Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial begins with differences over who’s responsible for safety on set

Opening arguments in Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial began on Wednesday with both sides focusing on questions of film set and gun safety — integral points that will continue to be examined throughout the case.

Speaking first, special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson told jurors in a Santa Fe, N.M., courtroom that Baldwin “violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety” on the set of Rust.

Baldwin, who starred in and co-produced the Western, was holding a gun that went off during a scene, striking and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 26, in October 2021. Director Joel Souza was also wounded when the gun went off.

Opening statements from Johnson and Baldwin’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, both dove into who was to blame for those agreed-upon facts.

Johnson’s statements touched on Baldwin’s alleged cavalier misuse of the gun in question, a general lack of safety on the film set and the claim that the gun would not have gone off without its trigger being pulled — something the actor has repeatedly denied. 

“The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin,” Johnson said.

Opposing views of who is responsible for safety

Spiro, in his opening comments to the jury, said “these cardinal rules, they’re not cardinal rules on a movie set” and argued that handling a weapon is a normal part of that particular workplace.

Spiro also alluded to two questions that will be a defining aspect of the trial: whether the gun — a replica of an 1873 revolver — malfunctioned and whether Baldwin intentionally pulled the trigger.

Spiro pushed back on Johnson’s arguments that subsequent tests found the gun was in good working order and focused on Baldwin’s role as an actor — a job whose responsibilities, Spiro argued, do not include ensuring the safety of weapons. 

“The evidence will show that on a movie set, safety has to occur before a gun is placed in an actor’s hand,” Spiro told the jury.

Armourer’s charges

That discussion will likely continue to rear its head in the proceedings and already has made an impact.

Spiro and Johnson disagreed over the culpability of the film’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in April. She is currently serving an 18-month sentence, though is appealing that verdict. 

Johnson argued that Baldwin failed to do a safety check with Gutierrez-Reed, and that meant it went unnoticed that the gun contained a live round instead of blanks.

She also highlighted the fact that because of the film’s tight budget, there were many inexperienced people on set, including Gutierrez-Reed, whom she described as “very young” and “inexperienced.”

It was Baldwin’s lack of concern for on-set safety protocols and an unwillingness to do a safety check with Gutierrez-Reed, because “he didn’t want to offend her,” that led to Hutchins’s death, Johnson said.

“The evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that like in many workplaces, there are people who act in a reckless manner and place other individuals in danger and act without due regard for the safety of others,” she said. “That, you will hear, was the defendant Alexander Baldwin.”

An actor’s sole job is to act, defence says

Spiro contended that while Hutchins’s death was an “unspeakable tragedy … Alec Baldwin committed no crime; he was an actor, acting.”

Earlier Wednesday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer agreed with the defence that Baldwin’s role as co-producer on Rust had no relevance to the case after Johnson tried, unsuccessfully, to argue that Baldwin was “keenly aware” of his safety obligations as a producer in an attempt to bolster an alternative theory of guilt beyond negligent use of a firearm. 

Spiro’s opening statements on Wednesday, which ran roughly 10 minutes longer than Johnson’s, focused on that distinction.

He said it was armourer Gutierrez-Reed who loaded the live round into the gun, and Baldwin did exactly what actors always do on the set of the film: handle a gun as directed once being told it is safe.   

“Never — the witnesses will tell you — in history is [that] something that an actor has done: intercepted a live bullet from a prop gun,” Spiro said. “No actor in history — no one could have imagined or expected an actor to do that.”

Shock waves in film industry

The shooting death of cinematographer Hutchins nearly three years ago sent shock waves through the film industry and led to one felony charge against Baldwin that could result in up to 18 months in prison.

Baldwin, the star of Beetlejuice, Glengarry Glen Ross and 30 Rock, has been a household name as an actor and public personality for more than three decades. He has pleaded not guilty. He entered the courtroom on Wednesday with a disposable coffee cup in his hand. His wife Hilaria Baldwin and brother, Stephen Baldwin, were seated close by in the audience, among relatives and friends of the defendant.

He sat surrounded by his lawyers, wearing a dark blue suit in the downtown Santa Fe courthouse a short drive from the movie-ranch setting of scenes from Rust.

The 16 jurors — 11 women and five men — come from a region with strong currents of gun ownership and safety informed by backcountry hunting. Four of the jurors will be deemed alternates while the other 12 deliberate once they get the case.

Prosecutors have two alternative standards for proving the charge. One is based on the negligent use of a firearm. The other is proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin acted with total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.

Testimony at trial will delve into shortcomings in a final safety check of the gun before Baldwin began rehearsing with it, as well as the mechanics of the weapon and whether it could have fired without a trigger pull. The live bullet that killed Hutchins also wounded director Joel Souza.