Manslaughter is about proving negligence or misconduct. The prosecution case was that Baldwin was at fault as he was negligent handling a gun with live ammunition.

Part of Baldwins defence was that he did not know the gun had a live round in it.

The new evidence was that the live ammo came from the props company, not the armourer, throwing doubt over whether the armourer or Baldwin knew there were live rounds on set or in the gun.

That's a hugely important part of the defence case, and also makes it much hard to prove involuntary manslaughter - it would be negligent to fire a gun knowing there is a live round in it, but if you did not know there were live rounds then does that meet the same level of negligence?

Personally I thought the case against Baldwin seemed tenuous so I'm not surprised this new evidence ended the trial.

This does raise serious questions about the safety of the armourers conviction. She might still be negligent as its unclear how live ammo from the prop company got on set without her knowing but she has not been able to answer that as the evidence was suppressed and she was convicted on the assumption it was entirely her fault the live ammo was on set.

It raises even more serious questions about the behaviour and motivations of the new mexico prosecution team and investigators.

If you're driving and your brakes mysteriously fail, consequently someone dies. Is it manslaughter?

Edit: clarity.

You don't need to bribe a judge.

You need enough money to have a team of lawyers grind through the evidence and find what's been hidden.

Compare this to having a public defender with limited resources. They basically have to trust the DA's office.

What's depressing about this is the DA's office is so used to getting away with this shady shit, that they can't do their job properly even when they know they're under a higher level of scrutiny. Think of all the average Joes that have been fucked over by these guys.

Rich persons justice isn't really about bribing your way out of things. It's about having enough resources that you can force the system to behave, for you, in the way that it's meant to.

This is instead of the usual process that just steamrolls over every poor bastard that ends up in court.

If there’s one thing we’ve discovered over the years, those in charge are surprisingly cheap to bribe.

The Baldwins are extremely well connected. One of them is married to Justin Bieber. Who just got 10mil for performing at that 350mil Indian wedding. Alec is also a movie producer, which you cannot do if you have no money.

What if that judge's daughter is a huge Justin Bieber fan? Or wants front row tickets to a fashion show or backstage Coachella passes? Or attend a movie premiere? That's all within his scope

Even if Baldwin wasn't the one holding the gun, even if was in the hands of a completely different actor, he should have been charged as part of the Producers for failing to provide a safe work environment.

Then you're advocating for a fundamental change to way America manages workplace safety. If Baldwin hadnt been the one to pull the trigger he would never have been charged in a million years. Criminal charges require some level of intent , including involuntary manslaughter or negligent homocide. Unless you can find communications that show that the producers knew the workplace was unsafe and purposely didn't take action (not acting sufficiently probably wouldn't be enough), no charges were even possible.

At most the family of the deceased would have had a strong civil cause of action against the production company, because that's how workplace safety is handled in 99 percent of cases in the US. That civil liability can then be quantified, analyzed, and insured against. I'm not saying this is a good thing , but criminal charges for company owners have never been how these things have been handled.