Wow! Alec Baldwin really has been saved by his legal team.
We reported earlier this month on a motion his lawyers had filed demanding the most serious charge against him be dropped — specifically the firearm enhancement of the involuntary manslaughter charge. With that enhancement — added for use of a gun in an accidental death — Alec was facing a MINIMUM FIVE YEARS in prison. After all, he couldn’t deny he was holding the firearm that killed Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. But Alec’s team pointed out the gun enhancement’s wording was actually amended after the incident. And charging the 30 Rock alum with a crime that wasn’t on the books at the time was against the law.
The version of the law at the time of the tragic prop gun discharge referred to use of a gun with “intent to intimidate or injure a person.” In other words, if you point a gun to, say, rob a bank, it doesn’t matter if you meant to fire it or not — there was a minimum just for endangering people by “brandishing” it. Alec’s team argued he obviously wasn’t doing that, he was just rehearsing a film scene, something which was not in question. So that charge was a “legal error.”
At the time of the filing the Santa Fe County District Attorney‘s office scoffed at it, implying the motion was a PR stunt. But it turns out the “fancy attorneys,” as the DA called them, were right on the money. Late on Friday, prosecutors filed amended charges DROPPING that gun enhancement charge. Based on their statement on Monday, they clearly were not happy about it though — they said:
“In order to avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys, the District Attorney and the special prosecutor have removed the firearm enhancement to the involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the ‘Rust’ film set. The prosecution’s priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys.”
They can throw shade and cast dispersions all they like. But it’s like they said, their job is to seek justice — so if they dropped the charge, it’s because someone up high saw the legal merit in the argument out forth by those “big-city attorneys”. You can’t charge someone for something that wasn’t a crime until seven months after it happened. So that charge was dropped for both Alec and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
So where does that leave Alec? Not 100% in the clear, obviously. He’s still facing an involuntary manslaughter charge. However, the minimum sentencing being removed makes an enormous difference here. Now we’re talking about 18 months — and who knows if he’ll even get that much. We wouldn’t be surprised if we were now in plea deal range at this point.
What do YOU think of Alec getting off, Perezcious paralegals? Do you think it’s just “fancy attorneys” using “litigious distractions”? Or were they right about the law??
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