Alec Baldwin Kills Cinematographer

[Big RR]

I see your point Meade, but what are universal and not affected by situational concerns; going to the 10 commandments, for example, we are told not to kill, but the Bible is full of stories where the faithful killed the heathens and claimed their actions were blessed by the Lord, and religious authorities (most, not all) generally condone killing in the name of one's government is, likewise not only permissible but a moral imperative; then we have the more generic exemptions--killing in defense of oneself or others, killing to defend ones property, etc., not to mention capital punishment--embraced by some religious authorities and condemned by others. The situational concerns start to whittle away at a universal moral ethic--and these analyses are made by men, not handed down by god on stone tablets. The same is true for other "universal" moral principles--the same analyses also apply. How does that fit into your "Either there is a universal ethic or there is not". Certainly, we cannot not just decree morality on personal whims (that is the province of many religious leaders ), but we also cannot ignore the situational analyses and leave these concerns stagnant--otherwise, things like slavery would still be legal and moral.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The province of many religious leaders indeed - there's no escaping error and sin in humans. Well, one way but . . .

The question is not at all connected to what a bunch of people did (or why they did it) coupla thousand years ago. Question is, what is the ethical ground for morality?

It cannot come from things. The inanimate never yet produced an ethic and no one obeys the principle of a lump of wood. It can only be personal. You might argue that there's a vote and if 51% of the people surveyed agree that X is wrong, then the other 49% can go boil their heads, but that is neither universal nor ethical. Whatever is situational is not universal - it is not "ought" or "ought not" but "it depends".

And depends upon whose judgement? The quest is for the ground of ethics/morality, rather than quibbling about each and every possible action.

[Joe Guy]

.... I don't personally doubt her account but can someone be convicted of a heinous crime (yes I know it's a civil trial and not a criminal rape case per se) based on little evidence except the say-so of another?.....

Honestly, when I read this sentence I felt an overwhelming urge to want to punch you in your fucking face.....

I think you've overreacted. It sounds to me like Andy is just asking a question.

If so, my thought is that you can convict anyone for anything based on one person's "say-so". All you need to do is convince a jury.

[MajGenl.Meade]

In the example given, there was no doubt about the dead bodies laying around. False equivalence. How would it be if I swore that I saw Big RR kill people 25 years ago and dispose of the bodies so no trace of a crime could ever be found except for my statement?

(Don't worry BigRR. I didn't see you. It's hypothetical)

[BoSoxGal]

Ah yes, a vagina cannot be trusted to relate whether it was violated or not. That is the crux of the matter, that a hole between a woman’s or little girl’s legs is culturally presumed to be in want of a penis to fill it, and always roaming about tempting those penises which cannot be blamed for falling into the hole as penises will. It’s always the hole’s fault, the hole is a cunt and a liar after all - she was born that way, made that way by God.

Look my anger is not directed solely at Andy, as I believe he knows. I am fucking angry at everyone who harbors some of that belief system in them, and they count in the billions - including far too many people with holes between their legs. Lots of nice people otherwise who just don’t trust women and girls to tell the truth about their holes. This is why the less than 1% of sexual assault/rape cases which ever even get to trial have a sub 50% conviction rate. Vaginas cannot be trusted when providing testimonial evidence, at least not in cases having to do with an assault on the vagina.

Until you have had to sit in a room with a victim of sexual assault and explain the statistics to her, explain the criminal justice process and the attacks she will endure by defense counsel and media and neighbors too, explain that while the state is willing to fight as hard as legally possible for her and passionately argue for justice for her, she needs to know how unlikely the outcome is to be what she wants and especially in the case of a perpetrator of some public notoriety how much vilification she will endure on social media or in the small town social grinder etc. - you don’t get to judge my rage. And when you are feeling like I’m an unreasonable cunt, remember that I have had to have that conversation with the mothers of single digit aged daughters raped repeatedly by fathers, or trusted friends of family. I have had to try somehow to explain the rabid thinking and cold hearts of jurors - neighbors, peers, friends.

Our society’s attitudes toward victims of sexual assault remain profoundly sick. And we are amongst the more progressive societies on the planet with regard to this issue so just imagine how much more awful it is to be a woman or girl in most of the rest of the world.

My rage is justified and I make zero apologies for it nor do I care if it makes anyone uncomfortable. You SHOULD be uncomfortable about this issue and the ‘unconscious bias’ you carry in you toward vaginas and their capacity for honesty.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Unlike France, in the USA a person is innocent until proven guilty. I know that in a civil case the burden is more one of probability than certainty (such as that ever can be).

If two people commenting on the difficulty of either "proving" or providing sufficient probability on a purely spoken accusation is parsed into something about talking vaginas, then the problem lies with the parser.

[Jarlaxle]

Anyone who is comfortable at accusation equaling guilt is the problem. An accusation is NOT and CANNOT BE proof.

[BoSoxGal]

An accusation is NOT and CANNOT BE proof.

A patently false assertion, if you are discussing the justice system in the United States of America. People are convicted all the time on accusations and circumstantial evidence alone.

It’s only much more difficult to accomplish in sexual assault cases because juries - as reflected in the comments of people who post here - harbor deep seated suspicion of any claims made by vaginas and children.

[MajGenl.Meade]

How odd that Jarl (for whom I hold no candle) makes a reasonable remark about accusation alone (as he clearly intended) and is then aha-gotcha-d by BSG who brings in accusation PLUS "circumstantial evidence" as if that's a reasonable counter. Who said anything about any evidence other than an accusation?

Why does that once again invoke talking vaginas and children (who have nothing whatever to do with it)

Or perhaps I'm asking the wrong question. What circumstantial evidence is involved in this case? Or is there only an accusation?

AS in murder, rape, theft, and so on, a mere accusation without any other evidence of a crime is justifiably suspect, especially in a criminal case, but still deserving of caution in a civil case and/or in after such a long delay. One can be sensitive to the difficulties that attend such difficult traumas (if there is one) AND be justly dubious about the value of such a claim in proving guilt

It is not enmity - it is caution and respect for the rule of law.

[Burning Petard]

What is justice? Has no universal answer.

"caution and respect for the rule of law." can easily be experienced as tyranny to those who have no money, no shelter, no hope they shall not be beaten and abandoned by the power of those who have the support and comfort of the rule of law. The law says what ever the Supremes say it is. Free housing for an indefinite period for a mother is no bribe offered to the son. The constitutional right to control one's own reproductive rights is 'constitutionally" removed. This is the rule of law.

snailgate.

[BoSoxGal]

I’m resurrecting this thread because New Mexico v Alec Baldwin is currently in opening arguments and it seems like the right place.

I know I have vacillated in my position on this case, and I’m finding myself going into the trial very much unconvinced of Baldwin’s guilt on the one theory which the court left open to the state - his culpability as an actor only, not as a producer.

During or at the end of the armorer’s trial I declared Baldwin guilty - I retract that assertion. I’m on neutral territory and truly open to hearing the case evidence and the arguments before I am persuaded.

However I will say that at the present moment, given that the state has now objected THREE TIMES to defense counsel’s opening statement, on principle alone I am inclined to the position of the defense.

I think I might have said this before, but while I am not a huge Baldwin fan - while recognizing he is a gifted actor I dislike his personality or at least what he shows publicly - I have huge sympathy and continue to have for this experience fate dumped into his life. It’s clear watching him in court that a huge toll has been taken on his health. Even if he is an asshole, he sure didn’t deserve this.

Meanwhile Court TV has in recent weeks played prison calls between the convicted armorer and her defense team’s paralegal and I really think the armorer has borderline or narcissistic personality disorder, or at very least very strong traits from that spectrum. She seems to lack any capacity to express remorse about the dead cinematographer and her role in that death, but she whines endlessly about the impacts on her own life of spending a mere 18 months out of the modeling and movie game (as if anyone in Hollywood will ever hire her again!).

[Sue U]

Court TV has in recent weeks played prison calls between the convicted armorer and her defense team’s paralegal

This seems like some kind of violation or attorney-client privilege. Is it? (I don't know what the reasonable expectations of privacy are on such calls, and I'm too lazy to look.)

[BoSoxGal]

Court TV has in recent weeks played prison calls between the convicted armorer and her defense team’s paralegal

This seems like some kind of violation or attorney-client privilege. Is it? (I don't know what the reasonable expectations of privacy are on such calls, and I'm too lazy to look.)

I can’t recall a single thing about the discussion of lawyers in which the exception was explained, but in any case it’s a recorded line into prison and the para would have known that; at the end of the call she refers to the fact that they’re being recorded.

The armorer doesn’t incriminate herself on the charges for which she’s convicted and appealing, but she does reveal her nature in the whinging she engages in.

[Joe Guy]

If attorney-client privilege means that lawyers can't reveal communications with clients that clients reasonably expect to remain private it seems that recorded prison calls where both people are aware of the recording wouldn't be have any kind of privilege. So if there was a violation, it would be by the lawyer or representative of the lawyer who was on the call.

[Big RR]

BSG, Sue, and Joe--as I recall, in NJ there is an expectation of privacy in prison calls with attorneys (and their staffs, like paralegals), but otherwise no. New Mexico may be different (e.g. have special lines to use to talk with your attorney), but I don't know. But I am pretty surprised that Court TV got access to those tapes.

[Burning Petard]

Checkbook Journalism. Court TV paid the individuals a big enough sack of money that the paralegal and the prisoner said sure, you broadcast the tapes

I admit I have no evidence whatsoever to support that statement, beyond a cynical view of modern 'news'

But back to Alec Baldwin. There seems to me to be a preponderance of evidence that he was holding the pistol, pointed at a human being at short range and said pistol would NOT fire unless the trigger was pulled. That says nothing about the intention, professional role as actor or producer or his state of mind or his actual conscious memory of the event.

snailgate

[Jarlaxle]

Checkbook Journalism. Court TV paid the individuals a big enough sack of money that the paralegal and the prisoner said sure, you broadcast the tapes

I admit I have no evidence whatsoever to support that statement, beyond a cynical view of modern 'news'

But back to Alec Baldwin. There seems to me to be a preponderance of evidence that he was holding the pistol, pointed at a human being at short range and said pistol would NOT fire unless the trigger was pulled. That says nothing about the intention, professional role as actor or producer or his state of mind or his actual conscious memory of the event.

snailgate

Many Peacemakers can actually fire without touching the trigger. If the exact model that was used in this case has been made public, I have not seen it.

[Burning Petard]

The FBI did real testing on not just the same model, but the actual gun that did the killing. The defense does not like this testing because it was so extensive that the gun itself was no longer was no longer in a condition to hold it up and pass it around to the jury member to hold for themselves.

snailgate.

[Joe Guy]

I saw a "gun expert" on one of the news stations explaining that the FBI tried everything they could to get the pistol to fire without pulling the trigger. One of the things they did was pull back the hammer and hit it with a mallet. It didn't fire but it broke the hammer. He said the only way you could have fired that gun was to either pull the trigger or fan the hammer with your finger on the trigger. He explained (and demonstrated) that it would not fire if you fanned it without the trigger pulled.

[BoSoxGal]

I have to be honest, the testing the FBI did doesn't make sense to me at all - there was no claim whatsoever from anyone present at the incident that the gun was dropped or hit or in any way banged up, so why destroy the gun to see if beating it with a mallet would make it fire? Just stupid and yet another unforced error from LEOs.

I'm losing more and more respect for law enforcement with each passing day I'm alive, it seems. The bungling on the Karen Read case which will likely allow a twisted killer to walk free and gloat the rest of her life has me feeling really sick - but also I feel some consolation of knowing that the toxic idiocy I encountered as a prosecutor which made me want to quit working with cops altogether was not about me.

In the Baldwin case having watched the previous trial against the armorer Hannah Reed it's clear to me that the lead prosecutor is somebody who doesn't 'do' dispassionate, and the hostility toward defense counsel is not at all hidden. That's an unfortunate thing both for public perception and also prudent handling of this case. I honestly don't think the case should have been brought against Baldwin, but now that it has been, it will be interesting to see what a jury will do with the concept of actor's exception to the firearm rules of safety that the defense is leading with.