Prosecutors to Recharge Alec Baldwin
A bizarre miscarriage of justice.
Reuters (“Prosecutors to recharge Alec Baldwin for ‘Rust’ shooting“):
New Mexico prosecutors on Tuesday said they intended to recharge actor Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021.
Baldwin’s case will be brought before a grand jury in mid-November, special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said.
The move followed results of an independent forensic test that found Baldwin had to have pulled the trigger of a revolver he was rehearsing with for it to fire the live round that killed Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza.
The finding was the same as a previous FBI test on the firearm.
“After extensive investigation over the past several months, additional facts have come to light that we believe show Mr. Baldwin has criminal culpability in the death of Halyna Hutchins and the shooting of Joel Souza,” Morrissey and Jason Lewis said in a statement.
Baldwin has said he is not responsible for Hutchins’ death and he did not pull the trigger.
“It is unfortunate that a terrible tragedy has been turned into this misguided prosecution. We will answer any charges in court,” Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, lawyers for Baldwin, said in a statement.
The “30 Rock” actor was originally charged with involuntary manslaughter in January for Hutchins’ death, along with the movie’s chief weapons handler Hannah Gutierrez, who faces a 2024 trial.
The planned grand jury marked a setback for Baldwin after prosecutors dismissed charges against the actor in April after new evidence the gun he used might have been modified, allowing it to fire without the trigger being pulled.
Morrissey said if new testing of the gun showed it was working, she would recharge Baldwin.
Prosecutors often use grand juries as they are an easier means to prove probable cause and proceed to trial than filing a criminal complaint that can be probed by defense lawyers at a preliminary hearing, legal experts say.
As noted when he was charged the first time, there’s no rational theory of the case here. As an actor, Baldwin had essentially no responsibility for ensuring the safety of the set. The line producers and armorer failed to do their job and Baldwin was very much a victim of their negligence. That’s bolstered by comments from @EddieInCA and others.
I just don’t get why prosecutors are hell-bent on going after Baldwin here. It’s almost surely grandstanding but the purpose isn’t obvious to me.
Getting her name in the news is it’s own reward. I can see no other reason for it.
Well, he told them he didn’t pull the trigger and the forensic test says he did. I’m not saying there isn’t any grandstanding, however…
The standard for lab safety is for the person handling the instruments, chemicals, electrical equipment, etc. to be responsible for its safety. There are certain requirements that others provide a safe environment, like the building electrical system, and people handling dangerous objects must be trained by their supervisors, but if you’ve got it in hand, you’d damned well better do it safely.
Under those standards, Baldwin is culpable, perhaps in multiple ways, since he was also producer, I believe. And the lab standard has been sufficiently inclucated into me that it’s hard for me to say, yeah, I gave all the responsibility to this other person and they handed me a bottle of picric acid that, when I threw it on the floor, leveled the building.
@Cheryl Rofer: Seems to be you and me against the world. I haven’t handled a gun in decades. But were I to be handed one, or pick one up, I’d break the action to check if it was loaded. Drilled into me in Boy Scout marksmanship training by the time I was ten. Every link in the chain of safety is responsible
@Cheryl Rofer: @gVOR10: As @EddieInCA noted in the linked comments section, Baldwin wasn’t a producer in the sense of having responsibility for what was going on on set; he merely had creative input, presumably in connection with a financial investment or as inducement to participate in the small budget production. He was playing a character who was shooting another character. It was the responsibility of the armorer to ensure that it was safe to do so.
A chemist in a lab is a professional who is supposed to know how to use chemicals. An actor isn’t expected to be an expert in distinguishing a prop gun from a real one or a blank round from a live one.
@gVOR10: Just curious: could you tell from looking at them in the chamber if they were blanks or live rounds? As I understand it the gun was supposed to be loaded with blanks.
@James Joyner:
Like gVOR10, I would never shoot a gun unless I personally knew that it was safe. Especially if shooting it toward people. I recognize that all sorts of elaborate rationalizations can be cooked up about responsibility, but my personal ethics don’t allow me to pin that responsibility on someone else.
The problem here is the idea of “authenticity.” “We need a real gun because the others, even enhanced by appropriate sound editing, aren’t authentic enough.” Bullshit. 90% of the people watching the movie wouldn’t be able to tell, and the others can live with a tiny blip in their suspension of disbelief. The idea that a real gun is needed is part of the cult of guns.
@MarkedMan: The blank cartridges I’ve seen in the past had crimped tops instead of metal projectiles in them.
@James Joyner: Perish the thought that moralisers should actually take note of what actual industry specialists with actual in depth knowledge of the practices, paramters should be listened to and one shouldn’t posture over non-comparable non-relevant factoids.
Of course what EddieinCA etc has also been noted elsewhere, and given overall industry track record of hundreds of productions with such, one has actual data.
@MarkedMan: I don’t claim any great expertise, but yes, live rounds have visible bullets, blanks are cropped or plugged. In a revolver you can just look at the front face of the cylinder without even breaking it and see a bullet or not.
I generally don’t engage in argumentative threads. I feel like what I said can stand or fall on its own. I likely won’t re-engage on this subject.
@Cheryl Rofer:
Sorry. You could not be more wrong. I’ve been in film and televisó for 35+ years and have overseen many “shootouts” on sets. You could not be more wrong.
Alec Baldwin is the LEAST responsible person involved in this tragedy.
I’ll refrain from posting further because it’s too difficult últ to explain to people repeatedly how and why they’re SO wrong.
@EddieInCA: understandable, but in lighter sense, is this your covfefe?
@EddieInCA:
I’m with Eddie here. Gun protocols on film sets has been developed over the long history of the industry. The protocols have been developed, tested, used successfully time and time again in the confines of that industry. The protocol places the responsibility on the armorer and their staff and very specifically not on the actor.
Yes this is counter to the normal protocols of gun safety that many are quoting here. The reason for those protocols in the film industry is precisely to take the actors and other technicians out of the chain of responsibility so when the armorer says it’s safe they don’t have to break concentration to doubt themselves or worse do something that might break that chain and slow down production.
Yes in normal actual life the is that you treat every gun as if it’s loaded. The problem is that for most of the long history of the cinema, actors have had to do just the opposite, point loaded guns at other people and pull the trigger (abet loaded with blanks).
So we are talking about personal gun safety and gun safety on a movie set. Two different animals. Having said that productions are largely moving away from live blanks in favor of adding effects in post production but from time to time live blanks are still used for various reasons. I mean the military has different standards of gun safety especially in or out of combat zones were clearing barrels in front of placed were people gather are pretty common. You never see that in Texas or anywhere else in civilian life even if it a really good idea for people who carry guns.
Shouldn’t have lied about pulling the trigger, I suppose. Nevertheless he had no reason to suspect he had been handed a real gun with real bullets. It’s on a par with someone being handed a squirt gun at a summer party would have no expectation it was loaded with sulfuric acid.
Can’t help but suspect there are some aspiring politicians in the DAs office responding to MAGA outrage over Baldwin’s treason of mocking their Dear Leader on SNL behind this.
@dazedandconfused: He may very simply not have believed he pulled the trigger post-incident (if he did), and thus not a lie as such. Further as I recall from some reading it is not entirely certain in fact the gun did not go off sans pull.
(why am I doing this?)
I have not followed this situation. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have any legal wisdom or special info to offer. I do raise two points for consideration wrt “Why are the special prosecutors doing this?”
1) Halyna Hutchins (the person who was shot and killed) surely has a family. It seems possible that they are advocating for prosecution. Doesn’t mean they’re right, just that it wouldn’t surprise me if this carried some weight with the prosecutors.
2) Are the prosecutors grandstanding and/or making an example out of a known Trump critic (Alex Baldwin)? Possibly. Though the second point re Trump seems at odds with their professional histories:
Didn’t follow the process of the investigation after I read Eddie in LA’s original comments on the event* but if the charge was dropped or dismissed without prejudice, the prosecution can claim they’ve never had “their bite at the apple” if you will.
Whether they should claim that I will leave to others to decide.
*I thought he pretty well nailed the chain of consequence, and consequences at the time.
He may not have lied at all. In the shock of the gun going off his brain may have shut down. One time my wife suddenly decided to park in one of our hollers (fortunately a tree caught her about 30 feet down, if not she could’ve gone the full 100 feet to the bottom). She was in shock and had no idea of what had happened or how. They almost sent her to the hospital for fear of a concussion.
I would not be in the least surprised if that is what happened to Baldwin.
@OzarkHillbilly: It may have had a hair trigger for the ease of simulating quick firing. I think it likely a dummy-gun would be set up that way and he would be unsure if he had triggered it or not.
@Rick DeMent:
This. Is. Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.
It is essentially the “Hey, I’m an artist, man” defense. It is saying that actors are such special beings that they are exempt from the standards that the rest of the world lives by. If members of the military (whose core job it is to handle weapons) can be held liable for mishandling firearms then actors (for whom it isn’t their core job) can be as well.
Besides, even if we take this stupid argument to its logical conclusion, Baldwin is still guilty of gross negligence that caused the death of a human being. Namely, trusting the work of an incompetent armorer. Before pulling that trigger, he should have verified that the person loading that gun was actually competent to do the job. I don’t know what alternate universe you live in, but here in Dimension Prime we have a name for that particular crime, which is manslaughter.
@Jay: Your response is really the bullshit, as a massive red herring and mischarecterisation.
First of course, artist has nothing to do with it versus a specific industry safety practice and standards that by a huge number of productions over decades clearly works perfectly well in safety terms (one can be so confident given the large number of productions and the non-deaths over a long period of time).
Ad hoc ill informed judgements resemble rather like the foolish nonsense of people making Government fiscal judgement on say debt based on what makes sense for a household or a single natural person. Apples to croissants type comparisons made out of functional ignorance (one can see such things in naive comment on industrial processes of course).
Second, the concept that Baldwin (bloody hell I don’t even like the guy, but for God’s sake irrationality…) as an invidual not charged with the hiring screening is rationally or reasonably charged with judging the competence of the armourer is just ridiculous, incoherent and above all non-actionable.
The alternative universe Mr Californie is the one of actual industry expertise, versus blog commenting of course.
I can’t believe this is an actual discussion.
Assume a gun is loaded until you personally verify otherwise.
“Being an actor” doesn’t absolve a person of the responsibility of ejecting the mag and clearing the chamber and locking the slide.. or, in this case, working the cylinder latch, clearing the cylinder, and leaving the cylinder open. This should be drilled until you can do it without thinking —- so that, as has been said above, the actor doesn’t have to “break character” to do it because they know it cold. Alec had months between getting the script and going on set to learn this.. no excuses.
If someone wrote a script in which a character is running around shooting folk… if that person doesn’t also know gun safety that person is dead at 16 if not earlier. Fun how all the second amendment yahoos conveniently forget that life in the Old West meant giving up your gun at the edge of town.. and if you had feelings about that, good luck drawing on the sheriff.
This set had various crew members using these same guns for familyblogging live target practice under an hour before the attempted filming started.. AND had multiple ignored complaints about the same practices [gun fired w live rounds then loaded w blanks and improper safety procedure used to bring the improperly cleared live gun onto the set] in the previous days. Yes, the armorer of course has a role — but unmentioned in this discussion is Alec’s role in PERMITTING the live round usage stupidity to continue for literally weeks after he was first notified.
@Lounsbury:
Blah, blah, industry standards, blah blah, actors breaking character, blah, blah, hiring screening, blah. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
If you pick up the gun you are responsible for what comes out the other end of the gun. It is as simple and as complicated as that. You don’t get a free pass just because movie studio, actor, industry standard, bullshit…
@Jay: who was charged when Brandon Lee was killed under the same circumstances? Here… I’ll help; not the actor that pulled the trigger.
@Thomm:
Blah blah, something else that looked the same but was different happened 30 years ago so something something blah blah blah. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
If you pick up the gun you own the gun and the outcomes arising from the gun. It’s all about basic responsibility. Why is that so hard to understand or unreasonable?