The Trial Has Begun: Why Alec Baldwin Is Charged With Manslaughter

This week, the judgement of the actor Alec Baldwin who is charged with involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting on the set of rust .

In the legal proceedings taking place in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, the jury will have to decide whether the American star is guilty of the death of the film’s director of photography.

If convicted, Baldwin could face a Sentence of 18 months to prison and a fine of one million dollars.

The fatal accident in which the 66-year-old actor was involved dates back to October 21, 2021, while rehearsals for rust in an old church on Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico.

That afternoon, Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which his character was cornered in a chapel by two agents. That’s when he pulled out the prop gun, thinking it was a test round, but it was real. The rounds went straight into the chest of Halyna Hutchins Rust’s cinematographer, and also injured the film’s director, Joel Souza.

Although the filmmaker was taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital, she died from the gunshot wound.

This tragic episode has opened an intense debate about how the real bullet arrived on the set and has also triggered different investigations to clarify what happened. One of the allegations of Baldwin’s team was that the gunsmith rustHannah Gutierrez-Reed, failed to carry out the necessary checks to ensure the weapon was completely safe.

The interpreter of films like Beetlejuice and The Departed He also defended himself by saying that he did not know the Colt was loaded, that it fired by itself and that as an actor, it was not his responsibility to check if the weapons contained real ammunition.

In January 2023, the Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office charged Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed with involuntary manslaughter. In the actor’s case, the charges were dropped months later due to the strategy promoted by his lawyers.

However, in January of this year, a New Mexico jury indicted him again on two counts of involuntary manslaughter following Hutchins’ death. One of the charges was described in court documents as “reckless use of a firearm,” while the other as “an act committed with reckless disregard or indifference to the safety of others.”

In a court filing released in April this year, prosecutor Kari Morrisey said Baldwin’s inappropriate behavior influenced the tragedy and that he changed his story several times.

Furthermore, he added that by observing the actor’s behavior on the set of the film “It’s about witnessing a man who has absolutely no control over his own emotions and absolutely no concern for how his behavior affects those around him.”

During Monday’s preliminary hearing, the Hollywood star was seen wearing a dark suit, striped tie and glasses as she entered the New Mexico courthouse.

The judge, Mary Marlowe Sommer, has already ruled out taking into account Baldwin’s position as producer in Rust, which was an important detail in the strategy promoted by the prosecution.

The trial is expected to last around ten days.