US Edition
Alec Baldwin was playing “make-believe with a real gun” when he shot and killed a cinematographer on the film set of a western, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
The Hollywood actor is on trial for involuntary manslaughter after Halyna Hutchins was shot dead during the filming of Rust in 2021.
In opening statements in a courtroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the prosecution said Baldwin asked for the “biggest gun” he could get and asked someone to film him “running around shooting” during a training session.
His defence lawyers insisted that Baldwin was just “an actor, acting”, and that responsibility for gun safety on the set of Rust lay with other members of the crew.
Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson accused the 66-year-old actor, who faces up to 18 months in prison if found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, of violating the “cardinal rules of firearm safety”.
In her statement to the court, she said he had repeatedly failed to conduct safety checks with the armourer – including on the day of the fatal shooting.
“When someone plays make-believe with a real gun in a real-life workplace and while playing make believe with that gun, violates the cardinal rules of firearm safety, peoples’ lives are endangered, and someone could be killed,” Ms Johnson said.
She continued: “The evidence you will see will paint a real-life picture of a real-life workplace where this defendant mishandled this gun.
“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.
“You will hear about numerous breaches of firearm safety with this defendant and this use of this firearm.”
Defence lawyer Alex Spiro countered that Baldwin – who took notes or looked away during the prosecution’s statement – could not be accused of violating rules that would not apply to actors on a film set.
“He was an actor, acting, playing the role of Harlan Rust,” he said, referring to Baldwin’s outlaw character.
“An actor, playing a character, can act in ways that are lethal that just aren’t lethal on a movie set. These cardinal rules, they’re not cardinal rules on a movie set.” Mr Spiro added: “You’ve all seen gun fights in movies.”
The defence said the responsibility for the gun lay with the film’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who loaded the live round into the gun and has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and assistant director Dave Halls, who failed to inspect the gun properly and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanour charge last year.
Mr Halls handed Baldwin what he said was a “cold gun” – meaning it did not contain a live round – while they were rehearsing the scene that led to the death of Hutchins.
“Cold guns can’t hurt people. It’s impossible. Literally impossible for a cold gun to hurt somebody,” Mr Spiro said, adding: “You don’t need to worry even about eye gear or ear plugs for that fake bang.”
Baldwin insists he cocked the hammer on the gun but did not pull the trigger when the fatal shot was fired. The prosecution claimed this was impossible, citing testing by an FBI forensic expert that did not show any defects with the Colt. 45 revolver.
Mr Spiro claimed it was impossible to establish the state of the gun because it had been broken during the test, and downplayed the relevance of the argument.
“Even if [Baldwin] intentionally pulled the trigger like the prosecutor just demonstrated, that doesn’t make him guilty of homicide,” he said.
“None of it speaks to whether Alec knew or should have known those things. He didn’t. No one on that set did. It was not foreseeable,” he said. “Actors don’t check the weapons. Safety is ensured by dedicated personnel.”
He signalled that members of the Rust crew would give evidence on behalf of Baldwin, and that none of them had known how the live round made its way into the prop gun.
The first witness to give evidence was Nicholas LeFleur, a deputy with the local sheriff’s office, who responded to the shooting and whose bodycam footage, played to the jury, showed the attempts to save Hutchins’s life.
A medic could be heard asking the cinematographer if she could open her eyes after she was taken off the set on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.
Under questioning by the prosecution, Mr Lefleur said members of the crew, including Baldwin, had disregarded his request not to talk to each other, potentially tainting their recollections.
State prosecutors charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in January 2022. They dropped charges three months later after Baldwin’s lawyers presented photographic evidence the gun was modified, arguing it would fire more easily, bolstering the actor’s accidental discharge argument.
Prosecutors called a grand jury to reinstate the charge in January after an independent firearms expert confirmed the 2022 FBI study.
