SANTA FE, N.M. — Prosecutors began to make their case to a jury Wednesday that Alec Baldwin is responsible for the shooting death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins nearly three years ago. Special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson said in her opening statement that the actor repeatedly “violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety” and — despite his contentions — had to have pulled the trigger that released a live round from a prop gun, killing Hutchins and wounding the movie’s director.
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Prosecutors paint Alec Baldwin as reckless as ‘Rust’ trial opens
“You will see him using this gun as a pointer to point at people, to point at things. You will see him cock the hammer when he’s not supposed to cock the hammer. You will see him put his finger on the trigger when his finger’s not supposed to be on the trigger,” Johnson said.
Seated at the defense table, Baldwin barely looked at the prosecutor as she spoke. He took notes and sometimes rested his head on his hand. The actor’s wife, Hilaria; his brother Stephen; and his sister Elizabeth sat next to each other in the stands.
But Baldwin removed his black, thick-framed glasses and paid close attention when his own lawyer, Alex Spiro, argued in his opening statement that Baldwin’s behavior on set was typical of an actor, and that gun safety checks weren’t in his job description.
Events moved quickly on the first day of testimony in Baldwin’s trial for involuntary manslaughter, which could send him to prison for up to 18 months if jurors find him guilty. After opening statements, the jury viewed police lapel camera footage taken moments after the shooting, as emergency responders tended to Hutchins and Joel Souza, the injured director. In one chaotic scene, several people surrounded Hutchins, who was still alive at the time. “Deep breaths! Deep breaths!” a responder yells.
Here are the main arguments prosecutors and defense attorneys previewed on Day 2 of the trial:
Alec Baldwin recklessly handled the gun throughout the filming of ‘Rust,’ prosecution says.
Johnson called Baldwin “someone who played make-believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety” in her statement to jurors.
She spoke of how the actor asked to be given the “biggest gun available” for his role as Harland Rust — a main character in the film — before he arrived on set in October 2021. When he was supposed to have a training session, Johnson said, Baldwin was “running around shooting this gun” and failed to do a safety check with the film’s “young” and “inexperienced” armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was previously sentenced to 18 months in prison for her role in Hutchins’s death.
Prosecutors intend to show video during the trial of Baldwin’s behavior with the weapon — a .45 Colt revolver that was supposed to have been loaded only with dummy rounds.
On the day of the shooting, Baldwin continued to “do his own thing,” Johnson said, and violated several movie set safety rules.
Prosecutors had intended to also argue that, as one of the film’s producers, Baldwin had a special responsibility for on-set safety. But in a pretrial hearing Monday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled that line of argument to be irrelevant, in part because Baldwin was only one of the film’s producers.
The gun was in ‘perfect working condition’ ahead of the shooting, prosecution says.
Baldwin has maintained that he never pulled the gun’s trigger when it fired, raising the question of whether it malfunctioned when Hutchins and Souza were shot during a rehearsal on Oct. 21, 2021. But prosecutors say they will bring in witnesses who will speak to the gun being in “perfect working condition” and disprove the actor’s claim.
According to Johnson, representatives for the gun’s manufacturer, the distribution company and “Rust” ammunition supplier Seth Kenney all found the gun to be in “perfect working order” during inspections before it was brought onto the set of the low-budget western.
The gun was functioning properly when it was examined and tested by the FBI, Johnson added, and it was only damaged during a final test to determine whether the gun could accidentally discharge.
The defense says other crew members, not Baldwin, were responsible for gun safety.
Spiro argued that, “on a movie set, safety has to occur before the gun is placed in the actor’s hands.”
He said crew members, such as first assistant director Dave Halls and armorer Gutierrez-Reed — not actors such as Baldwin — were responsible for the set’s firearm safety protocols, or lack thereof.
“There was a real bullet, something that should never be on a movie set, something which has nothing to do with making a movie,” he said. “And you will hear no evidence — not one word — that Alec Baldwin had anything to do with that real bullet being brought onto that set.”
Baldwin’s scene practice on the day of the incident was being guided by Hutchins and Souza. Moments before the gun discharged, Halls had announced that it contained no live ammo by yelling, “Cold gun!” In the 911 call, the script supervisor explained that Hutchins and Souza were “accidentally shot” and that Halls was to blame.
While police and emergency medical services were on their way, “the cast and crew [were] outside trying to figure out what happened, frantic, talking to those responsible for … safety,” Spiro said. “The armorer’s yelling, ‘Sorry!’ Halls, the first assistant director’s panicked. … Sarah Zachry, the head of props, will tell you she threw some stuff out.”
Alec Baldwin’s job is to be a character, defense says.
Throughout his opening statement, Spiro asserted that Baldwin simply took the gun from those responsible for ensuring its safety and that gun safety checks were not part of his responsibilities as an actor.
Baldwin, in his some 40 years in the industry, hasn’t made a habit of checking his guns on set, Spiro said, and union guidelines for screen actors don’t call for them to carry out these checks.
“The actor’s job is to act, to rehearse, to choreograph his moves, to memorize his lines,” Spiro said. “ … His mind is somewhere else, in the being of another, a century away, an outlaw. He must be able to take that weapon and use it as the person he’s acting would: to wave it, to point it, to pull the trigger like actors do, in ways that would be lethal in the real world, but are not lethal on a movie set.”
Baldwin’s behavior was completely normal to others on set, too, he added: “Nobody fathomed, imagined, foresaw any possible danger,” Spiro added.
The jurors’ views on firearms could make a difference.
After 12 jurors and four alternates were chosen from among 70 prospective jurors on Tuesday, Santa Fe, N.M.-based lawyer John Day noted that the area’s demographics will be key to how jury members interpret the case.
“It’s going to be a clash of the gun culture here, where a lot of people were raised around guns and know gun safety and might be familiar with the concept that if you have a real gun, no matter who hands it to you, you’re responsible for what comes out of the other end of the barrel,” he said, “versus people who weren’t raised here or around hunting and guns, and therefore might be more amenable to the idea that a film set is not like real life, because, on a film set they’re telling you what to wear, they’re combing your hair, putting on your makeup, bringing you coffee and telling you where to stand. So, when somebody hands you a gun and says this is safe to use, why do you have any reason to doubt that?”