Actor Alec Baldwin on trial for manslaughter

The trial is expected to last around ten days in a court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the southwest of the United States, in order to dissect this drama which dates back to October 2021 and for which the 66-year-old actor risks up to 18 months in prison.

His defense team tried everything to get his trial overturned, in vain: Alec Baldwin will be tried from Tuesday for involuntary manslaughter, after the fatal shooting that cost the life of the director of photography of his western Rust.

The star had pointed a gun on set that was supposed to contain only blanks, but a real projectile from it killed director of photography Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza.

The rare incident, which occurred on a New Mexico ranch, shocked Hollywood and sparked calls to ban firearms on sets.

The film’s gunsmith, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was already sentenced to 18 months in prison in April for her role in the case. She is appealing the sentence. She was the one who placed the bullet in the replica of the period pistol at the center of the case. Prosecutors have criticized her extreme negligence, which has led to “constant security failures” on set. Inexperienced, the young woman left the weapons unattended and did not check that the blanks were actually fakes, in defiance of film industry protocols.

But the prosecution never established how live ammunition – which is in principle prohibited – ended up on the set. The investigation, however, condemned Alec Baldwin, who was accused of having behaved erratically during filming. “Mr. Baldwin’s pressure on the crew on the set regularly compromised safety,” prosecutors summarized in court documents, denouncing a comedian who “screamed regularly” on everyone and wanted to finish the film faster. He was also a producer of this tight-budget feature film, but the prosecution is only pursuing him as an actor in this case.

Mr. Baldwin, who was handed the gun by the assistant director and assured him it was harmless, has always denied pulling the trigger. A version considered to be “absurd at first sight” by the prosecution, because an FBI expert concluded that the gun could not have fired without the trigger being pulled.

The prosecution believes that the actor “lied blatantly about his behavior” on set, changing his version to avoid any liability.

The actor’s defense disputes the FBI’s expertise, because the federal police damaged certain parts of the gun while carrying out tests to explore the possibility of an accidental shot.

His lawyers tried to have the trial dismissed on that ground, and also raised several other mistrials. But Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer rejected all of their motions in late June. The defense has not shown that the prosecution would have “acted in bad faith by destroying certain internal components of the firearm”, said the magistrate, ordering the trial to continue.

Its outcome will be closely watched by Hollywood, where the actors’ union fears the case could set a historic precedent.

“An actor’s job is not to be an expert on weapons or firearms,” SAG-AFTRA argued in January. “Firearms are provided for use on set under the direction of several expert professionals directly responsible for the safe and accurate use of that firearm.”

Since the tragedy, filming of Rust was completed in Montana but the film has yet to be released. Halyna Hutchins’ widower Matthew has been promoted to executive producer. He settled the civil lawsuit against Alec Baldwin in an undisclosed settlement and blamed his wife’s death on a “terrible accident”.