Alec Baldwin’s criminal trial for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film Rust began in New Mexico on July 10.
Baldwin, the 66-year-old actor known for his role in the sitcom 30 Rock and in numerous films, was charged with a single felony count of involuntary manslaughter for the October 2021 shooting. If convicted, he could face up to 18 months in prison.
Over the next two weeks, prosecutors will seek to convince the jury that Baldwin disregarded industry firearm safety guidelines when his gun fired at Halyna Hutchins while he rehearsed a scene on set. They will lean heavily on the characterisation of the Rust set as “chaotic” and Baldwin as “erratic”.
Baldwin has pleaded not guilty. He contends that the gun, which he did not know was loaded with live ammunition, fired accidentally and that he did not pull the trigger. He has sought to shift blame onto Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, an armourer who was convicted earlier this year at her own trial.
Here’s what to know about the case.
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How did the Rust shooting happen on set?
Baldwin was the star and producer of Rust, a low budget western movie being filmed at a ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico, on October 21, 2021.
During rehearsals inside a small church, he was practising drawing a revolver from a leather holster and pointing it towards the camera.
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The gun went off and a bullet fatally wounded Hutchins, the cinematographer. Joel Souza, the director, was injured but survived.
Who was to blame for the Rust set shooting?
The shooting of Hutchins shocked Hollywood and prompted questions about how live ammunition had ended up on a film set. Gutierrez-Reed, who oversaw weapons safety, was the subject of intense scrutiny.
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Baldwin insisted he was not to blame. He sat down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News in December 2021 and said he did not pull the trigger. “I would never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them, never,” Baldwin said. “Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
A year after the shooting Baldwin reached a settlement with Matthew Hutchins, the late cinematographer’s widow, and their son over a wrongful death lawsuit.
Mr Hutchins was made an executive producer of Rust, and it was announced that filming would resume. The movie was completed last year, though a release date is yet to be announced.
As various civil lawsuits made their way through the courts, prosecutors were mulling criminal prosecution. Gutierrez-Reed was charged with involuntary manslaughter while David Halls, the first assistant director on Rust, pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence.
Owing to his fame, however, most commentators were more interested in the fate of Baldwin, a star who has been a household name for decades and won some of the industry’s biggest awards. He said he had lost jobs because of the shooting and there are signs his family’s finances have been struggling amid years of legal costs.
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The actor was charged with involuntary manslaughter for a second time in January after prosecutors had earlier dropped the case. A key component of the trial will be his assertion that he did not pull the trigger. An FBI analysis of the weapon suggests that he did.
What to expect at Alec Baldwin’s trial
Baldwin has been on screen for more than three decades but viewers will see him in the new role of defendant when his televised trial gets under way this week.
It is unclear whether he will testify, though lawyers usually advise their clients against doing so.
Prosecutors have outlined their case in pre-trial court filings in which they accused him of acting recklessly on set and ignoring safety protocols. They say he “engaged in horseplay with the revolver” and fired a blank round at a crew member before Hutchins was killed.
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To witness his behaviour on set, they say, “is to witness a man who has absolutely no control of his own emotions and absolutely no concern for how his conduct affects those around him”.
It is further claimed that Baldwin continued to flout safety measures when filming on Rust resumed in Montana after the shooting. He “was insistent that he not be required to follow safety recommendations made by film set safety experts”, a filing said.
The key figures in the Rust shooting trial
Alec Baldwin
A Hollywood star who has been widely known to audiences since the 1980s, Baldwin is known for films including The Hunt for Red October and Glengarry Glen Ross, as well as for the Mission Impossible and Boss Baby franchises.
On television he starred in the sitcom 30 Rock, a role that won him Emmy awards and Golden Globes. He also won acclaim for his impersonation of Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live during the billionaire’s turbulent term as president.
His career has suffered since the Rust incident. His next stint on screen will come in the form of a reality TV show from the network TLC, featuring his life with his wife, Hilaria, and their eight children.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed
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Gutierrez-Reed was the stepdaughter of a veteran armourer but Rust was only her second feature film. She was 24 at time of the shooting.
Her trial began in February, with prosecutors alleging she oversaw a chaotic set where safety protocols were often ignored. The defence argued she had tried her best but owing to cost-cutting from producers she did not have the “proper time, resources and staffing”.
A jury convicted Gutierrez-Reed and the judge in the case, Mary Marlowe Sommer, sentenced her to 18 months behind bars, the maximum allowed. “You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon,” the judge said. “But for you, Ms Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother.”
Gutierrez-Reed is appealing against her conviction. “The jury has found me in part at fault for this godawful tragedy,” she said. “But that doesn’t make me a monster, that makes me human.”
Halyna Hutchins
Hutchins, 42, was known as a talented artist with whom colleagues were delighted to work.
According to her website, she grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle, where she was “surrounded by reindeer and nuclear submarines”. She studied at a university in Kyiv and graduated from the American Film Institute Conservatory in 2015.
Her mother, father and sister still live in Ukraine and they have filed a lawsuit against Baldwin.
David Halls
Halls, the first assistant director on Rust, is one of the three people who faced criminal charges in relation to the death of Hutchins.
He had worked on dozens of Hollywood films over a 30-year career but retired after being “rattled by guilt” over the Rust incident.
After his conviction on a misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon it emerged that Halls had been fired from a previous job after a gun went off on a set and wounded a member of the crew.
He testified during Gutierrez-Reed’s trial and said he wanted to tell the truth for the sake of the Hutchins family. “It’s important that the cast and the crew and producers of Rust know what happened,” he said. “And it’s important that the industry — the motion picture and television industry — knows what happened so that this never happens again.”
Joel Souza
Souza is the film-maker who wrote the screenplay for Rust as well as directing the movie.
He had previously worked on various smaller projects including his 2019 directorial debut Crown Vic, on which Baldwin served as a producer.
Souza, 51, was wounded by the same bullet that killed Hutchins. “There was an incredibly loud bang,” Souza recalled of the moment he was shot. “It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my shoulder, I remember that distinctly.”
Souza testified in Gutierrez-Reed’s trial that he moved in behind Hutchins for a closer look at the camera angle and never saw the gun that shot him. He is listed as a potential witness during Baldwin’s trial.
