The presumption of innocence is a huge pillar of society in the United States, and that pillar should always be maintained. Simultaneously, when a presumed innocent person starts acting in ways that are odd, that oddity should be part of the collective understanding of what is going on. In the case of Alec Baldwin, the actor who shot and killed a women while still not yet being arrested, the oddity is a lack of action to give law enforcement the piece of evidence they have legal right to obtain.
According to Fox News, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office in New York State has received a request from the Santa Fe Police Department in New Mexico to assist in obtaining the cell phone desired from Alec Baldwin. This is the same phone that officers requested and were told by Baldwin’s legal team that they would need a warrant. Now they have the warrant, but Baldwin isn’t handing over the phone. Thus, police are now having coordinate over state lines to fulfill the warrant. That’s a little bit odd even if it isn’t proof of guilt.
Authorities likely want the phone to gain access to messages Baldwin may have crafted in the days and weeks before and after the shooting. Reuters is reporting that Baldwin’s attorneys are working with law enforcement to have them gain possession of the phone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much… attorneys are often “working with law enforcement” when they’re really just slowing down the process. Is that the case here? We can’t endorse that’s what is happening, but there’s some reason out there that this phone has been desired for three weeks and police have yet to acquire it.
The ongoing investigation into Baldwin’s shooting of director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, continues after Baldwin’s interview with ABC News in which he admitted to releasing the hammer for the real gun. Many have surmised that is an equivalent mechanism to pulling the trigger, although other experts believe that Baldwin did, in fact, pull the trigger. All of that will have to be figured out in trial, should Baldwin ever be arrested and charged. Until that point, if you’d like to see what “privilege” actually looks like, this would be it. Ask yourself how long it would take for you to be arrested if you shot and killed someone, even if you said it was an accident.
Any opinions in this article are of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of That Park Place or its advertisers.
So let us know in the comments below what you think about the Baldwin case. Is he going to be arrested, or is he getting off the hook without even a charge?
