Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Alec Baldwin Fights To Get Case Tossed in Deadly 'Rust' Movie Shooting

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Alec Baldwin's trial for the shooting death of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins is scheduled to begin in July. Baldwin has asked Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to dismiss the case against him in several motions. In his most recent request, Baldwin argues that involuntary manslaughter charge should be dismissed because the revolver he shot Hutchins with was destroyed during testing. Judge Sommer recently heard other arguments related to the upcoming trial. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy breaks down the latest hearing in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee 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 and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. What they have alleged here is not a crime. You cannot be guilty of involuntary manslaughter if you had no awareness of the substantial risk that what you were doing could harm people. And in the case of a gun, in this very unusual case of a prop on a movie set where everyone, according to the state, believed it was empty, you cannot satisfy the mens rea for involuntary manslaughter. Alec Baldwin's lawyers battle with prosecutors as they ask the judge to throw out the case against him in the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the set of Rust.

Mr. Baldwin knew he had a real gun in his hand. Mr. Baldwin specifically asked for the biggest gun that was available. I have the details on the fight over the testimony and the charge as the July trial date nears. I'm Anjanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. Alec Baldwin's trial on that involuntary manslaughter charge is scheduled to begin next month in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Baldwin faces an involuntary manslaughter charge for the shooting death of cinematographer Helena Hutchins on the set of Rust back in October of 2021. Alec Baldwin contends this shooting was a horrific accident, and no one is saying that he shot

Helena Hutchins intentionally. I want to be a hundred percent, a thousand percent clear on that point. Alex Baldwin's argument is that he's not criminally responsible for shooting and killing Helena Hutchins. He has said for nearly two years now that the gun just went off, that he didn't pull the trigger. 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. And Baldwin has also said that he was told the gun was cold, as I mentioned earlier,

meaning that it was safe. I'm handed a gun and someone declares, they said, this is a cold gun. Dave Halls? The first day, Dave. In the lead up to Baldwin's trial, armor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for her role in the shooting. She was ultimately responsible for ensuring the weapons on the set were safe and that all rounds are accounted for and that there weren't live rounds on the set

or in the gun, of course. We find the defendant, Hannah Gutierrez, guilty of involuntary manslaughter as charged in count one. I want to take a second to tell you about a great app that I've tried that will give you cash back on things like gas and food. It's called Upside. It's not a confusing rewards or points system. Upside gives you real money back that can go straight into your bank account or onto a gift card. When I pump gas or order takeout, I always check Upside for the best deals. Why not get cash back when you fill up your tank? Here's how it works. Download Upside and look at the offers. When you find one, claim it and then pay with your debit or credit card. I've used Upside to get cash back on gas and pizza.

I got almost nine bucks back total on both. You can't beat that. Upside works at many popular gas stations and restaurants, including 7-Eleven and even Chipotle. To find out how much you could earn, click the link in the description or scan the QR code on your screen and use the promo code CRIMEFIX to get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. That's promo code CRIMEFIX for an extra 25 cents back on your first tank of gas. The special prosecutors in the case wanted to call Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to testify in Alec Baldwin's trial, and they wanted to offer her use immunity, meaning her testimony, her own words, couldn't be used against her. Special Prosecutor Carrie Morrissey said the reason they did this was because Alec Baldwin listed Gutierrez-Reed as a witness that they

might call. We interviewed her. Mr. Bowles instructed Ms. Gutierrez to assert her Fifth Amendment privilege when questions were posed to her that didn't really trigger her Fifth Amendment privilege. The state is not seeking information from Ms. Gutierrez about her criminal conduct. The state is seeking information from Ms. Gutierrez about the criminal conduct of Mr. Baldwin. The court can see from the transcript of the interview, at one point, Ms. Gutierrez just asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege without the assistant attorney. And when I mentioned to Mr. Bowles, I said, you're not really advising her to assert her fifth. She's just doing it on her own. And he said, well, I think she can do that.

So we have Ms. Gutierrez, who doesn't understand the circumstances in which she gets to assert her Fifth Amendment privilege, just asserting it and her attorney not counseling her on that. So the bottom line is it took a long time to schedule the pretrial interview. That's the fault of Mr. Baldwin's counsel and Ms. Gutierrez's counsel, not ours. They listed her, I believe, initially on April 19th. We requested her pretrial interview on April 21st. We didn't create any delay at all. Her interview was scheduled, and Mr. Bowles did exactly what Mr. Baldwin's counsel wanted him to do, which was just have her assert the fifth to everything, because they don't want her to testify. She is listed on their witness list, and they presented her for a pretrial interview, but they don't want her to testify.

They want to get her statements in as exceptions. The defense, of course, opposed the prosecution's request that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed be granted immunity and forced to testify. Yes, Your Honor. So I will be brief. The issue that we have is with respect to the prejudice due to the timing of the state's request for use immunity. As the state has noted, Ms. Gutierrez-Reed was actually on the state's witness list as far back as February. She was also on the defense witness list. And, you know, the state could have made this application months ago because the situation is that Ms. Gutierrez-Reed

did not testify in her own trial. And so there were no new statements that were available to the state after the trial that were not already available to the state for the past nearly three years. So they were aware of the situation. In the end, Judge Sommer denied the state's motion. Court makes the following ruling to be followed up by an order of the court to be filed next week. The state denies the state's amended opposed expedited motion for use immunity for Hannah Gutierrez. It's pretty clear that she does not intend to cooperate. The court may grant use immunity pursuant to Rule 5116 if the court finds the testimony may be necessary to the public interest and the person has refused or is likely to refuse to testify.

So it's really the public interest portion that I'm going to address because she has indicated that she won't testify. You've indicated that she possesses information about what she already told the investigators. I don't think that there is anything that, I mean, I haven't heard of anything that she might testify to that someone else could not testify to even about her observations. Alec Baldwin has said from the very beginning that he didn't commit a crime and his team had asked Judge Summer to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge arguing that the state failed to state that Baldwin actually committed a crime. We have moved under Rule 5601D to dismiss the indictment for failure to state a crime. And our submission, Your Honor, is pretty simple. Under State v. Henley, which is the New Mexico Supreme Court's authoritative construction

of the involuntary manslaughter statute, that's at 2010 NMSC 39. In order to convict a defendant of involuntary manslaughter under New Mexico law, the state must establish the defendant's subjective awareness of a substantial risk that his or her actions could cause harm to another person. It's a subjective standard. It differs in that respect from certain other recklessness offenses under New Mexico law. Prosecutors argue that Alec Baldwin most certainly knew there was a risk that his actions could harm another person.

The circumstantial evidence that the state intends to present that goes squarely to this issue is Mr. Baldwin knew he had a real gun in his hand. Mr. Baldwin knew and understood that dummy rounds look identical to live ammunition. That's the foundation. So before Mr. Baldwin has ever even encountered training by Ms. Gutierrez, that's where we are. He then arrives to his training with Ms. Gutierrez and doesn't pay attention. Not only did Ms. Gutierrez indicate that he didn't pay attention, Ms. Zachary actually took a video of him not paying attention. And it's one of the exhibits that will be used in the destruction of evidence motion later today. So he decided not to pay attention during his training.

Now, if you ask me, making this motion was a long shot for the defense, but they had to do it. The court denies the full and font motion of the defense, but they had to do it. The court denies the full and font motion of the defense. The court finds that, first of all, there does exist disputed facts before the court that are not capable of dismissal as a matter of law. The disputed facts are probably before the jury. The involuntary manslaughter talks about the defendant should have known of the danger and i think that's really at the core of of um what what is argued that mr bash is saying there's no way he he could have known so there's no way he should have known and ms morrissey is saying here are here is some circumstantial evidence as to how or why mr baldwin should have known. With respect to the inconsistent theories of prosecution, you didn't really bear that out. I don't think you've met your burden. Now the defense wasn't done trying to get the case against Alec Baldwin thrown out.

They argued that because the gun that killed Helena Hutchins had been destroyed during testing and they didn't have a chance to examine the gun before it had been destroyed, that the charges shouldn't stand. Santa Fe Sheriff's Office Corporal Alexandra Hancock explained why she ordered the accidental discharge testing. Excuse me, Corporal Hancock, we were talking about the statements provided by Mr. Sneasby and his observation, did he also indicate whether or not he saw Mr. Baldwin pull the trigger? Yes, he did say that he observed Mr. Baldwin unhook the weapon, point it, and then pull the trigger. Hancock had also interviewed Alec Baldwin. When you interviewed Mr. Baldwin on October 21st, 2021, did he tell you that he did not pull the trigger? He, I don't believe he stated one way or the other in regards to pulling the trigger. Did he use any terminology when he was describing what happened right before the shooting or

when the shooting occurred? I'm sorry, can you ask that again? Did he explain to you how the shooting occurred? I think the statement that he made was that the gun just went banged or just went off. I'm sorry. I don't know the exact words, but something to that extent. Did you interpret Mr. Baldwin's statement that the gun went off to mean that the gun was modified or altered in any way? No. Did you interpret that to mean that he did not pull the trigger? No. Now, as you saw earlier, Alec Baldwin famously told ABC News that he didn't pull the trigger and that the gun simply went off. So Hancock ordered the testing to see if that was even

possible. Alec Baldwin's attorney cross-examined Corporal Hancock on what other witnesses to the shooting had told her. But in terms of this concept of whether or not there could have been a malfunction, and this is your word, the word malfunction, Mr. Adiago had told you that from his vantage point the gun had just gone off, right? I don't know his specific wording. Duran Curtin had told you the gun had just gone off right i i don't know his specific wording duran curtain had told you the gun had just gone off right i don't recall interviewing either of those two people so well when you were talking to the prosecutor you used information that not only you yourself learned but that you had learned during the course of the investigation corporal don't you know that the

witnesses the night of the shooting pretty much uniformly said that the gun just went off that's potentially but your statement was that they told me that they did not tell me that so let me withdraw the you that okay uh again that's when you were testifying on direct and you were saying how you recovered the weapon, there didn't seem to be an issue, but that's fine. You understand from your viewing police paperwork that the witnesses that were interviewed the night of the 21st indicated that the gun just went off, true? If that's what they said, I don't know their exact statement. An FBI firearms examiner also testified about testing the revolver and how much force was actually required to pull the trigger. So in my note taking and during my exam, I measured that amount of force to be between

two and two and a half pounds. And what does that mean? Can you elaborate? Well, does it mean that it would take two and a half, two to two and a half pounds of force to pull that trigger? Somewhere in between those values, yes. Would that be considered what people call a hair trigger? I personally would not consider that to be a hair trigger.

When I think of a hair trigger, I think of either very high performance hunting rifles, things of that nature, where the amount of force on the trigger, I don't have a specific number for you, but it's extremely light where you just barely have to touch the trigger to fire the firearm. It's typically you see them in hunting rifles. Alex Spiro questioned that FBI firearms examiner on cross-examination about whether he examined the guts of the gun before performing the accidental discharge testing. Is it possible to know just by physically looking at a gun whether or not it's capable of malfunctioning? I would say no. And even if you've test fired in your laboratory in the little water bucket a bunch of times

in that sort of stabilized environment, just because that works and there's not a catastrophic explosion of the gun or something like that, that doesn't mean that it's impossible that there's a malfunction, does it? That's correct. I can only tell you that it functioned normally during my testing. And you didn't at that point, before you went into the accidental testing that led to the destruction of the firearm, you didn't disassemble and look at the inside of the gun, did you? No, at that point, there was no reason for me to do so. Well, nobody asked you to. That's correct, but I also did not see anything that would give me cause to do so. And not only did you not disassemble it,

but you obviously didn't disassemble it and take photographs or video of the inside, true? Prior to the accidental discharge testing? Right. That's correct. I did not do that. And finally, firearms expert Luke Haig testified. Mr. Haig, just to orient the court, you agree that the testing that the FBI and Mr. Ziegler did, the destructive accidental testing, was unnecessary in light of the circumstances of this case, correct? I would view it as unnecessary given the context of the case. So Haig said he felt that that accidental discharge testing wasn't necessary. As Alex Spiro cross-examined him, things got a little tense.

Earlier this year, you testified in a homicide trial in the very same courtroom for the armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. Do you recall that? I do. Okay. And so at that time, many, many months after this report, many, many months after your observation, you were asked, so other than the FBI testing, breaking those components, you didn't see any other evidence of modification or damage. You said, I did not, right? I don't recall, but if you're reading the transcript, I don't dispute it. If you gave that testimony at that trial, that would not have been accurate, correct? I'm not sure. I guess I'm missing something.

I hear you just fine, but I'm missing something in your question. I don't think that you're missing anything. I think sometimes people say things that are inaccurate in life, okay? So I'll read it again if you need me to, but I think you and I both know that it's inaccurate, right? Because you just told me a moment ago that you did observe modification or damage, right? The question I just asked you was the exact same question of what you knew August 31st, 2023. Now here we are later in time at Hannah Goodyear's REITs trial, and you were asked, so other than the FBI testing, breaking those components, you didn't see any other evidence of modification or damage. And you responded,

I did not. That was not accurate, sir. Correct? No, I think it's perfectly accurate. You saw no evidence of any modification or damage on this firearm, on this sear, outside of the FBI testing? Right. You just wrote a report that said earlier and just told me under oath that your report indicates you did see modification or damage that was not likely caused by the FBI, didn't you? I guess you've got me well confused at this point. I don't see the difference. So in the end, Judge Summers didn't rule on this latest request to throw out the case against Alec Baldwin. She will do that later this week. And the case is moving forward toward trial next month. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix.

I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.