Rust and Related Lawsuits

[andersweinstein]

Ok, a couple of other differences I noticed between Morrissey's story and RVInit's account.

- Teske did not go to the 1883 "Cowboy Camp" training in Texas with Reed and Kenney. He simply stored stuff for his good buddy Thell Reed because he had a more secure house. He said he had those live rounds before anyone else did, namely in storage for Thell. Thell came and took some back from him in his green ammo can for use on 1883 training. This is all from Teske's own pre-trial interview for the Gutierrez case, which is in one of the appendices to the overlong motion for reconsideration.

Per Kenney, Thell and Hannah drove to meet-up with Kenney in Albuquerque. Kenney saw Thell load his daughter up with what she needed for her film. Then she drove off to Montana for the Nicolas Cage movie, while Kenney took control of the rounds and traveled with Reed on to Texas, and then Kenney kept the unused leftover live rounds.

This is the key point Morrissey harps on again and again and yet again: the Teske rounds never left Arizona. There is no evidence they were ever in Kenney's possession or that he ever had any access to them. This is the core of her claim they are irrelevant to the case.

Other details that provide modest support for the Gutierrez theory are that en route to The Old Way, Hannah texted Kenney from Denver asking if he knew where she could get 45 live rounds then said she had found some, and then asked him if it was OK to shoot out of the prop guns (Definitely not, "always ends in tears" he texted back).

- I think you have been saying that the tray found with the live round on the prop cart was from the box of 45 dummies that Kenney supplied. But a key to Morrissey's story is that Hannah identified the box she used to load Baldwin's gun. It had a distinctive printed label with a JS (Joe Swanson) logo on it. Hannah showed police that she got boxes of that type from her Dad. Meanwhile, the lone box of dummies that Kenney provided just had his handwritten labelling scrawled with a sharpie. So that is pretty good evidence the box was from Hannah, not the one Kenney provided through Zachary.

While Kenney provided lots of stuff to the set, it is assserted he only provided that one box of 50 .45 Long Colt dummies. Yes, he ultimately billed the production for 200, which he represented as a memory error, but I expect he was just padding his invoices. I'm just not aware of any evidence for more Kenney .45 dummies.

- Sure the pictures are not proof, but they are suggestive. There's a picture of Hannah with a tray of putative dummies with two "odd men out" with nickel primers, and itwas taken before Kenney delivered his box of dummies. After the shooting they find a very similar tray on the prop cart, the one Hannah admitted she used to load Baldwin's gun, from a box of a type only she had, and now it has only ONE such odd man out, in exactly the same position as in the earlier photograph, and that turns out to be a live round. It's not proof positive since you can't tell a live round from a photo. But what are the odds it's just a coincidence?

So I continue to accept that Kenney was suspicious AF, it was absolutely absurd the way Hancock allowed him to insinuate himself into the investigation, BUT: I still think probably it was Hannah who brought the live rounds conmingled with dummies and failed to detect them through inadequate checking.

[RVInit]

Morrissey just repeats every single Seth Kenney story. That's all she knows. Hancock fell for every Seth Kenney story, and any interview Kenney did directly with Morrissey I'm sure she buys it too, because it fits the simple story. The simple story is that Hannah did everything. That is easy, simple, quick, and easy for a jury, and the general public to buy. Morrissey doesn't know shit because she either doesn't want to know OR, probably even just as likely, she did NOT take the time to personally watch hour and hours and listen to 45 phone calls Hancock had with Kenney in order to find any holes in his stories. The final version of his stories fit what she wants to tell the jury.

I did find it funny that in his testimony at the hearing that ended the case Morrissey had to break up his "why I went to cowboy camp" story into two pieces. She let him answer only a quick "to take the reloads to cowboy camp". She stopped him and then asked a few other questions, then got back the "how Hannah got the live rounds". She had to break then up because when you read the whole story, it doesn't make sense that Thell (therefore Hannah) had access to the reloads in Albequerque AND Seth had to personally deliver the reloads to Texas (when Thell was headed to Texas at the same time). So, she clearly knew his story didn't make sense enough that she had to break it up.

[andersweinstein]

I guess I have not understood how double jeopardy applies to the idea of appealing this dismissal. Of course IANAL, just trying to understand based on what other commenters say. Came across this:

NM attorney here. The state can still appeal (and not violate DJ) after the jury has been empaneled if the order appealed is “not an adjudication on the merits and does not amount to an acquittal.” State v Roybal, 2006-NMCA-043. I don’t believe this order would qualify as such.

https://x.com/Duffman505/status/1812189512950555066 (case link added)

So while it's true state can't appeal if reopening the case would violate the US constitution's prohibition on double jeopardy, it seems NM courts recognize exceptions based on the rule above, in line with Supreme Court rulings on double jeopardy, like US v Scott, 1978, mentioned by Erlinda Johnson in the interview I posted.

In Roybal, a drug trafficking case was dismissed with prejudice for lack of venue (allegedly tried in the wrong county), but the SCNM overturned this and remanded for further proceedings in the orginal court.

Roybal itself relies on other cases for support, chiefly County of Los Alamos v Tapia (1990) in which a DUI arrest was deemed illegal, all evidence from the arrest thrown out, and the charge then dismissed for lack of evidence. But again, the NM Supreme Court decided that this was not effectively an acquittal on the merits, vacated the dismissal, and remanded to resume trial.

Given the reasons for the Baldwin dismissal, it sounds like it would not be that controversial in NM that prosecution can appeal it and potentially get the case re-opened. I don't think it can be argued that the dismissal was effectively an adjudication on the merits. I still don't expect Morrissey to succeed with such an appeal when she gets to it. But it's interesting to know that Baldwin's jeopardy has not in fact conclusively ended in view of these decisions.

[andersweinstein]

Team Baldwin has filed their Response to State's Amended Motion for Reconsideration of Dismissal Unsurprisingly, argues State's motion should simply be stricken as defective (abused length requirements first time and now stilll too long at 11 pages), or in the alternative, denied on merits, and asks to award legal fees for preparing response as sanction. Couple of choice bits:

....No basis exists to reconsider the Court's decision.

But here comes Kari Morrissey. After she repeatedly violated the State's disclosure obligations, buried evidence, lied about it at trial, and then lied about her reasons for lying about it, Morrissey has the audacity to ask the Court to order Baldwin to "to provide a description and all documents related to when and how they learned of evidence that the State suppressed. It is difficult to imagine a more backwards or conceited attempt to blame the victim of the State's own "willful and deliberate misconduct." Order, 1 53, 56. Not only has the State failed to present any new information to warrant reconsideration, but the new information that has emerged since trial only underscores the strength and necessity of the Court's judgment. Specifically, an affidavit by Special Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson—who, contrary to Morrissey's lies, resigned because of the State's misconduct demonstrates that Morrissey continues to distort the truth. [Affidavit link added]

A motion for disimissal is "not [an] appropriate [vehicle] to revisit issues already addressed or advance arguments that could have been raised in prior briefing," as the State attempts to do here. Servants of Paraclete v. Does, 204 F.3d 1005, 1012 (10th Cir. 2000); see also Unified Contractor, Inc. v. Albuquerque Hous. Auth., 2017-NMCA-060, 1 77, 400 P.3d 290 (no abuse of discretion "in denying a motion for reconsideration that ' was merely a restatement of the arguments [the movant] had already advanced.'").

I know this is going nowhere with this judge, I just find the level of sniping amusing.

[Foggy]

Servants of Paraclete? That's a name birther Leo Donofrio used to claim, back when he realized he was a deity of some sort.

OK, now I goog the gong. Servants of Paraclete. Got it. A Catholic order of some sort. And the word itself?

Paraclete (/ˈpærəkliːt/; Greek: παράκλητος, romanized: Paráklētos) is a Christian biblical term occurring five times in the Johannine texts of the New Testament. In Christian theology, the word commonly refers to the Holy Spirit and is translated as 'advocate', 'counsellor' or 'helper'.

[Suranis]

I checked out the Case. It really has nothing to do with the issues in Rust directly, it seems to have been referenced to provide precedent to their argument and that's all.

https://casetext.com/case/servants-of-paraclete-v-does