Prosecutorial Misconduct Never Gets Rusty…

I’m sorry, that’s just an awful pun. Anyway, I’m not saying you should pay attention to the Baldwin trial, but over the entire course of the saga it’s seemed to me that the case against him was basically non-existent, to the point where I had to wonder why the prosecution was being pursued. As such…

According to the defense’s motion, authorities knew that Teske had information about Rust set ammunition for years. Kenney called Teske — who, like Kenney, was friends with Gutierrez-Reed’s father, famed armorer Thell Reed — during a police interview on November 1, 2021; after this sit-down, Teske sent authorities a photo of ammunition that didn’t match rounds found on the Rust set. Kenney then sent this photo to the then-case detective. In an interview with Teske the next day, a prosecutor asked him to provide ammunition from a batch Kenney had used elsewhere. Teske said he would turn it over, and the prosecutor said she would coordinate its collection, but authorities didn’t follow up.

Here’s where things get even messier: The defense said that Poppell’s supervisor told her to log the rounds “under a different case file so that it would never be disclosed to the defense.” The Sheriff’s Office didn’t disclose the rounds even though it has to disclose evidence to lawyers, even after Baldwin’s team asked to view all ballistics evidence. Poppell also said that the Sheriff’s Office created a report about the rounds “that also was never disclosed to the defense.” The defense described this as a “cover-up” in the motion.

“Baldwin was unaware of a risk that live ammunition had been brought to the set of Rust. To support its theory that Baldwin should have known of that risk, the State is attempting to establish a link between Baldwin and the source of the live ammunition,” the motion stated. “The only way it can do this is by demonstrating that the live rounds were brought to the set by the movie’s armorer, given the State’s assertion that Baldwin should have been aware of her youth and inexperience and therefore the possibility that she brought live rounds to set.”

Not a lawyer but… that last sentence seems like an incredibly thin reed upon which to rest a manslaughter charge? Anyway, it’s all done. Talk amongst yourselves.