‘Vindication!’ CNN Legal Expert Lashes Out at Alec Baldwin Prosecutors After Shooting Charges Fall Apart

CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson declared that the charges being dismissed against actor Alec Baldwin amount to “vindication” of his claims of innocence in the Rust shooting.

The tragic incident in which Baldwin discharged a prop firearm, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza on the set of the film Rust has taken another turn. Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in January, but on Thursday night, the prosecutors announced they will be dismissing the charges:

We cannot proceed under the current time constraints and on the facts and evidence turned over by law enforcement in its existing form. We therefore will be dismissing the involuntary manslaughter charges against Mr. Baldwin to conduct further investigation. This decision does not absolve Mr. Baldwin of criminal culpability and charges may be refiled.

On Friday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson declared the move “vindication” for Baldwin, and ripped prosecutors for not factoring in the evidence before bringing charges in the first place:

POPPY HARLOW: Wow. Two weeks before trial.

JOEY JACKSON: Vindication! Vindication.

DON LEMON: This is vindication?

JOEY JACKSON: I think, in a significant way. He’s been claiming repeatedly that he did not at all pull the trigger. The modification seems to be consistent with that. What modification? The gun modification. But it’s more troubling than that. The trouble for me is that I’m horrified with respect to how prosecutors have handled this case. This happened in October 2021. You’re telling me now that you have information with respect to the gun? Would that not be critical to know before you charge someone? Would it not be critical to know before you proceed and really say that someone is responsible criminally? And the significance of this is really twofold as it relates to the law. Number one, if you’re charging someone with being reckless, right, or negligent even, now we have the issue of the gun, which suggests, hey, maybe he wasn’t. Now you have the second issue with respect to causation, causing of the death. If the gun were modified and he did not pull the trigger, then you have an issue with causation. But he was charged, and he was charged in January of this past year, 14 months later. You didn’t know that? And so I’m very troubled.

DON LEMON: So this for now, they said they dropped the charges. But then how, how do you go back? Because his attorneys will say, well, you already said the gunman’s modified…

JOEY JACKSON: I think what prosecutors need to do really is to is to come clean and really just say, look, we investigated the case and this is a tragedy by all accounts. But we know that many tragedies don’t result in prosecutions. There are times when there’s the tragedy that result in civil litigation, as this has. Right. Civil relating to monetary damages, carelessness.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.