Alec Baldwin of The involuntary manslaughter charge was dismissed by a judge due to Santa Fe prosecutors’ mishandling of evidence, which the actor’s lawyers said hurt their efforts to mount a fair defense. 30 Stones And Hunting for Red October The star will now not have to appear in court for filming while making the Western TV series. rust ended the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured writer-director Joel Souza.
The blacksmith of the movie, Hannah Gutierrez Reedwas convicted in March of loading a live bullet into a gun Baldwin used during a rehearsal for a scene in October 2021. The film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, accepted a plea bargain to negligent use of a deadly weapon in January 2023. He was the one who gave Baldwin the gun that Gutierrez had loaded, and investigators said he declared it a “cold” weapon, implying it did not have live ammunition.
There is ongoing debate about Baldwin’s responsibility—or lack of responsibility—for Hutchins’ death, as the gunsmith was responsible for preparing the prop guns, and the assistant director was responsible for safety checks. (Significant misinformation about the case, including that crew members had used the prop guns for target practice, circulated online during the investigation, but the real bullet’s appearance on set turned out to be the result of Gutierrez Reed’s simple negligence, as her jury trial ultimately determined.) The actress’s role as a producer in rust further complicated the issue of responsibility; he said it was a title that involved only creative input, while others handled hiring and crew management. In a controversial interview with ABC News, Baldwin even denied pulling the trigger, which seemed suspicious to some viewers.
Charges were filed against him, then dropped, then refiled when experts changed their assessment of whether the gun could have fired on its own. Ultimately, prosecutors felt that the weapon could only have been fired through some action on Baldwin’s part, and they moved forward with charges against him—though the question of whether he should be blamed for the actions of others who put the deadly weapon in his hands remains up for debate. Vanity FairEvent Cascade’s own investigation into the case determined that there were multiple manufacturing defects that led to the fatal accident.
Baldwin’s trial began this week in Santa Fe, but before it could actually get underway, it ended abruptly Friday because an envelope filled with ammunition was provided to prosecutors by an associate of Gutierrez Reed’s father. Thell Reeda longtime firearms expert in the film industry. The exact nature of the bullets and their connection to the case remain unclear, but the fact that prosecutors mislabeled the objects and filed them under a different case number for trial was enough for Baldwin’s lawyers to ask that the case be dismissed, citing the alleged evidence as unworthy of review. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer agreed and dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled against him. Baldwin publicly wept in court after the decision.
Hutchins, 42, leaves behind a husband and young son. Her filming career was just starting to take off and she posted frequently on social media while she was working on it. rust about her passion for the western, in which Baldwin plays a skilled gunslinger determined to prevent the hanging of a young boy who accidentally kills a man with a gun in a morbid twist. Her husband, Matthew, reached a deal with the production company, making him an executive producer, and the film was eventually completed, with Souza returning to the emotionally charged project to finish their work.
A new cinematographer has been brought in to help complete the project, while preserving as much of Hutchins’ final work as possible. The film’s status—when it will be shown or released to the public—remains unclear.
