Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Trial Begins as Prosecutors, Defense Spar Over Gun Safety Violations

The prosecution and defense disputed whether Alec Baldwin violated the “cardinal rules of firearm safety” during their opening statements in the actor’s involuntary manslaughter case in the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson opened the states case by saying: “When someone plays make-believe with a real gun, in a real-life workplace — and while playing make-believe with that gun, violates the cardinal rules of firearm safety — people’s lives are in danger, and someone could be killed.”

She then called the case “simple” and “straightforward,” arguing that the evidence would show that Baldwin “played make believe with a real gun, and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety.” 

Baldwin’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, called Hutchins’ death an “unspeakable tragedy” but claimed: “Alec Baldwin committed no crime. He was an actor acting, playing the role of Harland Rust. An actor playing a character can act in ways that are lethal, that aren’t just lethal on a movie set. These cardinal rules — they’re not cardinal rules on a movie set. And I don’t have to tell you much more about this because you’ve all seen gunfights in movies. And the reason that can happen is because safety is ensured before the actor.”

The case against Baldwin finally got underway three years after Hutchins was killed in an on-set accident on Oct. 21, 2021. The incident occurred when the prop gun Baldwin was using went off while the actor was rehearsing a scene with Hutchins and the film’s director, Joel Souza (who was also injured).

Baldwin, who’s pleaded not guilty to the involuntary manslaughter charge, has maintained that he never pulled or hand his finger on the trigger of the gun when it went off. Instead, he’s claimed that, during the rehearsal, he pulled the revolver’s hammer back without fully cocking the gun, and the weapon fired when he released the hammer.

In laying out the state’s case, Johnson told the jury that they would hear testimony from numerous people who would say the gun Baldwin was holding — a replica of an 1873 single-action revolver — was in working order by the time it reached him on the Rust set (witnesses include representatives for the manufacturer of the gun, Pietta Firearms, and the company that distributes Pietta’s wares in the U.S., EMF). Johnson also stressed that while the jury would frequently hear the term “prop gun” thrown around, they’d learn that a “prop gun is this real gun — it’s not a toy, it’s not made of rubber.”

Johnson went on to say that the jury would see footage of Baldwin firing the gun and it working “perfectly fine” on the Rust set. She also said there was video footage showing that firearm safety protocols were not followed: “You will see [Baldwin] using the gun as a pointer — to point at people, to point at things. You will see him cock the hammer when he’s not supposed to cock the hammer. You will see him put his finger on the trigger when his finger’s not supposed to be on the trigger. You will hear about numerous breaches of firearm safety with this defendant and his use of this firearm.”

And, Johnson said, the evidence would show that each time Baldwin handled the gun, he “did not do a safety check” with Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year and sentenced to 18 months in prison. 

Johnson told the jury that they would hear the reason Baldwin did not perform a safety check with the “inexperienced” Gutierrez-Reed was “because he didn’t want to offend her.”

When it was his turn to speak, Spiro cast blame for Hutchins’ death elsewhere, saying that there were others on the Rust set who were “responsible for ensuring the safety of the set and the firearm — those people failed in their duties.” In contrast, he said, Baldwin’s job, as an actor, was to act.

“That’s why the gun has to be safe before it gets into the actor’s hands,” Spiro said at one point.” His mind is somewhere else, in the being of another, a century away, an outlaw. He must be able to take that weapon and use it as the person he’s acting would. To wave it, to point it, to pull the trigger like actors do — in ways that would be lethal in the real world, but are not lethal on a movie set.”

He argued, instead, that the most “critical issue” was “how a real bullet got on a movie set,” where dummies and blanks (“fake inert bullets that look like real bullets,” as Spiro put it) are used for close-ups and action shots. “You will hear no evidence, not one word, that Alec Baldwin had anything to do with that real bullet being brought onto that set,” Spiro said.

A pivotal part of the defense’s argument centers around the moment when Baldwin was handed the firearm and the industry term “cold gun” was announced. “Meaning,” Spiro explained, “it had been checked, and double-checked, by those responsible to ensure the gun was safe. It was just a prop. They all thought it was just a prop and could do no harm.”

This story is developing…