Hidden True Crime - Dr. John Reacts: Alec Baldwin's Jaw-Dropping Case Dismissal

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

The judge dismissed Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case on the 4th day of trial. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sided with Baldwin’s lawyers, who argued that prosecutors did not turn over evidence to the defense, and instead, actively tried to bury it. Lauren Joins Jesse Weber on NewsNation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxzid3PtLLE About Hidden True Crime: Lauren Matthias was a television reporter for a decade and she and her husband, Dr. John Matthias, a forensic criminal psychologist, started Hidden True Crime in 2020 with their Season, 'Beyond the Veil,' a psychological deep dive into the doomsday murders of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a forensic criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Took an Uber from the airport because of that dismissal of a case, a history-making moment in the trial of Alec Baldwin. Shocking ending. It's like a made-for-Hollywood legal drama. The Alec Baldwin involuntary manslaughter trial. Now, you'll remember, he was charged after the gun he was holding on the Russ movie set went off, live round in the gun, bullet ended up wounding director Joel Sousa, killing cinematographer Helena Hutchins. And the day began with the defense accusing the prosecution of holding back evidence.

That frankly, by the way, may or may not have been all that relevant to the question of Baldwin's guilt or innocence. But you know what? sounds important. It's a batch of ammunition that a third party, a so-called good Samaritan, had apparently turned over to police after the recent conviction of the armor on the set of the movie Rust. We're talking about the conduct of the prosecution. And that's exactly what we're talking about here, Your Honor. We're talking about a prosecution that didn't preserve those bullets, that didn't collect them at all, that didn't turn them over. Now, this is critical evidence in the case. I was never disclosed to us. They could say it doesn't match,

et cetera, et cetera. It does not matter. It did not matter in Allison. We were entitled to it. The continuance is not a sufficient remedy. This case should be dismissed, Your Honor. And then came the highly unusual scene of the judge, leaving the bench, putting on blue latex gloves, and examining the ammo herself, comparing it to the rounds found on the set. But if you thought it ended there, you would be wrong. It gets better because the special prosecutor then called herself as a witness and testified under oath. And guess what? It didn't go very well for the state anyway. It was there. We learned that the other prosecutor on the case, or Linda Johnson, resigned today. She had just done the opening statements. Her colleague told the court it was because

she didn't agree with the hearing being public, but Johnson appeared on Chris Cuomo show tonight and says that is not the case. First, let me give you a chance to respond what was said about you. Another member of the team said, you left the team because you didn't like that this Brady hearing was public. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I left because I learned about this evidence when the public learned about it yesterday, late afternoon. I don't know if you're aware, I actually came on this case kind of late in the game. I came on the case towards the end of April.

so I had to get up to speed. I was not involved in the Hannah Gutierrez case at all. And so I was not aware that this individual had taken this ammunition to the sheriff's department and provided it to the officers. I learned all of that yesterday when Mr. Spiro was cross-examining the crime scene technician. So I inquired some more. And this morning, when the motion hearing began, my position was, during the lunch hour, before the lunch hour, during the lunch hour, we have an obligation as prosecutors.

We have an obligation not only to the people, but to the defendant. And our obligation is to make sure that all the evidence is turned over. We don't get to decide what the defense is going to be. Our job is to ensure transparency and to ensure that the defendant has everything that the prosecution has gathered. And by the way, the jury saw none of today's fireworks. They were sent home for the weekend, or maybe as it turned out, forever. And later, things got really ugly because Baldwin's lawyer accused the prosecutor of having a vendetta against his celebrity client. The truth of this matter is, you don't like Mr. Baldwin very much, do you?

You know, that is absolutely untrue. I actually really appreciate Mr. Baldwin's movies. I really appreciated the acting that he did on Saturday Night Live, and I really appreciate his politics. You told one of the witnesses who disagreed with you during an interview that you thought Mr. Baldwin was a fuck sucker. I do not recall saying that. I know that that was something that Mr. Baldwin would say on the set of rest. I don't recall saying that. Do you deny that under oath?

Without having more information, I can tell you that I do not. recall ever saying that. And if I did say it, I invite you to point it out to me. You called him an arrogant prick to another witness. To who? To what witness? I'm asking you, did you call him an arrogant prick during a witness interview? I don't believe I did. I don't recall. Do you deny that? Without knowing what you're talking about, all I can tell you is that I can't respond if I don't know what you're talking about. It's funny she mentioned SNL because that was like an SNL skip. But back on the bench, the judge decided that the prosecution's conduct was either bad faith or very close to it and dismissed the case with prejudice. The state's discovery

violation has injected a needless and curable delay into the instant jury trial. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice. Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted. And to be clear, with prejudice means that charge can't be filed again. I was in the courtroom every day. And by every day, I mean four days. If you count jury selection, every day, guys, four whole days. It lasted. And I was there. And it was dismissed on day three. I already have an early present with you coming through the door two hours ago. I'm glad you're home. We're both glad. Your son and myself are glad your home. We're excited to see you. And especially to just celebrate and be here with us. And it felt like much longer than a week. I don't know why. But this one, this one felt like an eternity. I'm not sure why. But maybe the days felt longer in Vegas because it was like 119 for three days in a row or something. I think I was a little disoriented.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm just glad that I have taken care of your birthday gift because I showed up. So this year, your birthday gift is me. Sorry, I didn't have time for anything else. I actually didn't think I would be seeing you for your birthday. I thought I would be in New Mexico. So I'm glad to be here. Me too. I thought you were coming home late tomorrow. But thanks everyone for joining us. We're going to talk about this amazing conclusion to this case. and what happened and why it happened, I think. And you were there sitting in the courtroom for this moment. Do you want to talk a little bit about your experience of what happened? Yeah. Yeah. What part? My goodness, it was a trial. I will never forget and not because it was a celebrity because of what happened every day

in the courtroom, especially the last day. You know, we all, I said as much to Jesse Weber on News Nation last night. I want to bring in somebody who was in that courtroom, Lauren Matthias, the host of the hidden true crime podcast. Lauren, thanks so much for coming on. My gosh, what was it like to be in that courtroom today, particularly when the judge dismissed the case? It was something, it was nothing like I've ever witnessed or been a part of before. The gasps coming from the gallery were audible. There were many people in tears.

The shock, it just kept, you know, you covered all of those shocking moments so well, Jesse. And as they kept coming, they kept coming. We just were, we were just like processing all dump out and shocked a gas. Oh, my goodness. And, you know, when the judge dismissed the case with prejudice, honestly, there were many tears. We've been through, it has only been three days. But those of us in the gallery have been through a lot together in just three days. And what we have seen was so shocking.

There was even a moment where the prosecutor, they saw there was, Worsi, was touching the evidence. And she grabbed it. And then, you know, Spiro, the defense attorney said, don't touch the evidence. And she said, these have been rolling around for three years. I mean, you know, you mentioned SNL. It sort of was like that because you couldn't make it up. You didn't know what to think.

But in the end, In the end today, when all was said and done and these charges were dismissed, I think there was gratitude and the emotion was so strong and to see not just Alec crying, but his sister weeping, to see his brother crying, to see him grab his wife and hold her. It was a really powerful touching moment that I will never forget. I actually thought this would happen. And I went on Elizabeth Vargas's show and said, based on just the judge's conduct and some of the comments that she was making, the way that she questioned one of the state witnesses, I wouldn't be surprised if she dismisses the case. And then she ended up dismissing it 20 minutes later. But there was an, you talked about a gasp. I think we were all shocked when we learned that her Linda Johnson resigned. Was that a gasp in the courtroom? Was everybody like, what just happened? It was an absolute gas. The moment they said, and Erlinda Johnson had resigned, none of us knew that. We had all just spent the morning together. And we saw actually Erlinda Johnson walk out for the lunch break.

And she was there. And all of a sudden, we learned through the fact that the prosecutor herself calls her to testify or calls herself as a witness. And during cross-exam, oh, by the way, side note, Erlinda Johnson, your teammate just resigned. an absolute audible gas that you could not hide within the courtroom. By the way, what about Carrie Morrissey jumping on the sand? She wanted to do it. She called herself. What was that like?

Never seen anything like that. You know, we were all wondering, Jesse, if Alec Baldwin was going to testify. No one was questioned whether or not the prosecutor was going to testify. That was a plot twist. And to have her so confidently do it, too. You know, the judge kind of gave her like a second chance. Like, are you sure? Do you really, really want to do this?

You know, you're doing this on your own. You're asking for this. And defense attorney, Spiro, are you okay with this? And she's like, I'm okay with this. And she said, yeah, I want to do this. She absolutely wanted to. And she walked up there. She gave herself a monologue because, you know, she's the sole prosecutor left.

And then cross-exam started. And as you pointed out, it did not go well. Lauren, I hope you could clear something up from me. Was the first time the defense or any of us knew about this evidence, the ammo that was presented to the sheriff's office and presented to the prosecution, was yesterday the first time we anybody knew about it? I mean, do we know when the defense found out about this ammo? It was absolutely the first time any of us heard about it. And it was shocking because who brought the live rounds in was such a big part of Hannah's trial, too, to make a point. And to learn throughout these last three days that really there's a lot of questions as to where these live rounds came from and who brought them in and was it the supplier and was it Hannah or was it a completely other source that we don't know about through such a rent and everything.

Like how did the live rounds get on this movie set? And it was the first time we'd ever heard that a good Samaritan walks into the police station says, by the way, I have a box of evidence. And by the way, it's live rounds. No, it was the first time any of us had heard. this. Lauren, I will tell you, I know you follow these cases a lot. I don't know if you're ever going to be in a courtroom quite like that before. Again, moving forward, but it was really something to watch. And, you know, I appreciate you giving your take on what it, what was like. It looked incredible. What an ending to a case. I don't think anybody predicted this.

Laura Matthias, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. We were all wondering if Alec Baldwin might testify. Nobody was asking whether or not the prosecutor. Carrie Morrissey would be testifying, but that is exactly what happened. She called herself at the very end of a wild day to the stand, which Alec Baldwin's defense team okayed. Alex Spiro was Alec Baldwin's main defense attorney. And then that was wild, that was a wild cross-examination. We had one prosecutor resigning on that third day, walking out and resigning from the case or Linda Johnson. Nobody knew until it was announced. during the testimony.

I was watching at home. You had the judge putting on gloves and examining the evidence, which I've never seen. It was just one series of moments after another until the case was finally dismissed. Right. I had never seen that either. The judge putting on gloves,

opening up evidence, examining the bullets. And then when she put the bullets down, having the prosecutor, Carrie Morrissey, pick them up with her bare hands, and then have the defense attorney say, why doesn't she, you know, put those down and her response to that they just have been rolling around for three years. I'm fine.

Which it wasn't, by the way, but okay. Also, you know, just all the language that was used in court and by witnesses, I was like, man, we're not in DAPL anymore. You know, we're not in Judge Boyce in courtroom anymore. Yeah, this wasn't, this wasn't Judge Boyce and the, you know, Rob Wood and the prosecution team that were so deferential and right, so modest. This was a different type of prosecutor here. I was joking with you when you came in.

I said this was like Hollywood meets the Wild West. I felt like the tension between the judge and the prosecutor was like a standoff, Western standoff, like High Noon or something where they were head, right? They were going head to head. I thought they were going to put on holsters and pull out some prop guns. So it was crazy. I mean, the drama was. amazing for this type of trial. The drama was amazing. I was I was gasping and shocked so many times,

whether sitting in the courtroom or the press room, I would go between the two because I could have my equipment and phone in the press room and be sharing notes with other reporters. And, you know, I want to say too, there was some, I sat behind Alec Baldwin and his family most days. And his sister was there. Stephen Baldwin, his brother was there. His wife, Ilario was there. And they were very, They were very kind and supportive. And I really humanized Alec Baldwin for me as well. His sister, Beth, or Elizabeth, is a very kind woman and spoke to us and shared some really touching stories.

And she herself is a mother of six as well as a grandmother to Minnie. And she just broke down in tears when this case was dismissed. I imagine that this has been weighing on the family for so long. and before I begin everything, because it is wild. And I went, I went live, John. John hasn't even seen my YouTube lives, but I went live yesterday after the case was dismissed, sort of feeling relief and gratitude for the Baldwin family.

And I didn't mention Helena Hutchins in that live because it just felt, it just, it didn't feel right because, and I wrote this much on my private Instagram account today, I said, you know, I ache for Helena Hutchins family. I'm happy for the Baldwin. family that they can put this behind him. But I ache for Helene Hutchett's family and she absolutely deserves justice. And I think one question I kept bringing up in my YouTube lives is what does justice look like? I don't know.

But I will say this, that justice begins with a really good investigation and a better investigation by authorities and not hiding evidence and maybe finding out exactly where those live rounds came from that killed her. And, you know, let's start with that. And so one thing I want to talk to a little bit more to, to later on this show, John, is what justice perhaps does look like for Helena Hutchins or those that lose their lives due to accidents and negligence. And she should absolutely still be alive. And it breaks my heart for her family. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the interesting elements of this case is this question of justice

because clearly someone was killed. And their family is peace, you know. Right, right. And so, yeah. One of the interesting videos you had you posted was, as of the case was dismissed, and people were exiting the press. You saw the press chasing the prosecutor, the lead prosecutor, Carrie Morrissey. And one of the questions they kept asking her is, do you think that you failed in getting justice for Helena Hutchins family? That was what they kept asking her that, right?

And I was just amazed by that because while I think it's a reasonable question, I think it's a little misguided. And we'll talk about that tonight. Because I don't, I'm not sure there's any, nobody wins here. Nobody. And nobody wins. And her family doesn't. The Baldwin family doesn't. I mean, even though he's acquitted, Alec Baldwin, I talked about this last week. You know, in 2021, when he did the interview with George Stephanopoulos, he was showing symptoms of PTSD. And I think he's going to have to live his entire life, knowing that he killed another human being, even if it was an accident, he's still going to have to bear the weight of that. And I think for somebody like Alec Baldwin, who does have a lot of empathy, that that's going to be difficult. So you could argue that the way to punish someone is to send them in prison for 18 months. But I would argue that in this particular case, if we call this an accident, that it's a more severe punishment to have a death way upon you for the rest of your life. You know, he talked about being close to Helena.

He met with the husband and her son after the incident. So he was quite responsive and he was quite empathic and he was quite remorseful. In fact, he made the husband a producer of the Rust movie, which was completed. So there was also a settlement where it's undisclosed, but there was some money paid out to Matthew, the husband, as well. And we'll talk more. I'll try to break down my opinion of what happened here. And we'll try to go a little deeper in terms of the psychological components of this case. That's really my goal tonight.

Yeah. And I do want to say this. You're right. So Helena Hutchitz's family husband was made the executive producer. when Rust was finished and it was concluded. And he was part of that. I did have an interview with Gloria Alred and she spoke on behalf of Helena Hutchins' parents. Those are her clients.

Gloria Alred was every day in court representing them and she gave me a 10-minute interview. And so to speak on behalf of Plana Hutchins, what Gloria Alred told me was that Alec Baldwin should not be above the law. I agree with her there. No celebrity should ever be above the law. and that she did hope that Alec Baldwin would call Lane Hutchins' parents that while he had called her husband, he had not yet called her parents. And I'm just stating that because I feel like I need to just share that from Gloria Allred. But we will, yes, let's get started.

Yeah, that was one of the criticisms. So he actually met. He didn't call Matthew, the husband. He met with them. And he's actually met with them multiple times. I'm worked with him now on the end of the rest. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet,

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So I think one way to understand a case like this is to look at the different things. theories of the case. And so the defense has a theory of the case and the prosecution has a theory of the case. And I think we can gain a lot of insights by really trying to understand what those theories of the cases were. Obviously, the trial's over. So let's start with the prosecution. I think to understand this case, you really have to kind of reach back in time to Greek tragedy. So I think if you go back like 23, 2400 years to Greek tragedy and you think of kind of Aristotle's ideas about Greek tragedy, I would label the prosecution's case, a case, what I would call a case of the tragic hero.

And the reason I would do that is because Aristotle had this idea that tragedy often involve a hero, a tragic hero, who was typically kind of undone by certain actions that he or she would engage in. And most tragic heroes had something what he called Hamartia. And Hamartia is now referred to as a fatal flaw. And I'm oversimplifying Aristotle a lot here for the purposes of our podcast. But most tragic heroes exhibit a fatal flaw. And for Aristotle, one of the primary fatal flaws of most tragic heroes, if not all, was hubris. And when tragic heroes were hubristic or showed hubris, back then the term was hybris,

oftentimes that type of behavior attracted the hostility of the gods. So in other words, there was always kind of this clashing Greek tragedy between humans and gods, you know, obviously the Greek gods were quite different than what we know of today. But you have this clash. And oftentimes this clash was driven by hubris because humans, in some cases, believe that they were on a par with the gods. So if you actually, if you could play that clip of Carrie Morrissey, this is during the Hannah Gutier's read trial, but she had this to say about Alec Baldwin back then. referenced Alec Baldwin in a very interesting way. The defense. Alec Baldwin is to blame for acting like a prima donna on the movie set and bossing people around.

This is Hollywood, for heaven's sakes. I would imagine that's relatively common. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that his conduct was right. I am the person who indicted him. So here you have, during this previous trial, here you have the lead prosecutor essentially calling Alec Baldwin a prima donna. Again, if I go back to this idea of Greek tragedy, this is clearly related to this idea of hubris. And so you have, in this case, you have the taking of a life, which typically, again, if you go back to the Greeks, usually the taking of a life is reserved for the gods.

And so in many ways, you have a situation where you have a tragic hero potentially who's hubristic as, you know, some history of hubris and, you know, some would argue, including the prosecutor who takes a life. And at least in her mind's eye, she doesn't see him as being held accountable for that. So what happens in these types of situations in Greek tragedy oftentimes is that the tragic hero with this fatal flaw is sacrifice. So this is where the term scapegoat comes from. The tragic hero gets sacrificed to appease the gods to make it clear that the gods have power over mortals, right? And so the term that was often used to refer to these types of situations is that tragic hero would serve as a bit of a scapegoat for the community, not just to appease the gods, but also to show that the tragic hero wasn't godlike, that the tragic hero was human. It was an attempt, I think, in Greek culture at least, to show that by blaming the tragic hero, which is what happens with the scapegoat. So the scapegoat gets blamed for whatever the crime is or the situation is, and the tragic hero gets punished rightly or wrongly.

And part of that, I think, has to do with this attempt to bring the tragic hero down to earth, to kind of get the tragic hero to become more human. So there was an extraordinary moment in this trial where Alex Spiro is cross-examining Kerry Morrissey towards the end. And Alex Spiro, he knows that he has the prosecutor off balance a little bit. He knows, he senses that the judge is probably going to side with him. So he smells blood in the water. And he comes in, in my opinion, he smells blood in the water and he kind of comes in for the kill to make this whole thing personal. And he starts revealing Carrie Morrissey's action. motivations for bringing this prosecution. It's an amazing moment because rarely are you going to get

a prosecutor, a lead prosecutor on the stand who's going to be subjected to these types of questions. And one of the interesting elements of this is that Carrie Morrissey is really caught up guard here. She doesn't really answer. She doesn't say no that they're not true because she knows that Alex Spiro has corroborating people or evidence or statements from people showing that she actually said these things. Some of this language is a little colorful. truth that this matter is you don't like Mr. Baldwin very much, do you? You know, that is absolutely untrue. I actually really appreciate Mr. Baldwin's movies. I really appreciated the acting that he did on Saturday Night Live, and I really appreciate his politics. You told one of the witnesses who

disagreed with you during an interview that you thought Mr. Baldwin was a cock sucker. I do not recall saying that. I know that that was something that Mr. Baldwin would say on the set of rest. I don't recall saying that. Do you deny that under oath? Without having more information, I can tell you that I do not recall ever saying that. And if I did say it, I invite you to point it out to me. You called him an arrogant prick to another witness. To who? To what witness? I'm asking you, did you call him an arrogant prick during a witness interview? I don't believe I did. I don't recall. You deny that. Without knowing what you're talking about, all I can tell you is that I can't respond if I don't know what you're talking about.

And you said also to witnesses that you would teach him a lesson. I never said to witnesses that I would teach him a lesson. Absolutely not. In fact, Mr. Spiro, I want to give a full response to your question. I made every effort in this case to resolve this case with your client in a very favorite. favorable way for him. All right. I'm going to move to strike this.

It's not responsive. It is responsible. I don't want to talk about clean negotiations. Yeah. And it's not, and it's not responsive. So I have no further.

All right. Do you have any phone on this to mind? That was a wild moment. Yeah. A wild. Yeah.

Yeah. An incredible moment. What I want to point out here is if I'm thinking about this in terms of the tragic Carol narrative that the prosecution is trying to develop,

which is about hubris. The most important moment of all of yesterday was said there, which is she denied it. But Alex Spiro has it. He has proof, corroborating evidence, that she said it. Her goal was to teach him a lesson. And that is why, that is why in Greek tragedy, scapegoats exist. The goal is to bring the tragic hero back down to Earth and to teach them a lesson. The reason you have a scapegoat, you blame the tragic hero because the tragic hero because the

tragic hero has the fatal flaw. And the goal is you have the sacrificial component to appease the anger of the community and to teach the tragic hero a lesson. And that's exactly what's going on here. I think you've got this huge element of scapegoating. I think that you're blaming someone who may have had some responsibility. You could argue that he was somewhat reckless with the way he handled his firearm. You could argue a lot of things. You could argue that he pulled the trigger. They wanted to argue all of that. But the bottom line is, as the defense pointed out, and as Alec Baldwin has said repeatedly, if you hand him a cold gun, there's no fatality here, right? The evidence shows that putting all else aside, the real question here is what leads to Helena's death? It's the bullet.

Alec Baldwin didn't know there was a live round in the gun. He didn't load the gun. He believed it was a cold gun, right? So everything else is blaming. They're blaming him because, in my opinion, They're blaming him because there's so much grief over this loss, and there's so much rage over this loss. So that's another element of Greek tragedy, that oftentimes, if you think about a play like Antigone by Sophocles, it's all about grief. So Antigone loses her brother, and she can't bury him,

and she's enraged. She's enraged because she has this grief, and she doesn't know what to do with it. And this is a case where, like Greek tragedy, you have this grief, but nobody knows what to do with it, And you have this rage because no one knows what to do with that grief. So they point the finger at, in my opinion, they're pointing the finger at Alec Baldwin and saying, look what you did, you mishandled this gun, you pulled the trigger, you were irresponsible,

you were a prima donna. They're all trying to blame him. They're all trying to scapegoat him, I think, with this illusion that somehow by displacing their rage and grief onto Alec Baldwin, that somehow they're going to reverse this loss. Once there's a tragic loss, there's no reversing it. But that's where the scapegoat comes in. So the scapegoat serves this important role for the community in the sense that this is another Aristotle term.

The scapegoat allows the community to experience a catharsis, which is catharsis means an emotional release. So if you blame someone, if you blame the tragic hero and you scapegoat the tragic hero for whatever the tragic action is, then in theory the community can experience some catharsis, even if that tragic hero wasn't responsible for whatever transpired. But by blaming the individual, by creating a scapego, in some ways, you're able to assist the community in processing their trauma and their rage and their grief. And I think that's what's happening here.

I mean, you've got a combination of a scapego and an overzealous prosecutor, a prosecutor who also, by the way, shows a lot of humorous. So if she thinks Alec Baldwin's a prima don't know Carrie Morrissey, but I will say this in watching the three days of the trial that Carrie Morrissey is a peer. to me to be very angry and she appears arrogant to me. I mean, to take the stand under oath when basically the judge and the lead defense attorney at Alex Spiral telling her, I don't think you want to do this. They're basically pleading with her not to take the stand. And she says, I don't care, you know, I'm taking the stand. I don't care what you guys think. I'm going to, I'm going to show you that I'm right. I'm going to show you that this case should not be dismissed under any circumstances because I want to teach Alec Baldwin a lesson. Just like the guy.

in Greek tragedy want to teach the tragic hero a lesson. It's to bring the tragic hero to his or her knees. That's what she wants to do. She wants to take this elite, famous actor who happened to show up in her small town where someone was killed on a movie set and she wants to bring him down to earth. She wants to bring him to his knees. Maybe to some degree she wants to humiliate him. It's the same dynamics you see in Greek tragedy. But the fatal flaw, according to the prosecution, is hubris. And so you get these aristotelian ideas of tragedy showing up here. The fatal flaw, the scapego, the catharsis for the community. Do you have that clip of Uber Joe? My Uber driver is a local Santa Fe resident and he said it's really important that we get to know how those in Santa Fe feel.

First name. Joe. Joe. This is Joe. He is my Uber driver and local Santa Fe. What are your thoughts? Oh yeah, pull over so you feel safe. They're telling you to leave, aren't they? Yeah. So most of the locals here in Santa Fe are really upset that a man could shoot and kill a woman and not spend an hour in jail. Any of the local people that would have shot and killed somebody would have been handcuffed, put in jail for several days. He didn't have to do anything but go down to the police department and cry like a baby about what happened. placing the blame on the, the ammo lady, the young lady, he seems to have placed all the blame on her. She didn't pull the trigger. He did. He still denies it, and he'll deny it till the end. So understandably, people in Santa Fe here that kill somebody, they go to jail for a while.

He didn't go to jail at all. So this is really important to the people of Santa Fe to be sure that justice is equal across the board, no matter who you are. Let's see Uber Joe as the equivalent of the chorus in Greek tragedy. So the chorus represents the community. They're speaking for the community. And Uber Joe is basically arguing something similar. Did Alec Baldwin is getting preferential treatment? He needs to be brought down to earth.

He needs to spend some time in jail. But it's the same thing. What Uber Joe is essentially saying is we in the Santa Fe community, the chorus, the jury, we need a catharsis because we are also grieving over this loss that happened in our backyard. We're also enraged by this loss. And we need him, no matter what the evidence, notice that Uber Joe doesn't talk about the evidence. He just says he should spend time in jail or prison, right? Uber Joe's neglecting any of the nuances of this case. He's just saying, I won't feel any type of closure or resolution.

until this high-flying actor, Hollywood actor, is brought to his knees and spends time in prison or jail. He's saying something similar. He's not exactly giving the tragic hero. You know, he's not espousing the tragic hero narrative that the prosecution is. But he's saying something similar. You're saying our community can't heal from this

without putting this guy in jail. The problem with that argument is it doesn't look at the evidence, which takes me to know my next step. Let's look at the defense's argument. And I do want to say this, too. I just want to interrupt for just a second for you, jump to that. The people in New Mexico were hurting from this. And they still are because of the botched investigation and the botched prosecution.

I want you to know that, too. The local New Mexico reporters were ashamed of how things went to. They're like, this makes New Mexico look really bad. But New Mexico has been broken with. The number one thing in Santa Fe right now for their economy is this growing film industry. They wanted to be safe. They're hurting. Yes, that was my take from those in New Mexico. Not everybody agreed with Uber Joe, but. So I'm going to explain the defense's position now. So I think the prosecution has this narrative that this is what I would have heard to as kind of

the tragic hero narrative, that here you have this Hollywood actor, obviously, that's arrogant. He's displaying hubris on the set. And as Kerry Morris, he said, he needs to be taught a lesson. So we need to blame him. Our community needs a catharsis. But let's look at the other side. Let's look at the defense's argument. The defensive argument is that Helena Hutchins' death was an accident. Their argument was not only wasn't an accident, but there was no one to blame.

So it's the antithesis of the scapegoat argument. And I'm still thinking about Greek thought here. Essentially, this is the polarity. These two arguments are the polarity in Greek thought between chance and fate. So the tragic hero oftentimes is brought back down to earth because of fate because of certain actions that are fatalistic. In other words, they're inevitable. So like in Alec Baldwin's case, you'd have to say that the bullet and all the incidents leading up to the fatal shooting had this element of fate, that they were unavoidable and that they demonstrated that things could not have been otherwise.

And so again, I think that's implicit in the prosecution's argument. But the defense is saying something quite different, which is this is chance. This is chance alone. And as we talked about last week, human beings struggle with accidents, human beings struggle with chance because we want to think that the world is meaningful and that there's clear patterns that we can see. We want to assign, we want to make sense of the world, we want to be in control of the world, we want to assign meaning to things. And if things are purely random or purely based on chance, we can't do that. So in many ways, like the defense argument is contrary. This whole idea of a scapegoat, it runs so deep in human nature.

Communities need scapegoats to coalesce around tragedy. They struggle with calling something chance. They struggle with something that's a pure accident. And the reason they do that is because if you're not blaming someone, then you're not making sense of the world. You're not making it all add up. So inevitably, the prosecution's argument is more compelling, to most people because it gives the community the basis to cope with and resolve potentially

their anger and their grief and their rage. Whereas if you say something just happens by accident, you don't really have any way to cope with that rage and that grief. I think the defense's argument was always going to be a little bit of an uphill battle because if you take the scapegoat argument versus chance, most people are going to want to see the scapegoat argument as being more compelling. The problem is that that's not what the evidence says. And this is what my job is. So however I feel about Alec Baldwin or this case or the fact that Helena never should have lost her life, it was a terrible tragedy. Whatever my personal feelings are, I need to look past those and consider the evidence. And the evidence here is clear. The evidence is that somebody brought live

rounds onto that set, and that was not Alec Baldwin. And somebody put a live round in that gun. that was not Alec Baldwin, that somebody handed Alec Baldwin a gun that was a hot gun when he thought it was a cold gun. And he shot that gun, no matter how negligent he was, he shot that gun believing that there was a blank or a dummy in the gun. And there wasn't. So in many ways, the defense argument was this was a pure accident. And by the way, Matthew, Matthew Hutchins, the husband, he says the same thing. He agrees with Alec Baldwin. He agrees with the Baldwin family.

he's quite sympathetic. He thinks this wasn't an accident. It was a tragic accident, but it was an accident. And so essentially the defense's argument is that the prosecution, in their inept investigation, that the prosecution, because they were unable to track down the source of the live rounds, and because the prosecution was unable to figure out how those rounds got onto the set, and by the way, I don't think they had a chance to do that, because you had all these characters like Seth Kenny that are really slippery, right?

These guys aren't exactly the most honest people on the planet. I mean, I'm not saying that Seth Kenny perjured himself, but like when I say this is Hollywood meets the Wild West, I mean, like these are characters like right out of the 1800s Wild West. Like these are like, right? These guys are like Troy Treskes. Right. Just even their names, you know, even their names could be.

Like these wild-west characters. Yeah, Troy Tuss. Right, Thel Reed. Some of it's not the prosecution's fault because you have these cast of characters where there's no accountability whatsoever. These guys are just passing around live rounds from movie set to movie set. They don't know what the hell's going on. Right. There was a moment where Alex Spiro asked Seth Kenny, well, how many live rounds?

So they were shooting 1883, which is the yellow. Stone prequel in Texas, and Seth Kenny was supplying the ammunition for that movie. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in.

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Protect yourself now at ORA.com slash remove. They were doing off, I don't know, like 300 yards down the road. They were shooting live rounds to help the actors figure out what it was like to shoot live rounds, right? And Alex Spiro asked him, okay, you know, what happened to the live rounds? And he says, well, I put them in the little green canister. And he says, well, okay, how many rounds did you have? 300. How many of those were live rounds?

Maybe 50. Maybe 100. Like, 50 to 100. And I'm thinking, what? 50 to 100? Like, you don't inventory your live rounds on a movie set? You just take a wild guess? Well, yeah, some are live, some weren't.

You know, we just kind of put some in the canister. We sent some up to Montana for Hannah's movie. be the hard way with Nicholas Cate. You know, I mean, we sent some back to Arizona with Troy Toskey. We don't know. We just, you know, it's live rounds. Who cares? Like what, what the, these people.

I know. Was Nicholas Cage in trouble? Was he going to be? No, I know. I thought that was my first thought. I'm like, I'm glad Nicholas Cage wasn't, you know, killed. I'm glad he's alive. Like, holy cow, if I was an actor watching this whole trial,

I would not want to be in a movie anymore with a prop gun or any ammunition because these people, they don't know their inventory. They don't keep track of, they don't inventory every single bullet that could be live, nor do they separate it from the rounds that are not live. It's incredible. I kept thinking, why aren't there more fatalities on movie sets? And so part of the reason, I mean, the prosecution was sloppy. to say the least. The prosecution was driven, I think. Carrie Morrissey was clearly over Zalas.

Carrie Morrissey really wanted to take down Alec Baldwin. I think they were, it was driven by her arrogance, and I don't know if she's running for office, but her desire to maybe be in the spotlight to some degree. I'm not sure. I don't know exactly what her motivations are, but clearly she had this disdain for Alec Baldwin, and it factored into this. When you get a prosecutor who's in the limelight, more than the star actor, when you get a prosecutor who's taking the stand and you don't even know if the defendant, the star actor is going to take the stand, that's a problem. Talk about hubris. She wanted to get up on the stand. You know, the irony is that in many ways, I don't know her again, but the prosecutor seems to have this fatal flaw too, that she's driven by the same things that she's

accusing Alec Baldwin of engaging in. She's, and so I think that was the total irony of this trial is that she wants to bring him to his knees over his hubris, and she's just as arrogant. Thank you. Yeah, I did sense a lot of projection in that she's, she's very arrogant. I think most people would agree no matter of what size you're on. Can we all agree with that?

Could that be something we all agree on? And right, so it's interesting that she is always pointing out the arrogance of Alec Baldwin when I'm like, Mm. Right. And then the arrogance of the way they mishandled this evidence. Somebody comes in with live rounds from Arizona. Troy Teske comes in with live rounds and says, here, these are relevant, which by the way,

Kerry Morrissey denied that these live rounds match the live rounds on the set. That's not what Hannah Gutier's Reed's attorney said. So since that statement, since she took the stand, he has said that's untrue, that the live rounds that Troy Teske brought in matched the live rounds on the set. He's disputed that. So essentially, Bowles is accusing, this attorney Bowles is accusing Carrie Morrissey of perjury. Whether she knew that or not, I don't know. She was clearly trying to save the case at the last minute.

Yeah, no, I know. Jumping on the stand was trying to save the case at the last minute, too. So, I mean, to me, I kept thinking, like, when they talked about these bullets, so by the way, these bullets, to me, like, the real mystery here is, the real mystery was trying to solve the trajectory of these bullets, trying to solve the origins and travels of these bullets. Like, who had the, what's the source of the bullets? How did they get to the set?

Who brought them on the set? It was like a shell game. It was like a shell game between, with Hannah, Bell, Seth Kenny, all these people had access to these bullets. And they kept moving them around. Now they're in Montana. Now they're in Arizona. Now they're in Texas.

Now they're in New Mexico. Like, what are they? these people doing? I know. What the hell are they doing? And I mean, not only that, like, these are live rounds. These will kill people. Right.

They did kill someone. So in that, right, they did kill someone. So in that, exactly. And so in that sense, and that's the tragedy. So in that sense, the defense had the much better argument. I think ultimately the defense would have prevailed, even if there was a full trial, even if the prosecution didn't hide evidence and suppress evidence. I think the defense would have prevailed.

The chance argument that I've talked about is more difficult to make, but because it was so clear that these live rounds were just all over the place and they couldn't be accounted for. It was so clear that the prosecution needed a scapegoat because they couldn't figure it out. Ultimately, what they should have done was found the source of those live rounds, figured out how they got onto the set. We know that Hannah loaded the gun with one, but Hannah denied that she knew that. Hannah denied putting a live round in the gun.

So according to her, she didn't know that there were live rounds on the set. So how did they get there? That's the person that should be held accountable. Isn't that the issue? And I know that a lot of people are saying, well, we figured it out it was Hannah. It was this person. We don't know. It's not clear cut.

We still don't know. As we speak tonight, it's still a mystery. Where these live rounds came from, what states they traveled to. I mean, Hannah was convicted of involuntary mind slaughter already, but I mean, she denies that she put a live round in the gun. So, I mean, ultimately, it's still a mystery. And I mean, and so the prosecution really, I think the defense knew this. The prosecution really looked inept because they couldn't figure that out. And because that they couldn't figure that out, in my opinion, it was easier for them to point the finger at Alec Baldwin, this high profile actor.

Let's find a scapegoat and let's blame him. And then we'll all feel better. We'll all feel like we've solved the problem. We can all get closure by convicting him in theory, like Joe said, we'll feel better because he spends time in prison and he'll allow us, Alec Baldwin, the scapegoat, in theory, it would allow the community to start resolving or coping with some of their anger and their grief over this entire situation.

So that's my take. I really feel like the prosecution had a weak case and the defense didn't. The defense knew the weak spots of the prosecution's argument. They knew that they had a prosecutor that was overzealous. They knew that there was evidence that they withheld or they tried to suppress. I mean, it just, it seemed like in the end, it seemed like this was going to be a losing battle. This case is more understandable. Once you understand, once you kind of situate the arguments and understand what they're trying to accomplish. Now, obviously, people can disagree with me. people can argue that he pulled the trigger and therefore he should be able to con them.

They can argue that he was negligent in terms of gun safety. All that's true. It's probably also true on most movie sets. Again, what is the core issue? The core issue is that if there's no live rounds on that set, there's no fatality. You know, for me, there's no way getting past that. And that's what the defense understood. By the way, that defense team was extraordinarily astute.

Man, were they well prepared? Kerry Morrissey would say one thing, and Alex Spiro would get his staff, they would get the information instantaneously to him. Alex Spiro is a really good attorney. And so you can see, this is a case, by the way, too, when you can see how an excellent attorney really makes a big difference. You know, I've worked so many cases with public defenders, and most of them really do their best. They really, most of them do an excellent job. But they have limited resources. They don't have a staff of 10 people to assist them.

and pulling right and pulling out all this information. Alex Spiro knew all those statements that Carrie Morrissey made to third parties on the set and off the set. I mean, that's amazing. You know, so she wanted to teach him a lesson, right? This is a great example of how really good attorneys make a huge difference in a case. And really good attorneys that have a strong defense, that would be even more so. I think it's time that we do what we do, Beth, though, where I bring the T and you read the T. and you read the tea leaves.

So we've got to move on. We got to talk some things that happen at trial. People kind of want to know your thoughts on some things that happened to trial. So now that's a moment everybody's been waiting for. Oh, and let me say, yeah, let me, before you do that, I want to, I want to weigh in a little bit on one of the most touching elements of this trial. I felt was when Alex's wife would comfort him and when she would come over and whisper in his ear. would kind of communicate.

And you could tell there's a real bomb there. And at the end of the trial, when they were both in tears, talk about a catharsis, right? Three years of this weighing over them, just all the emotions that that entailed and the possibility of him going to prison, it must have been really hard. But I don't see in a lot of trials that type of intimacy. And I think there was a real intimacy between Hillary and Alec. and it was quite moving to me. It was to me as well.

Now on to your tea. Full circle, well, which I mentioned. I mentioned the family in the beginning of this. And for those, you know, maybe we should even start with this. I don't know. Guys, I got in a little bit. Maybe we should mention that, you know, the case was dismissed because of a Brady violation and a hiding of evidence.

But a lot of things happen. the trial and there's a lot of things that people are talking about and they just want to know your thoughts but but first off i want to pull up a couple things that i want to say that i addressed actually in lives so i'll say it again a cardinal rule has never put a gun on someone except guess who breaks the cardinal rules every day movies how many movies have you seen where guns are pointed at people so that's confusing for me And to add to that, by the way, so one of the pieces of evidence that the defense was going to put on, they talked about this in the opening statement, but there was a script.

In the script, the script asked Alec to point the gun, to cock it and point it. And Helena requested to get a certain shot, she requested that the gun be placed in a certain position. Yeah. But my, let's just, you know, people disagree sometimes, you know. Yeah. There's evidence that is disputing different things, but my point is in general. People just want to know what you think of Morrissey. Tell us your thoughts.

You mentioned, you know, arrogance. But what else did you see with her? I know you can't diagnose, but let's share it to them thoughts. Yeah, I don't know her history very well. I mean, whatever, whatever's going on with her, she's clearly like overzealous and over-exuberant. Let's take the daybell prosecutors as a contrast. A lot of prosecutors understand that if you're going to reach a jury, you need to come across as, I think there has to be some humility. You don't want to come across as being angry.

And whatever the qualities are that lead to persuading a jury, I think she's very intelligent. In many ways, she has the qualities of a good prosecutor. But I don't think she's reading the room. And I don't think she's able to kind of rein in her emotions to such a degree. that she's appearing composed and humble and accessible to a jury. I don't know enough about her to comment on what it is that's going on there. It does seem to me there's a lot of anger, and that could be so many things. You know, that could be anything.

That could be maybe she doesn't like her job. It could be as simple as that. I don't know. Maybe she feels stuck. It's not particularly becoming to a jury when you have a prosecutor that is so angry and so, you know, amped up. Thank you for sharing. A lot of people want to know your thoughts on just her in general, so thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, as I said, I think that there's, as I said earlier, I think there's a fair amount of projection going on. The very qualities that she's accusing Alec Baldwin of exhibiting and the very qualities that she is saying that she despises in him, she seems to exhibit some of those herself. So it's a classic case of projection, like those parts of herself that she doesn't want to acknowledge. she's projecting onto him. And by the way, a prosecutor that does that is not going to be in a position to accurately assess the evidence. This is how you get to prosecutors that overreach, that are overly zealous. Because their own personal issues get in the way, because their own biases influence their ability to assess information,

they make mistakes, they make bad decisions. And that's exactly what happened here. She felt like this evidence that was never entered into the case as evidence, she determined by herself that it had no meaning, that it wasn't, it didn't have any evidentiary value, but it's not up to her to determine that. Right. It's up to the court. It's up to the judicial system to determine what the evidence means. It's up to a jury and a judge. It's up to the triers of fact.

But you can see how potentially someone like her, a prosecutor like her, with these types of qualities might have. trouble, seeing the evidence more objectively. There was something that I really wanted to bring up because it was a question I had for you. They want someone or we want someone or people want someone to pay for her death. Is that justice or is that revenge? I understand that, you know, justice is the philosophical idea. Revenge is wanting to hurt somebody for what they did to you. And I wanted to ask you, what is the difference, John, between revenge and justice?

Yeah, that's such a big question. Let's go back to the Greeks a little bit in answering that question. Well, let me answer the question broadly, and then I'll go back to kind of Greek thought, because I think that's where justice really originates. But justice in general, I think of justice as being communal. So in other words, justice is part of the community and how the community makes laws, implements laws, how they try criminal cases, right? So justice is an ideal. It's about implementation. implementing a system of laws that allows for fairness and impartiality in all cases. So the basic idea of justice, justice is an ideal. It's an idea where everyone is equal under the law and it's owned by the community. Revenge is much more personal. I think of revenge. Revenge is more like lawlessness. So if justice is the law, revenge is more, it's more idiosyncratic.

It's about retribution. It's more ego-driven. And I think revenge applies more to the individual. So if I go back and think about Greek thought that in a lot of the original Greek mythology, revenge and retribution are often paramount. And so you have these people like Agamon, who's murdered by his wife at the time, Climonestra, to avenge the fact that Agamon sacrificed their daughter before he sailed to the Trojan War. He sacrificed there.

I forget how old she was. I think she was like, I don't remember the age. But the daughter, he was a baby. Her name was Iphigenia. And Agamena did that so that the Greek fleet could have smooth sailing to Troy. And, you know, understandably, Klamenestra never got past that. So she just murdered him indiscriminately. And then you get, in this particular story, then you get a series of like all these revenge plots and murders.

And like, it's just a bloodbent. Because every one of these individuals is taking the law into their own hands. And they all want retribution. It's all ego-driven. It's all based on avenging and revenge. And so what happens over time, the Greeks move more towards democracy. You start getting situations where power is taken away from, let's say, kings and individuals and these privileged families. And it's put more in the hands of the people.

And I think, so that's when you start seeing what we now would think of as justice. You start seeing more equality under the law. You start seeing this idea of if you're angry at someone, you can't just go out and kill them. So I think in revenge, there's very much this vigilante equality. Whereas with justice, you're trying to eliminate that element. You're trying to give this ideal to the community and you're asking the community to figure out, what does this mean? What does justice mean?

and communities change and things change over time. And so laws change. Laws are written and rewritten all the time as communities struggle to figure out what justice is. So justice is an ideal. There's no one thing that justice is. It's an aspiration. Maybe when no one's responsible, everyone is.

And that brings me back to what you just said about justice being communal. Maybe when we can't figure out who to blame, we all should take on some responsibility. responsibility to figure out how to not have another Elena Hutchins. Is that working hard to make movie sets safer? Is that helping to make prosecution and investigations better? What does that do? What could we do? When nobody is responsible, what can the community do to bring justice? It's a great,

It's a great thought. Yeah, and I hope there's some advocacy for reform in the way ammunition is distributed to movie sets because clearly the way it was done on these sets is, you know, it looks like a high-risk situation to me. Now, maybe I don't know what the protocols are exactly, but when you see a group of, I don't know, these kind of these roughshod Wild West type characters like Seth Kenny and Thel Reed, just, you know, mixing live rounds with dummy rounds and not doing inventories of what they have. I mean, it's crazy.

I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Okay, guys, I'm going to tell you. You got some tea here? You got some tea here. Yeah. So I went out last night, Santa Fe, missed you, babe. I went out.

It was fun. We missed you. You want clubbing? Is clubbing in Santa Fe? No, I just, I went, I went to the, the water street. Had some, had some delicious green chili. Somebody else has how my real Mexican, New Mexico food was. And it was delicious. I had a feedopi, green chili, frito pie.

There was a great group of us, a lot of us hanging out. I ran into a lot of different people and most everything is off the record. I'll just say that. Santa Fe is a small town when you gather on a Saturday night. But there was one person who knew Carrie Morrissey, and that's all I'll say. And this person was actually asked this question. What's she thinking now? And this person said she doesn't give an F.

She doesn't care at all. She's waking up this morning just fine and she doesn't give an F. That's what this person who knows and likes, who knows and likes Carrie. Morrissey dated to me. So that, that by the way, I wish you had told me that earlier because that helps a lot in assessing Carrie Morrissey, but you have to wait till the very end to give me that little tidbit. I bring the tea, you read the tea leaves.

You interrupted me. I was saying, I've got tea and you were like, hold up, no, first we got to like shame you. And then I've got to say my opinion. And so, you know, I'm going to revise the person who asks, what is she feeling? I'm going to revise it and say absolutely nothing. that this woman, apparently she has no capacity to feel vulnerability and embarrassment.

So I'll revise it now and say, apparently, absolutely nothing. I will say this. I'm glad that Alex, and that Alec Baldwin expressed remorse for the loss and empathy. So in that sense, he's way ahead of her.

There you go. This person I spoke to was a friend of Carrie Morrissey. So she also has friends. Now we know too. Carrie Morrissey has friends. And they were out last night

hanging out with me. That's harsh. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to know she has at least one friend. Okay. And then the place I was last night, I'm not going to say because there were,

I'll just say there were several. off. I just can't believe how everybody showed up in one place. I did not know that happened in Santa Fay after court. I'll just say, we even got a ride home with Alec Baldwin's Uber driver. I mean, everything. I saw everyone last night. We got so much tea. I can't share it all. I'll share a little bit more on our Patreon live. And then we got a ride home and we recognized the car because it was the one Alec Baldwin's family had been that hired. So Santa Fe, man. It's a tight-knit town, and everyone that was at court seemed to go to the same place last night, including Carrie Morrissey's friend. All right.

All right. Beautiful city. I loved, loved, loved, love Santa Fe. I loved meeting gems from Santa Fe. I love your city. I love New Mexico. It was very hard to leave to come back. But the only reason I did is because I love you more.

So here I am. Awesome. You around interrupting you again. I'm someone that, you know, I resist celebrating my birthday because it's just another reminder of my mortality. So I don't really get how people are ecstatic over birthdays because I'm like, look, you know, the clock's ticking and my birthday reminds me of it. And being reminded of my mortality is a lesson I try to take to heart all the time because I know. I know that our time is so limited. And that gets me into my final thoughts here, which is about grief and loss. I want to end with a quote and some ideas, some thoughts about,

so Antigone is a famous play by Sophocles, it's a Greek tragedy. And one of my favorite lines from Antigone is, quote, grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver. Grief. So in other words, it's exactly what we talked about. Grief and loss cut human beings to the quick. Grief and loss render us oftentimes helpless and powerless. And I think that's what, when you really get down to it,

I think that that's what this is about. This is about a tragic loss that's almost inexplicable. I believe it's an accident. It's a horrible accident. And I think that sometimes during these situations, there's this tendency for human beings to point the finger and blame other people and the scapegoat as an attempt to reverse that loss, or at least to manage that loss and that grief.

And I think that's what you're seeing here. And I mean, obviously, that's an illusion. There's no managing loss. There's no turning back time. Grief is such a difficult emotion. And I think that's, to a large degree, that's what's going on here. And that's why the prosecution brought this case. They probably shouldn't have.

They actually, there were. initial charges that were dropped. And I think that's because they recognized. Maybe they recognize some of this, some of these issues. And so in that sense, my takeaway here would be that some of the lessons of Greek tragedy for me, and I love Greek tragedy. I read Greek tragedy over and over, by the way. Some of the lessons of Greek tragedy for me are humility. So if the fatal flaw is hubris, then the antidote to hubris is humility. And the other thing I think that's really critical for both this case and in Greek tragedy is this idea of acceptance of loss that sometimes accidents occur. There's nothing we can do about it. You know, to me, I gave an example last week of the

child, a child runs out, darts out into the road, a two-year-old darts out into the road, and a car's coming, doesn't see the child, hits the child, it's horrible, but it's an accident. And everyone's harmed by that. Like in this case, I don't know what to do about that. But I do know that one of the lessons of Greek tragedy is that as difficult as it is, sometimes acceptance of our losses is the only way out, rather than rage and anger, right, and defiance and I don't know, some of the things we saw in this particular situation. So those are my final thoughts for tonight. Thank you. There was one more question I wanted to answer because someone said, and I want to answer this because it's something that I respect. Someone asked, what do you think

Alec Baldwin will do? Will he stay quiet? And I want to say something that he's already done that I value and I thought it was good. That as this case was dismissed because and the prosecution made to look terrible and it was just in my opinion, sorry, friend of Carrie Morrissey who doesn't think it seemed that bad. They thought her Linda Johnson looked for us. I was like, okay. You know, I'm just listening. It was just, you know, you got a friend in me, Carrie.

You know, this person was loyal to her, her. But in my opinion, she didn't look good. The media had set up tons and tons of microphones for a press conference for him. And at that moment, Alec Baldwin could have done to Carrie. Morrissey, what Carrie Morrissey had been doing to Alec Baldwin. And he could have gone out there to all those microphones. And he could have said, this is a win. I never deserve these charges.

I'm so happy. This was been such a wrong course for three years. We're grateful. But he came out of the courthouse. And he and Laria and Elizabeth and Beth and, And Stephen, they all walked, and even his attorneys, Alex Spiro, everyone, they walked right past the microphones and into the car. And I don't think there was a better thing they could have done for Helena Hutchins, too, because there is nothing to celebrate. And if he had wanted to say something, and he wanted to stick it to the prosecution for what they'd been doing and what Carrie Morris, he's been doing to him for the last three years, he would have.

stood there and had his moment, and he didn't. He quietly went into his car and drove away. And in my opinion, I think that's how they're going to handle it and how it should be handled because, again, at the end of this, nobody wins. Elena Hutchins' life is gone. Her boy does not have a mother. And that was the right thing to do. and Alec Baldwin did not do what Carrie Morrissey did to him.

Right, and that gets back to what I just said about humility and acceptance of loss and limitations. You can do more with silence, sometimes with words. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere.

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