Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ trial live: Opening statements begin in actor’s manslaughter case

Special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson has started her opening statement.

“When someone plays make believe, with a real gun. 

And that person disregards the Cardinal rule of gun safety… People die.”

Johnson says the budget on “Rust” was tight and crew was inexperienced.

Stephen Baldwin, the actor brother of Alec Baldwin, sits behind him in court on Wednesday.

Opening statements are expected to start shortly.

Court has resumed for a second day in Alec Baldwin’s trial in Santa Fe. A jury was selected on Tuesday.

Baldwin is in court and opening statements will begin shortly.

The proceedings can be livestreamed here:

Prosecutors say they’ll present evidence that Baldwin went “off script” and failed to follow basic industry standards for firearms safety when he pointed the firearm at Hutchins on October 21, 2021.

“At the end of the day, the prosecutor’s main theory is that this was a gun involved, and Baldwin had a gun in his hand, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a film set or hunting safety class, you’re responsible for what comes out of the end of the barrel,” said John Day, a Santa Fe-based defense attorney and former prosecutor.

Testimony at trial will delve into shortcomings in a final safety check of the gun before Baldwin began rehearsing with it, as well as the mechanics of the weapon and whether it could have fired without a trigger pull. The live bullet that killed Hutchins also wounded director Joel Souza.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys selected 16 jurors — 11 women and five men — on Tuesday, seating a jury from a region with strong currents of gun ownership and safety informed by backcountry hunting.

Four of the jurors will be deemed alternates while the other 12 deliberate once they get the case.

The shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, a 42-year-old rising star in her craft, nearly three years ago sent shock waves through the film industry and led to one felony charge against Baldwin that could result in up to 18 months in prison.

Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro probed prospective jurors on Tuesday for strong opinions about gun safety and asked whether a person must entirely take responsibility for whether a gun is loaded or may “rely on experts, does anybody have a problem with that?”

Most who answered said they always treat a gun as if it were loaded.

Opening statements in Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial are expected to begin today.

A jury was selected on Tuesday. The Hollywood actor arrived at the Santa Fe courthouse Tuesday morning with his wife Hilaria and their youngest child.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said the trial is only expected to last nine days.

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 .

Baldwin will bring with him an elite legal team of mostly New York-based attorneys, many of them Harvard Law graduates, from the firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.

Alex Spiro, a 41-year-old defense attorney who has represented Elon Musk, Megan Thee Stallion and other prominent figures and has become among the most sought-after lawyers in the country, will give aggressive cross-examination to the state’s witnesses.

The defense will try to show that it is not the job of an actor to make sure real rounds are not in his gun, a position strongly supported by Baldwin’s union, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Baldwin said in an interview with ABC News, and implied in interviews with authorities, that he never pulled the revolver’s trigger.

His lawyers will also attack the gun evidence, and the serious damage done to the revolver during an FBI test they say amounted to the destruction of evidence and left the defense no chance to examine it.

Firearms experts for the prosecution who testified at the Gutierrez-Reed trial are returning to the witness stand, over objections by Baldwin, to testify about his handling of the revolver and whether the gun was functioning properly.

And they may press witnesses over whether Hutchins received proper medical treatment between the shooting and the declaration of her death at a hospital.

On the day of the shooting in 2021, Alec Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which he was required to draw his weapon and aim it toward the camera.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed had prepared a trio of guns for use in the scene, including two guns that could not fire rounds, and a fully-operational replica of a Colt 45 revolver.

The armorer reportedly checked the weapons before placing them on a cart and making them available to Baldwin, according to court documents.

While discussing the scene, Baldwin was showing Hutchins, camera operator Reid Russell, and the film’s director, Joel Souza, how he intended to draw the firearm.

“So, I guess I’m gonna take this out, pull it, and go, ‘Bang!’” Baldwin reportedly said, according to a report by the LA Times.

At some point during his draw and explanation, the revolver fired. The bullet struck Halyna Hutchins in the chest, exited her body, and then hit Souza, who was behind her.

First responders transported Hutchins to a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, close to where the film was being shot. She was pronounced dead later that same day. Souza survived.

It was later discovered that a live round had been loaded into the pistol Baldwin used on set that day.