Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ trial resumes with testimony as armorer called to stand

Court is back in session for the second day of Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter trial.

The prosecution’s fourth witness, crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, is back on the stand.

She is being cross-examined by the defense.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on the ‘Rust’ movie set who was convicted, is expected to testify on Friday morning.

Gutierrez-Reed will be transported from prison to the courthouse on Friday morning, Attorney Jason Bowles confirmed to Court TV as court resumed on Thursday.

Spectators crowded outside a Santa Fe courthouse this week for the start of Alec Baldwin’s high-profile trial.

While many were local, several others had driven from out of town to witness the spectacle.

Janelle Rogers, an Albuquerque resident who once appeared on “Better Call Saul,” held signs with a friend that read: “Justice for Halyna” on one side and “Safety on set! Is a must! No excuses!!” on the other side.

She criticized the film industry, saying, “There is no safety on set.”

“Safety is a must on set regardless of who you are or where you are,” Rogers told the New York Post.

“Halyna Hutchins shouldn’t have died.”

“I blame a lot of people for her death. It’s multiple people. Just because you’re an actor or not a producer, doesn’t mean you’re exempt,” Rogers said, adding that she believes his wife being at the trial is a publicity stunt promoting their new reality show.

A Rio Rancher resident drove an hour from her home to attend the trial. She had followed the trial of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed — who was sentenced to 18 months behind bars after she was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March.

“I watched the Gutierrez case,” Jarrell said. “[I’m] super excited it was in my home state. [I] drove about an hour to be here.”

She is advocating for stricter gun safety laws and justice for Hutchins.

Testimony resumes today in Alec Baldwin’s high-profile trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Court is expected to start at 10:30am ET.

On Wednesday, Attorney Gloria Allred sat in the front row of the courtroom audience, a reminder of Baldwin’s other legal difficulties.

Allred is representing “Rust” script supervisor Mamie Mitchell and Hutchins’ sister and parents in a civil lawsuit against Baldwin and other producers.

Allred said that from her observations in court, the jury appeared to be riveted by testimony and evidence including the police lapel camera video.

The prosecution told the jury during opening statements that Alec Baldwin routinely failed to do safety checks with the armorer on the set of “Rust.”

Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said Baldwin was filmed during his required gun safety training “running around, shooting his gun.”

She also said he “didn’t want to offend” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed by doing the safety checks that were required every time he was handed a gun.

“You will learn that one of the rounds in that revolver was a real round, and the evidence will show that Ms. Gutierrez then handed the gun to the defendant,” Johnson said.

“And what you will learn is that, once again, the defendant failed to do a gun safety check with this armorer.”

Defense attorney Alex Spiro said in opening statements Wednesday that the shooting of Hutchins was an “unspeakable tragedy but Alec Baldwin committed no crime.”

“You have to step back and remember what they were doing on a movie set. Movies and magic have always been closely associated… all over this country for many decades,” he said.

Spiro shifted attention to how a live bullet ever made its way to the Rust  movie set, insisting there was no evidence that Baldwin had anything to do with the bullet going into the gun.

“He was an actor, acting, playing the role of Harlan Rust,” he said. “An actor, playing a character, can act in ways that are lethal that just aren’t lethal on a movie set. These cardinal rules, they’re not cardinal rules on a movie set.”

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, a movie weapons armorer, received the maximum sentence of 18 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on a Western movie set.

A New Mexico judge found that Gutierrez-Reed’s recklessness amounted to a serious violent offense, while noting few indications of genuine remorse from the defendant since her conviction in March.

Prosecutors blame Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited, and for failing to follow basic gun-safety protocols .