There is no doubt that Alec Baldwin is scared. The reality and gravity of his situation is likely sinking in. This man is facing close to 7 years in prison – it should be a helluva lot more, if you ask me. And given Alec’s bloated, poor-looking health, he’d likely not make it out alive. So, he and is legal team are pulling out ever trick in the book to try and weasel him out of this. Right now, they’re trying to argue that charging Alec with these crimes was actually “unconstitutional” and a “legal error.”
They are grasping at straws at this point. I think for the first time, Alec is realizing karma may have caught up to him, and finally kicked his butt.
Gosh, let’s hope so.
The Hollywood Reporter reported that following the fatal shooting, New Mexico lawmakers lowered the standards to apply the added penalty and increased potential prison time from three to five years. Baldwin’s lawyers say the inclusion of the firearm enhancement is an “unconstitutional and elementary legal error.”
Alec Baldwin is arguing that New Mexico prosecutors are unconstitutionally charging him with violating a statute that didn’t exist at the time of the Rust shooting.
The actor and producer of the low-budget Western faces up to six-and-a-half years in prison under a recently-amended firearm enhancement statute. But that enhancement was enacted seven months after the fatal shooting. The change lowered the standards to apply the added penalty and increased potential prison time from three to five years.
In a motion to dismiss the charge filed on Friday, Baldwin’s lawyers say that the prosecution committed an “elementary legal error.”
“Application of the current version of the statute would be unconstitutionally retroactive, and the government has no legitimate basis to charge Mr. Baldwin under the version of the statute that existed at the time of the accident,” writes Luke Nikas, representing Baldwin.
Mary Carmack-Altwies, the district attorney who serves Santa Fe County, charged Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed in January with two counts each of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. While the charges carry a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison, prosecutors included a firearm enhancement charge that carries an additional five years.
At the time of the shooting, the statute in question applied only if it’s found that a firearm was “brandished,” meaning that the defendant used the weapon with the “intent to intimidate or injure a person.” It was amended in May, after the incident, to replace the brandishing requirement with a lower standard that a gun was simply discharge.
And he certainly did “brandish” a weapon, didn’t he?
Ironically, it’s that firearms charge that is causing Alec the most trouble right now, not the fact that he shot and killed a wife and mother.
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