Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday morning in New Mexico in the trial of Alec Baldwin, who has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for his role in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust.”
The story revolves around the events of October 21, 2021, when the gunman, Mr. Baldwin, rehearsed a fired bullet that killed filmmaker Halina Hutchins and injured the film’s director. The gun was supposed to be loaded with inert projectiles that could not fire.
The initial announcement that prosecutors had brought a criminal case against Mr. Baldwin drew shockwaves from Hollywood, where many view gun safety on set as the responsibility of a production’s gun specialists and security coordinators, not its actors. (The film’s armour, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has already been convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.)
The case has put those Hollywood norms to the test and put the behavior of Mr. Baldwin, a fixture of the television and film industry for decades, under the microscope. The proceedings are expected to be hotly contested by his lawyers, who have argued for months that the prosecution is a misguided attempt to secure a high-profile celebrity conviction. The prosecution claims he was negligent in handling firearms.
On Monday, the judge ruled that prosecutors could not argue that Mr. Baldwin’s role as a producer made him more culpable for the death, but that they could show jurors some videos of the actor handling weapons on set.
The trial is expected to last about two weeks in Santa Fe County District Court, where the proceedings will be broadcast live. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday.
Why do prosecutors say he’s guilty?
The special prosecutors in charge of the case, led by Kari T. Morrissey, argued that Mr. Baldwin, 66, violated industry rules about the use of firearms, citing industry guidelines that urge actors to do not put their finger on the trigger of a gun before they are ready to fire and never point a gun at anyone.
“These are the rules for actors handling firearms on movie sets and Mr. Baldwin managed to ignore every single one of them,” Ms. Morrissey wrote in a court filing.
Although those industry guidelines do not require an actor to independently control the gun on set, prosecutors argued that Mr. Baldwin had a responsibility to do so under the law.
Prosecutors were granted leave by the judge to allow them to show jurors footage they say bolsters their case that Mr. Baldwin was careless with gun safety on set. The videos they want to show include footage of him using his gun “as an indicator” outside of acting sequences, firing his gun after calling “cut” and holding the gun with his finger on the trigger when it wasn’t necessary .
They are also expected to argue in court that just before the gun fired a real bullet, Mr Baldwin had not followed instructions from the director, Joel Souza, who said the particular shot required the actor to slowly pull the gun from the holster of, do not point the gun out.
“He ignored Mr. Souza’s instructions and, without warning, acted on his own accord,” Ms. Morrissey wrote in court documents.
What is the defense argument?
Mr. Baldwin, who starred and co-produced “Rust,” has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and has long denied responsibility for Ms. Hutchins’ death. Weeks after the shooting, he said in a television interview that Ms. Hutchins had directed him where to point the gun and that the gun had gone off suddenly, without him pulling the trigger.
Prosecutors said forensic tests belied Mr Baldwin’s claim that he did not pull the trigger, but the actor’s lawyers focused on evidence they said showed the gun could have been prone to malfunction, showing strange marks on an internal part of the revolver.
Regardless of the trigger question, the defense argued that Mr. Baldwin could not be found guilty because he had no reason to believe the gun was loaded with a real bullet. Witnesses told the crew that the gun was “cold,” meaning it contained no live ammunition. generally, live ammunition is prohibited on movie sets.
To convict him of manslaughter, the court must find that the actor was aware of the danger caused by his behavior and ignored it.
“You do believed that the gun Baldwin was holding was capable of firing anything, let alone a real bullet,” one of Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers, Luke Nikas, wrote in court papers. “It was a prop on a film set and the actor had been told by the professionals in charge that he had no live ammunition.”
The defense has laid the blame at the feet of Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and Dave Halls, the film’s first assistant director and security coordinator, and has fought Mr. Baldwin’s prosecution at every turn, calling it “an abuse of the rights of an innocent trampled to the extreme”.
Why was there live ammunition on a movie set?
Since the fatal shooting, the biggest mystery has been how real ammunition ended up mixed in with dummy rounds, inert rounds used to look like real ones for the camera.
Five other live rounds were found on the set after the shooting, and prosecutors at Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s trial argued that she was responsible for bringing them in. The gunman’s lawyers denied she was the source of the live rounds and are appealing her conviction.
Who is expected to testify?
The witness lists for both the prosecution and the defense contain members of the “Rust” cast, including Mr. Souza. Seth Kenney, the main supplier of weapons and ammo for “Rust”; and several crew members who have sued Mr. Baldwin over the shooting. One of those crew members, Ross Addiego, took the stand at Ms Gutierrez-Reed’s trial and said he did not believe Mr Baldwin had followed gun safety rules and that the production had cut corners in a way he endangering the cast and crew.
One of the strengths of the defense is Mr. Halls, who agreed to the admission that he did not properly check the gun on the day of the shooting. He has made some statements that are helpful to Mr. Baldwin’s case, including that Ms. Hutchins communicated with the actor about where to point the gun. Police who investigated the case and weapons experts are also expected to take the stand.
Prosecutors had hoped Ms Gutierrez-Reed’s testimony would help their case, based on her earlier statements that Mr Baldwin was careless during weapons training, but she refused to answer their questions in a pre-trial prison interview , showing that you were not likely to be a cooperative witness.
It is not clear whether Mr. Baldwin will take the stand himself.
