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 rehearsal of 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.
Matt Long, a former prosecutor specializing in gun and violent crime, says that even though Alec Baldwin could face up to 18 months in prison for his role in the fatal shooting on the Rust film set, ‘lifelong consequences’ could follow the actor.
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.
Prop or gun?
That discussion will likely continue to rear its head in the proceedings and already has made an impact.
“The narrow issue really is … is this firearm a prop, or is it a real gun,” Arizona trial attorney and former prosecutor Matthew Long told CBC News. “That really seems to be the the narrow question that both sides are focusing on.”
Long said that arguments will come out as the defence seeks to show Baldwin was acting with a reasonable amount of safety for an actor on a movie set. The prosecution, he said, has a higher bar to clear: that, despite being an actor who believed he was holding a prop, when Baldwin pointed the gun he had the same responsibilities as someone would off of a movie set.
“Their burden — and I think it’s an extremely challenging one to overcome — is in this context, was there a real risk of death, and did [Baldwin] willfully disregard that risk?” Long said. “And what the prosecutor’s essentially saying is, ‘Gun safety principles apply everywhere, including here.'”
On Wednesday, that debate began as 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.
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
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 co-producer and bore a special responsibility — beyond that of an actor —
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