quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

Mr. Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off on Oct. 21, killing Ms. Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza.

~sigh~

I don't think anyone is disputing it was an accident.The point is was the accident caused by negligence and by whom. Alec says he is innocent, because he wasn't the one responsible for loading the gun and besides, he never pulled the trigger, it was the gun's fault. He is hoping to finally prove, that it's guns that kill people, not people who kill people.

quote:

Originally posted by NK402:
I don't think anyone is disputing it was an accident.The point is was the accident caused by negligence and by whom.

Exactly right.

And so the medical examiner makes this determination, that it was an accident? Wouldn't he/she only determine the manner of death...homicide, suicide, etc.?

RCW 9A.32.010

Homicide defined.

Homicide is the killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or omission of another, death occurring at any time, and is either (1) murder, (2) homicide by abuse, (3) manslaughter, (4) excusable homicide, or (5) justifiable homicide.


This how Washington defines it (homicide) and I expect it's similar elsewhere. So that would be the ME's role. Now which kind and does he have a get out of jail card to play is what's left to lawyers.

I am fully aware of what homicide is. That wasn't my question.

But I reread the article and originally misread it. It says "Office of the Medical Investigator following the completion of an autopsy and a review of law enforcement reports." That clears it up for me. So it wasn't the medical examiner. Or at least not just the medical examiner.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by NK402:
I don't think anyone is disputing it was an accident.The point is was the accident caused by negligence and by whom.

Exactly right.

And so the medical examiner makes this determination, that it was an accident? Wouldn't he/she only determine the manner of death...homicide, suicide, etc.?

It’s a stretch to call this an accident as opposed to homicide but given the amount of publicity I don’t blame the medical examiner for doing so. Their findings aren’t binding (unless there was a formal inquest) so it’s the lesser of two evils.

quote:

Originally posted by DaveL:

It’s a stretch to call this an accident as opposed to homicide but given the amount of publicity I don’t blame the medical examiner for doing so. Their findings aren’t binding (unless there was a formal inquest) so it’s the lesser of two evils.

It's still a homicide. Whether accident or intentional.

ETA: Never mind. That is incorrect.

This is the usual definition of “manner of death” used by medical examiners, coroners, and similar authorities:

“The manner of death is the determination of how the injury or disease leads to death. There are five manners of death (natural, accident, suicide, homicide, and undetermined).” LINK

If the manner of death was decided by the controlling investigation authority to be accident, then by exclusion it wasn’t homicide in his/her determination. Homicide usually requires some element of intent or wrongful action. We may not agree, but accident was the ruling in this case.

The devil is in the details, but it would be homicide if someone deliberately pushes me down a flight of stairs and I die as a result of the injuries sustained. If, however, I’m standing on a train platform and someone who is trying to get through the crowd stumbles over someone’s suitcase, falls into me and pushes me into the path of a train, my death would probably be ruled to be an accident because it was unintentional and did not involve any wrongful action.

These points have been raised and discussed here many times in the past.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Homicide is a legal term for any killing of a human being by another human being. Homicide itself is not necessarily a crime—for instance, a justifiable killing of a suspect by the police or a killing in self-defense. Murder and manslaughter fall under the category of unlawful homicides.

Where does negligent homicide come into play? Is it just a phrase I've imagined or something that doesn't really exist?

He pointed a gun at someone and pulled the trigger. Accident or negligence?

What is a medical investigator? What about this particular autopsy would lead one to believe this was an accident, or was this just another poorly written article? I couldn’t read the article as the link doesn’t work for me.

Why is calling this incident an accident noteworthy? Were there people that believed Baldwin purposely killed the woman?

My kids will do this: “Dad, it was an accident. I wasn’t trying to <insert whatever dumb thing they did here>” My response is "Well, you weren’t trying not to <insert whatever dumb thing they did here>”. My point to my kids is that, while whatever dumb thing they did may very well have been an accident, that doesn’t absolve them of responsibility for it. Their actions or inactions are what caused the accident to happen.

Baldwin didn’t try not to shoot the woman. He pointed a loaded gun at her, pulled the trigger, and fired the gun that was in his possession.

And Derek Chauvin wasn't trying to kill George Floyd he was trying to properly subdue him as a officer of the law but he's in prison. Alec Baldwin didn't mean to kill Miss Hutchins he just pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger. He will not spend one hour behind bars.

Nothing is defined everything is manipulation and deception.

An accident is generally something that occurs unintentionally, and may not even involve a human component. If a house fire starts due to a faulty electrical component and kills an occupant, the death will be categorized as an accident.

To reiterate, there are five possible manners of death that could have been used to describe the one in this incident, and the determination was “accident.” It and homicide were the only two that conceivably could have been the finding: it certainly wasn’t natural, suicide, or undetermined.

I don’t know enough about the law to know what level of negligence, if any, is required to raise a deadly act to homicide in New Mexico, but in the opinion of the investigator this time the action didn’t reach it. Accidents due to negligence happen all the time; the negligence doesn’t automatically make them not accidents: they are two different things. “Negligence” is not one of the manners of death that investigators can ascribe to a death.

One of the problems with terminology is that terms can be used inconsistently. The Uniform Code of Military Justice had (I assume still has) the offense of “negligent homicide.” In fact, though, most cases in which it was charged weren’t really homicide in the traditional sense, they were unintentional accidents, such recruits’ drowning because they were ordered to march through a swamp in the dark. The sergeant in charge of the detail didn’t intend for anyone to die and their deaths were accidents, but he might still be found guilty of the offense that has “homicide” as part of its name. I don’t know if New Mexico has a similar criminal offense on the books, but it does, a medical investigation determination that the death was an accident would not necessarily mean Baldwin or others are off the hook. The case is not over yet.

Would anyone else like to define " Homicide " ?

It's an interesting theoretical discussion, trying to find the line between an accident and manslaughter under New Mexico law, but that's not the ME's job in any real sense and definitely not in a case like this.

Everyone knows what happened - a bunch of people didn't do their jobs correctly and a live round ended up in a pistol on a movie set, then AB pointed the pistol at a person and pulled the trigger. The state's attorney will decide whether that crosses the line between utter stupidity and manslaughter and the ME's report will have zero influence on that decision.

For what it's worth, New Mexico defines involuntary manslaughter as: the unlawful killing of a human being without malice committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to felony, or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner or without due caution and circumspection.

What I was trying to illustrate is that definitions are unto themselves they are, at least no longer put into practical application. Especially in a case like this.

quote:

Originally posted by DaveL:
It's an interesting theoretical discussion, trying to find the line between an accident and manslaughter under New Mexico law, but that's not the ME's job in any real sense and definitely not in a case like this.

That was a point I was trying to get at without doing a very good job of it.

Anything relating to criminal prosecutions will be up to the prosecutor. A medical investigation opinion may have some effect on how it’s handled, but it’s not a controlling determination.

I've often said we've got the best criminal justice system that money can buy.

Alex Baldwin is probably about to prove that.

Blacks Law Dictionary defines homocide as: The killing of one human being by the act, procurement, or omission of another.

It also defines accident as: An unforeseeable and unexpected turn of events that causes loss in value, injury, and increased liabilities. The event is not deliberately caused and is not inevitable.

Granted there can be case law that can alter those definitions to some degree.

The prosecutor has the option of filing criminal charges, but I suspect that based on the coroners determination that it was an accident that the prosecutor will not file any charges and leave it to the civil courts.