Grand jury to hear new manslaughter case against Baldwin
Prosecutors will convene a grand jury to consider whether to refile an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer who was killed on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021, New Mexico prosecutors said Tuesday.
“We believe that based on our lengthy and detailed investigation that it is appropriate for a grand jury in New Mexico to make a decision on whether the case should proceed,” one of the prosecutors, Kari T. Morrissey, said in an interview Tuesday.
Baldwin was rehearsing on a New Mexico film set with a gun that was not supposed to contain live ammunition when it suddenly fired a live round, killing the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.
In a statement Tuesday, two of Baldwin’s lawyers, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said: “It is unfortunate that a terrible tragedy has been turned into this misguided prosecution. We will answer any charges in court.”
The decision to convene a grand jury was another reversal of fortune for Baldwin, who had an earlier manslaughter charge dropped after prosecutors received new evidence suggesting that the gun might have been modified in a way that made it easier to inadvertently fire. Prosecutors decided to reopen the case after submitting the gun for further analysis, which they said contradicted Baldwin’s assertion that he had not pulled the trigger.
“The forensic testing of the gun concluded with certainty that the trigger of the gun had to have been pulled for the gun to go off,” Morrissey said in the interview. She said the prosecutors intend to begin presenting the case to a grand jury on Nov. 16. The decision to convene the grand jury was first reported by NBC News.
The day of the shooting, Oct. 21, 2021, the crew was setting up a tight frame of Baldwin drawing an old-fashioned revolver. Investigators said he was told the gun was “cold,” meaning in this case that it was supposed to be loaded with dummies, or inert cartridges used to resemble real bullets on camera. But when the gun went off it fired a live round, which killed Hutchins, and wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza.
The movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was in charge of weapons, ammunition and gun safety on the set, was also charged with involuntary manslaughter, and has pleaded not guilty.