Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Actor Alec Baldwin Charged Again In Fatal Shooting of 'Rust' Cinematographer

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

A grand jury in New Mexico has returned an indictment charging Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 shooting death of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. A new set of prosecutors had dropped the charges in April 2023 citing the need for further investigation but had said the charges could be refiled. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with armorer Steve Wolf and former prosecutor Josh Ritter about why the new charge in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law & Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. It wasn't in the script for the trigger to be pulled. Well, the trigger wasn't pulled. I didn't pull the trigger. So you never pulled the trigger? No, no, no, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them, never. Despite that claim, actor Alec Baldwin has been charged again in the death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins on the set of Rust. Will the charges stick?

I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Monday and this is Crime Fix. Alec Baldwin had hoped his legal troubles in the Rust set shooting were behind him since charges had been dropped in April of last year because new prosecutors took over the case, at that time Baldwin's attorneys were, of course, happy about the announcement and encouraged a proper investigation. The new prosecutors in Santa Fe, New Mexico dropped the charges because they needed time to look into the case since a preliminary hearing was looming. They had experts reconstruct the Colt. 45 gun that Baldwin was holding that day since it had been broken during FBI testing. The indictment says several witnesses testified in front of the grand jury, including a cameraman and a man who worked on the set of Rust but quit

over safety concerns. This case started, of course, back on October 21st of 2021. Alec Baldwin was holding that Colt 45 revolver inside of a church and getting ready for a scene on the set of Rust. When he shot Helena Hutchins, the cinematographer, police body cameras captured the moments after the shooting. So my understanding, you were in the room when the lady went? I was the one holding the gun, yeah. Okay, all righty. What do you need? Well, I know your name, so it's... I want to be clear about something. Nobody, and I mean nobody, thinks that Alec Baldwin did this on purpose.

This was clearly an accident, and that's why he's charged with involuntary manslaughter. The indictment gives two alternatives, negligent use of a firearm and without due caution or circumspection. Baldwin has maintained he didn't pull the trigger and was told the gun was cold, meaning it wasn't loaded. This is all I know, and that is that I take the gun out in the rehearsal. He wants it very dramatic and very so I'm trying to sneak up on him. I take the gun out, and as it clears, as the barrel clears, I turn and cock the gun in the rehearsal. I turn and cock the gun. The gun goes off.

It's supposed to be a cold gun. Nothing. No flash charges, nothing. The first assistant director on the set, David Halls, is the person who handed the gun to Baldwin. Halls pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unsafe handling of a firearm. The film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to charges of tampering with evidence and involuntary manslaughter. Alec Baldwin has likely spent a small fortune on attorneys. He's selling an estate on Long Island

that he put on the market after the shooting. I bought this house back in 1995. I put this addition on on the eastern side of the property in 1996. That's a new video that he shot to sell this property. The asking price, $18,995,000. And that's actually a price cut. I've always loved it here. We've got all this open land here in reserve, the meadow in the front of my property. Today, People Magazine published an article saying that

sources close to Alec Baldwin and his wife say the refiling of the charges is stressful, especially after they had such a nice Christmas and New Year. Yes, they actually said that. With me to discuss this new indictment is Steve Wolf. He is an armorer and he's been with me on this case before. And Josh Ritter, a former prosecutor. Josh, I'll start with you, your reaction to these charges and the two alternatives that the prosecutors listed? I do find it shocking. I mean, I think mainly because of the history of this entire case, we've gone back and forth of the prosecution seeming to kind of the wheels come off of their investigation. They've had plenty of time to look into all of this, and yet they still, you know, dismiss charges, go back and charge him again,

and now they're pursuing things against their armor, and now they're finally coming back around to Baldwin. It is not a good look, but as far as the charges themselves, they are not all that shocking. This is what we would have expected. And you're right, they've charged him in the alternative, is what they call this. They've charged him with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, but it's essentially for the same conduct. And the reason why they did that is that they had to somehow give some underlying reason for why this is criminal and involuntary manslaughter. And one, it can be that there's an underlying crime. Here they feel that it was the negligent handling or use of that firearm is the underlying crime that then led

to her death, allowing them to charge him with involuntary manslaughter. The other is that they feel that he did not use due caution or circumspection, which is just kind of your typical use of involuntary manslaughter. And according to the indictment here, it says that an ordinary person would anticipate that death might occur under the circumstances that to me is where they're going to have their biggest problem how are they going to prove that an actor would feel that death is going to occur when they're handed a gun on a set a gun like they have been many many times in the past they're told that that gun is cold or safe and that they should anticipate that that should lead to someone's death, I think they got real problems with this case. But Josh, doesn't he have a responsibility,

even if he's told the gun is safe, to inspect that gun? I mean, anybody who's handled guns or taken a firearms class knows that you're never supposed to point it at somebody. Yes, he was told it was safe, but he still had it in his hands. You're absolutely right, except that this is different. If we were talking about a person on the street being handed a weapon, I think you could say, listen, they negligently handled it. They didn't check that it was safe. They should have known that this could be dangerous. But you're talking about an actor, which I think changes everything. An actor on a set where guns are going to be used on that set. We don't even know if this is the first time he was handed a gun on that set. He

could have been handed guns several times before while they were filming this and never had an issue with any of them or ever thought that the gun could possibly be loaded. So the jurors won't be asked the question, would a normal person have acted this way under the circumstances? They're going to be asked the question, would an actor, a seasoned actor on a set where guns are going to be used, have behaved this way under the circumstances? And I don't know if they can arrive at a conclusion that this was negligent. Steve, I know you have really strong feelings about this case, and we should mention that Steve actually was in discussions at one point with the former prosecutors on the case to possibly consult on the case. So we need to mention that,

full disclosure. Steve, are you surprised by the refiling of the charges? Because I think we talked about this last Aprilil and and you thought the charges might be refiled i personally thought maybe they would just lay it all on the armorer no i actually i pressed for the charges to be refiled and when i spoke with uh uh in email correspondence with the current prosecutor i told them that they were not on shaky ground to reintroduce these charges. The rules of firearm safety are not usually, most of the time, when you feel like it,

they're always a nevers. You always check the gun before you handle it. You never point the gun at anyone that you don't intend to injure. And Alec knew that. He described exactly what that process looked like when he'd worked on other sets and in fact in footage from the day before he's in a shootout scene and he says hey guys could you move to the left I want to make sure I'm not pointing the gun at you so he knew that you don't point guns at people even on movie sets this this was very clear and when we say you know he's an actor how can we expect him to be a firearms expert well

firearms expert in the case of movie set really only means that you know and observe four simple sentences if an actor can memorize 120 lines of dialogue for a movie, they can certainly master these four concepts. You don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot. You don't point guns at things you don't want to see a hole in. You know what your target is, and all guns are always loaded. So these are not, you know, something that requires, you know, PhD scientists to understand. When someone hands you a gun, once that gun is in your hand, you are legally responsible for what happens with it. So if you're not sure if it's empty or not, you ask somebody, you say, please show me, show me the rounds,

shake them. I want to know that I'm not pointing live ammo at somebody. And I'm personally convinced that if the scene had called for him to point the gun at his own head, you know, he would have done those things. So I don't see any validity in the excuses made for his conduct. You said that you pushed for the charges to be refiled in email correspondence, did you feel that the special prosecutors were wavering on this and thinking they might not refile the charges against Alec Baldwin? Yeah, they had said they might not. And I simply wanted to reassure them that if they decided to do that, you know, they were on firm ground to do so, that there was justification. One of the things that still concerns me, Steve, is how there was even live ammo on this set. Do you think we're any closer to figuring

out the answer to that question? I think it's irrelevant. I think that there's entropy in the world, right? Which means that there's propensity for things to go from high concentrations to low concentrations. That means there's places in the world where there's lots of ammo. There's places in the world where there's lots of ammo. There's places in the world where there's very little ammo. And as a result of entropy, those two borders cross. You should always assume that there's live ammo where you are. And that's why you check each round before you put it in the gun.

The reasons that there were live ammo could be multiple in this case one the provider of the ammo may have seasoned the ammo boxes inadvertently with live rounds or people may have been shooting the guns on set you know taking them backstage you know for firearms practice or just fun plinking but you always assume that that the rounds are live until you personally check them yourself. Just the same with the firearm. You presume that the firearm is loaded until you've personally checked it yourself. And none of those things were done. Josh, how do you go about defending Alec Baldwin in this case, because like it or not, you know, Alec Baldwin is a famous guy. He's he doesn't have the best reputation. OK, this was a horrible accident.

And we I think we all can understand that this was not done on purpose. But he doesn't have a reputation as being a very nice guy. I mean, his PR is a mess. And they even he and his wife, their publicist, I can tell their publicist leaked this to the to People magazine. There's a story out today saying, Oh, this is so stressful for them. And this is not how they wanted to start the new year. You know, they had such a nice Christmas is so tone deaf. So how do you defend this guy? Because this is a guy going into court, whether you like it or not, who doesn't have the best reputation. He's got a reputation as being a hothead. Yes, this was an accident. But he's going to have that kind of he's going to be up against

that. And then the fact that he's saying on tape, I didn't pull the trigger. And then the prosecution is going to have experts that say, yeah, no you're absolutely right he has been his worst enemy in this uh entire affair and it's because he can't keep his mouth shut about it i mean the comments about how this has been stressful or the least of his problems as you identified the biggest problem he's got to worry about is that he keeps on talking or he's made several statements, not on the record, but on tape saying that he did not pull that trigger. And it sounds like the prosecution, of all the evidence that they have, some of the most convincing might be that that gun could not have gone off without the trigger being pulled. That's going to become a major problem for him, not so much in the case itself, but in the fact that he adamantly denied it. And if the prosecution is able to get that in front of jurors, now you're not talking about a

person who is not only negligent, but a person who might've been lying about their negligence after the fact, and the jurors will not respond to that well. But I think what the defense part of me has to do is exactly what you said. Identify first and foremost, this is an accident. This is a tragedy. This is horrible. He never intended for any of this to happen. And you try to push this as much into the world of civil liability and civil negligence and not criminal negligence. Steve did a great job of outlining, I think, what the prosecution's case is going to be here. But what I would highlight as his defense team is that there's a big difference between civil negligence, people making mistakes, people not doing what they should have done, and therefore you're going to sue them and hold them responsible, and criminal negligence, which asks jurors to say that not only did that person make a mistake, but they were so grossly indifferent. They were so negligent. They so didn't have any regard for human life that they made the choices

that they did. And that's going to be a difficult argument to make. When I said this isn't a person on the street, this is an actor who's been handed a gun, told that that gun is cold, feels that he's participating on a movie set. Should he have looked? Possibly. But does that make it grossly negligent to the point of criminal conduct? And that's really where I feel the prosecution is going to have their most difficult argument to make. I took a firearms class a couple of years ago, and I just remember holding that firearm in my hand. It's heavy. Okay. This isn't like you have some play gun in your hand. And I feel like there's just this awesome responsibility

that each of us has when we are holding a firearm. I mean, you feel it. It's metal. Even if it's not loaded, I feel like just holding it in your hand makes you realize how important it is to be careful with that. So Steve, I want to say that and then go to you and ask, you know, they had the gun reconstructed by forensics experts. The FBI broke the gun when they were evaluating it and testing it. And now it's been reconstructed. And they're saying, yeah, he had to have pulled the trigger. This whole, I didn't pull the trigger is not going to fly. The trigger had to have been pulled. So your thoughts on that?

Yeah, the FBI and I both reached the same conclusion that the trigger had to have been pressed. The question really is, is it relevant that the trigger was pressed or not? And I don't think it was. Any piece of mechanical equipment is subject to failure. And that's why the rules of gun safety don't rely on the firearm condition. They rely on the firearms handler. So if you don't point a gun at someone, no mechanical failure can result

in a fatality. If you don't put live ammo in the gun, no mechanical failure can result in a fatality. If you don't put live ammo in the gun, no mechanical failure can result in a fatality. So these were procedural errors, not equipment errors. When you cast a piece of metal, it's parts, it's nickels and dimes of stuff. So you have to assume that the parts are gonna break. The question is, should the parts breaking have anything to do

with leading to a fatality? And that's no. And that's because you follow procedures that make sure that what you're doing makes sure that the gun can't hurt someone, not any intrinsic feature of the metallurgy of the gun itself. So, Josh, what is the next step here? We know that there won't be a preliminary hearing since the prosecutors went to a grand jury. Before, there was going to be a prelim. Now, there won't be because they took this route. There will be an arraignment. So what comes after the arraignment? You're right. They're kind of on a fast track now. Usually, we would be looking forward to a preliminary hearing, but now they've already had that probable cause hearing, what we call it. I imagine you're going to see all sorts of challenges legally to that indictment. You know, they might go back and say that they weren't properly instructed, that they weren't given all of the evidence. There's a duty on the prosecution to present some defense-friendly

evidence, exculpatory evidence, to try to be fair-minded in the way they present this to the grand jury. I'm sure they might attack that. Putting aside all of those arguments, you're going to have a lot of discussion about evidence and what's going to be included or not included at trial. But eventually, this thing is going to head toward trial. Unless he accepts some sort of plea, which is not outside of the realm of possibility, this thing is going to head toward trial. And I imagine sometime this year. Steve, any final thoughts? You know, I just think it's very important that we establish through this case. And I hate that, you know, we'd say, let's make an example here, but let's make an example here. Firearms are dangerous intrinsically. Their design is to have lethal consequence,

and special procedures have to be put in place and followed in order to prevent that intended design function from fulfilling its purpose. So if you don't want guns to hurt people, you have to take special precautions. Right now, you know, Alex Baldwin is responsible, in my opinion, for 50% of the fatalities that have occurred on sets as a result of firearms mishandling. The killing of Brandon Lee's son, Jason, being the other case in which a matter like this happened. So these things, you know, while they're very rare and procedures do work, they can happen, they do happen, and they do have lethal consequence. So the standard of care must be very high and it must be consistently very high without exception. It's when we break

those rules that we have these tragedies ensue. uh you know i hope the point is well driven that these are well-established procedures that when someone hands you a gun and says it's empty that means nothing unless the armorer handed you the gun and the armor had checked it themselves in this case that was not the case the gun was handed to alec by the ad the assistant director the assistant director is not an armorer the assistant director did not check the gun alec baldwin knew that this was not the armorer and he knew that you know pointing guns at people was dangerous so to have conducted you know something that he knew was dangerous you could see it in the footage from the day before where he says i don't want to point the gun at someone that's not safe and then to take the gun from someone that he knew

was not the armorer that he knew was not qualified to check the gun in my opinion you know was grossly negligent and skipped a major hurdle in the in the gun safety process we will we will see how it all turns out. Steve Wolf, Josh Ritter, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Angela. Thank you. And that's it for Crime Fix on this Monday, January 22nd, 2024. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks for being with us. We will see you back here tomorrow night. Until then, have a great night.