He was hunched over his phone, like someone bent in prayer... JAN MOIR sees Alec Baldwin make a surprise appearance at pre-trial hearing for 'Rust' film shooting
No one expected Alec Baldwin to turn up at pre-trial hearings on Monday morning, but just before 8am he stepped out of a Chevrolet Suburban with blacked out windows and headed into the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico, here in downtown Santa Fe.
Baldwin, 66, walked slowly up to the court doors, his recent hip operation leaving him with an impaired gait, his expression blank. He carried a bulky canvas tote in one hand and could have been a man returning his gardening books to a library instead of a man trying to save his name, his reputation, his career, the whole rest of his life.
Several camera crews filmed his every move, some of them from news organisations from around the world, some of them here in connection with various documentary projects about the tragedy — one of them even rumoured to be from Baldwin's own upcoming reality TLC series, The Baldwins, featuring his wife Hilaria and their seven young children.
Actor Alec Baldwin turned up at pre-trial hearings in Santa Fe on Monday morning
He is charged with involuntary manslaughter over the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021
'Oh, no. That would be totally insane. I just don't believe that,' said one local news anchor. It certainly seemed unlikely. But no one knew for sure.
Up on the third floor, past the District Attorney's Office and down the polished corridor from the Victims' Waiting Office, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer finally opened proceedings in State v Alexander Rae Baldwin, in which the Emmy award-winning actor is charged with involuntary manslaughter over the fatal shooting in 2021 of Halyna Hutchins, a cinematographer working on the set of his cowboy-themed film, Rust.
She died after being hit by a bullet from a gun held in Baldwin's hand while he was rehearsing a scene; a tragic moment that has been at the centre of a legal battle for more than three years.
Baldwin sat at the defence table on the left of the court, flanked by his quad of high-powered, expensively tailored New York attorneys. These included Alex Spiro, known as the A-list lawyer to the elite.
He riffled through a sheaf of photographs of the church where the fatal shooting took place, jiggled his knee, gave Baldwin a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
For the State, lead prosecutor Kari Morrissey and her team sat on the right, perhaps slightly more dishevelled than their sleek, groomed big-city adversaries.
Ms Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from a gun held in Baldwin's hand while he was rehearsing a scene
'Where does this plug in?' she asked no one in particular, holding a connecting cable.
After months – years! – of legal wrangling and several failed attempts by the defence to have the case dismissed, there is no love lost between the two sides. Even though they sat five feet apart throughout the all-day hearing, Spiro and Morrissey didn't look at each other once.
Arguments raged for hours, over arcane points of law, disputes about who was and who was not to be allowed on the witness list, the 'co-mingling' of live bullets with blank rounds and whether autopsy photographs would be admissible.
There was much discussion of 'predicate acts', of Mr Baldwin's earlier behaviour on the Rust set before the incident on October 21. 'Mr Baldwin is not a murderer on the 21st because he swore on the 16th,' argued his lawyer Luke Nikas.
The incident, which has been at the centre of a legal battle for more than three years, took place on the set of Baldwin's cowboy-themed film Rust
Both sides frequently accused the other of gaming the system and trying to gain a 'tactical advantage'. Sometimes it even got a little heated. 'You know that if the State had done this they would be screaming that we had sandbagged the defence,' was one confusing but plaintive cry. 'They just cut and pasted that!' was another.
Throughout all this Alec Baldwin sat with his fingers clasped together and his head slightly bowed. Sometimes he donned a pair of black rimmed glasses and made notes on a yellow legal notepad. He listened avidly as Judge Sommer laid down – well – the law among the warring teams.
'Every time you want to say something that is not a question to the witness, you are going to come up here to the bench. You don't get to do it from there,' she told Spiro. 'I am in charge here.'
On another occasion she told him; 'Could you just answer my question? You have already had your chance.' He did as he was told. 'We have come a long way to get here, all we want is a fair trial,' he said.
Pre-trial arguments are now over. Today a jury will be sworn in and tomorrow, the trial proper begins.
Here, in this windowless criminal courtroom, with its dowdy carpet and fading lemon walls that bear testament to decades of human despair, Alec Baldwin's fate will finally be decided.
During a court break I saw him out in the corridor, hunched over his phone like someone bent in prayer, tap-tap-tapping out a message.
