be one on Monday in any case if you carry a gun. So you’re hard to kill. That’s why I carry a gun. So I’m hard to kill. So my family is hard to kill.
If that’s what you do for those reasons, then you also owe to yourself and your family to make sure you know the law. So you’re hard to convict as well. Until next time I remain attorney Andrew Branca for the law of self defense. Stay safe.
