First case involving Halyna Hutchins's death goes to trial .

All of the mistakes, errors and bad decisions that played some part contributing to the fatal shooting were done can and should be laid at his feet, and he should be held accountable for what he did and failed to do.

Not saying he's the ONLY person who should be held accountable for what happened, only that he's the one with the greatest share of responsibility, by far.
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Suppose Baldwin had only been an actor--and not producer--would primary responsibility then pass to the producers for the death? There's a big bucket of negligence and so this is a trial is about how to divvy out who gets how many pieces of negligence. who's talking about what should we do to fix things to make absolutely sure this doesn't happen again?
 
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Considering all the movie rules, regulations, procedures, best practices and everything else you can think of, how long has the most current system been in use, how many films (and I guess tv shows?) made following those rules, and how many firearms accidents, injuries and fatal shootings, have occurred ??
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There is no "current system". There are a number of guideline sets from different organizations and I can't imagine that they would have all come into being at the same time.

I would expect that any one of them, if followed properly would prevent injuries and fatal shootings.
 
Suppose Baldwin had only been an actor--and not producer--would primary responsibility then pass to the producers for the death?
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No.

The PRIMARY responsibility is always going to be on the person in physical control of the firearm when it fired.

The producers are responsible for the conditions that allowed the shooting to happen. If the person holding the gun had not pointed it at someone, no one would have been shot.

Both parties are responsible, but not to the same degree. The person holding the gun is the cause, the actions, or failure to act on the part of management is a significant contributing factor.
 
OK--just so happens I was involved in the filming of a piece for a biographic documentary--other than being "assumed" that I knew something about firearms nobody asked me anything about qualifications or operations. At one point during the filming I was asked to point my .41 mag SA blackhawk directly at the camera for a "hero shot." It was my gun, and I had already done everything to be absolutely certain it was unloaded and could not discharge. I still refused and the production crew was not happy about that, they repeated the request and I repeatedly refused. Pressure is there to do the cool shots--do employees risk their employment by questioning management--who may have little to no meaningfully provable experience in firearms safety?
 
I do believe that would be the intent, if it were my call, I would certainly put that at the top of my prosecutor's list. Build a solid case against Baldwin, and if Reed is found guilty of something along the way, so much the better.
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I actually think it’s a bad idea to bring up anything that would have Baldwin implications that wasn’t absolutely necessary to convict the armor . Why would you give him a heads up of what questions are going to be asked of whom in his trial? Actually I was thinking the opposite of building a case against Baldwin . That is, maybe the prosecutor is giving the Baldwin team a heads up. This way, it’s less likely for the conviction not more likely. Though that’s one hell of a conspiracy theory haha .

That said this prosecutor just a year or so ago maybe two years now was a defense attorney, and one hell of a one at that . I forget the case, but she recently had a client in a self-defense shooting that she defended . She seems pretty good at whatever she does and doesn’t come across to be somebody that is partisan . So now that I think about , it makes me think maybe she’s helping out the civil trials while prosecuting the armor ???
 
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JohnKSa said:
As mentioned, there is not a single set of guidelines in place so it's a misnomer to call any set of guidelines "the current film industry guidelines".
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I think you may be mistaken. There are a couple or three groups, such as the Screen Actors Guild and a couple of others, who promulgate safety standards, but it appears that they all promulgate the same standards. Note that the SAG safety bulletin package says on the cover page, "Recommended by Industry Wide Labor-Management safety Committee."

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

A couple of days ago I found a safety document from a different group than the SAG. It was typeset differently and had a different title page, but the safety protocols were the same.
 
stagpanther said:
Suppose Baldwin had only been an actor--and not producer--would primary responsibility then pass to the producers for the death?
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Irrelevant. Baldwin wasn't only an actor on this film.

In a video clip played during the direct examination of Bryan Carpenter, there was another scene shown being filmed where Baldwin burst out of a wooden shed, firing the revolver. He was shown lying on the ground, having fired all five or six rounds. He (Baldwin, not the director) immediately called for the action to continue, and he demanded that the gun be reloaded RIGHT NOW WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG CHOP CHOP. If he had been "just an actor" he would not have been making such demands -- which, byt the way skirted all the applicable protocols, because Gutierrez was jamming new rounds into the gun as fast as she could. David Halls the AD in charge of safety, should be been standing next to her to verify that each round was a crimped blank -- but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Baldwin remained in his position on the ground, several feet away, so he was also not in a position to verify that the rounds were crimped blanks -- or what power level the blanks were.

During the direct examination of Souza, the director who was wounded, he testified that although he had been a screenwriter for 20 years and a director for 15 years, he had never read the safety guidelines. During the direct examination of Bryan Carpenter (an experienced film armorer), he testified that it appeared the blanks being used in the scene where Baldwin demanded an instant reload were full-power blanks, where they didn't need to be (another violation), and that the second camera and crew were too close to Baldwin when he was firing. He implied that Gutierrez should have stopped that -- but so should the director (who testified that he wasn't familiar with the safety protocols).

The entire production was a disaster waiting to happen. And it happened. It was an embodiment of what the aviation sector refers to as the "Swiss cheese model." You have multiple layers of safety rules in place so that if something gets through one hole, there's another layer that should prevent an incident. But if you allow all the holes to line up -- disaster.
 
It was an embodiment of what the aviation sector refers to as the "Swiss cheese model." You have multiple layers of safety rules in place so that if something gets through one hole, there's another layer that should prevent an incident. But if you allow all the holes to line up -- disaster.
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I followed pre-flight checklists religiously for many years--and for thousands of flights it worked perfectly. So much so that I became inured to the possibility of something happening that was outside the parameters of the preflight list. One day it happened--I was simply lucky I wasn't killed as a result.
 
A question for the legal eagles....

Can evidence, testimony, the court record, etc from one trial be admissible and used in another trial?? I understand its admission might be challenged as prejudicial to the new defendant's case, but that would depend on the new judge's ruling, to allow it, or not, right??

What I'm talking about in this case is the testimony being given now, describing what went on, on the sets, who did what, supplied what, all the background stuff that doesn't mention Baldwin's actions specifically.

I actually think it’s a bad idea to bring up anything that would have Baldwin implications that wasn’t absolutely necessary to convict the armorer .
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That may be, we'll see how the DA handles it.

Why would you give him a heads up of what questions are going to be asked of whom in his trial?
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If Baldwin's defense team doesn't have an idea of what kind of questions are going to be asked, of whom, by now, he hired the wrong lawyers.
 
I am not an attorney and I have never pretended to be one, but there's a fairly fundamental principle under U.S. law that an accused has a right to confront his (/her/its/their/xyz) accuser. I think, based on that principle, that if (for example) Baldwin were on trial and the prosecution wanted to use Bryan Carpenter's opinions from the Gutierrez trial against Baldwin, the prosecutor would have to put Carpenter on the stand again so that Baldwin's attorneys could cross-examine him.

I believe an exception to that would be if Mr. Carpenter were to die, so he could not be called upon to testify in person, his sworn testimony from this trial would then be admissible.
 
I think you may be mistaken.
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Or not.
https://www.csatf.org/01_safety_bltn_firearms/
https://www.csatf.org/02_safety_bltn_live_ammunition/
csat actually has two different safety protocols relating to firearms/ammunition.

https://www.actorsequity.org/resources/Producers/safe-and-sanitary/safety-tips-for-use-of-firearms/

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

https://www.bluecloud.com/app/uploads/2019/01/SAFTEY-MEMOS-All-Combined-.pdf

https://www.productionmanagersforum...Weapons-in-Theatre-2019-MA-CoP-6-May-2019.pdf (British)
Irrelevant. Baldwin wasn't only an actor on this film.
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The entire production was a disaster waiting to happen. And it happened. It was an embodiment of what the aviation sector refers to as the "Swiss cheese model." You have multiple layers of safety rules in place so that if something gets through one hole, there's another layer that should prevent an incident. But if you allow all the holes to line up -- disaster.
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There are two separate issues here and they need to be kept separate.

1. Did the person who was holding the gun at the time it discharged/was discharged and killed one person and injured another commit a crime?

2. Did the person running the organization commit crimes that led to a person holding a gun being discharged and killing/injuring persons on set.

COINCIDENTALLY, the person in both questions is the same person, but the two issues are still separate and need to be discussed separately because the two crimes, and therefore the laws that apply are different.

Trying to constantly switch back and forth just muddies the water.
 
JohnKSa said:
Or not.
https://www.csatf.org/01_safety_bltn_firearms/
. . .

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/safet...rt_1_9_3_0.pdf
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Well, that's interesting. The first of your links that I copied above is a newly-revised (as of December 19, 2023) version of Safety Bulletin #1 that is included in the second of your links that I copied above -- and which I have provided a link previously. The document's title has expanded to now include handling of dummy rounds, where the older version (April 16, 2003, in effect at the time of the incident) only addressed firearms and blank ammunition. It has grown from four pages to eight pages.

It's fairly obvious, IMHO, that the revision was a response to the Halyna Hutchins incident. There are, in addition to new content, major changes in organization and editorial content of the 2003 material.
 
I watched the whole thing--I might have missed it--did he ever suggest WHY the FBI deliberately altered the revolver; since that was his essential conclusion as far as I could tell?
 
stagpanther said:
I watched the whole thing--I might have missed it--did he ever suggest WHY the FBI deliberately altered the revolver; since that was his essential conclusion as far as I could tell?
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He didn't explain it directly, but he referred to the explanation in the FBI report. There's other video out there of testimony by the FBI technician who tested the gun. The gun functioned as designed when received by the FBI. The lab then attempted to see if the revolver would fire without a finger on the trigger when subjected to impacts. They finally were able to make it do so -- by striking the spur of the hammer with a mallet so hard that it rounded off the cocking shelf on the hammer and shattered the sear and bolt.
 
Yeah they basically tested it to failure . Its not that the gun was in such bad repair that it failed . It’s that the tech abused it so much that it failed. Which ultimately proved the gun would not have gone off without pulling the trigger or a hard smack with a mallet to the hammer, which I think we all can safely assume Mr. Baldwin didn’t do.

It’s interesting, how most people think the FBI somehow broke it on accident, and somehow are incompetent or brought into question the safety of the firearm . It’s really the exact opposite. They proved there’s no way that hammer fell without pulling the trigger.

On cross, the defense asked if the tech inspected the internals of the firearm prior to testing . The tech explained that he did not open the gun to its internals or really mess with it in anyway because he needed to test it as he received it . This lead the questioning on cross in the direction that maybe all of those parts were broken prior to him, hitting the hammer with a mallet . Seeing how I did my own test on very similar Firarms. I believe it would be less likely that the parts were broken prior to the testing, but it is an interesting theory that I think people with no Firarms knowledge could conclude there iscreasonable doubt to the condition of the firearm at the time of the incident
 
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But why would they do that with the actual evidence gun? Personally I think that opens up the possibility of "tampering with evidence" without thorough recording of every step of the way of what they did. On the one hand I see that it is easy to conclude that this kinda sinks any defense Baldwin might have that the gun somehow malfunctioned--but it works both ways; if establishing it's a fully functional revolver--others involved in the chain of control become potentially more culpable as well. I find the destructive testing of actual evidence highly questionable, but that's just me.
 
stagpanther said:
Personally I think that opens up the possibility of "tampering with evidence" without thorough recording of every step of the way of what they did.
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But they DID record every step of the way. That's the report the older firearms forensic engineer referred to. I'm sure the FBI report documented each and every incremental step they took in attempting to induce a malfunction -- up to and including whacking the hammer hard enough to damage the hammer and break the sear.
 
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