2024-04-18 10:12:45
A Colt .45 “Peacemaker” revolver, a symbol of the American Wild West, is at the center of actor Alec Baldwin’s fight to avoid criminal prosecution for the fatal shooting of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a film set in New Mexico in 2021.
Baldwin’s 15-month battle with New Mexico state prosecutors is heading toward a climax July 10, when the actor is expected to go on trial for manslaughter in connection with the first shooting. real stories of the modern era on a Hollywood film set.
Hannah Gutierrez, the film’s gun manager, was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison for Hutchins’ death. Baldwin’s legal team is trying to have his indictment overturned. If unsuccessful, his lawyers might request a plea bargain.
But if the indictment stands, Baldwin’s trial will likely focus on whether he pulled the trigger on his reproduction 1873 Colt .45 following he said he was ordered to do so – either from director Joel Souza, or Hutchins – to point it at the cinematographer, according to the various statements he made to the police, then to the media.
Baldwin contends that Hutchins’ death was due to a failure in the film industry’s gun safety protocol, for which he was not responsible as an actor. He said it was not his job to inspect the weapon and that he did not pull the trigger following Mr. Gutierrez mistakenly loaded a live bullet instead of an inert dummy.
Gun experts and legal scholars don’t expect the jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to see things that way.
According to Ashley Hlebinsky, executive director of the Firearms Research Center at the University of Wyoming, in the southwestern United States, where gun ownership is common practice, the cultural norm is that we check if a weapon is loaded and that we never point it at someone to pull the trigger.
Some local jurors may not know the difference between handling a gun on a movie set and in real life. Persuading jury members, especially gun owners, that the revolver went off on its own might be a tough sell, the firearms historian said.
Still, Mr. Hlebinsky sees a possibility of acquittal for Mr. Baldwin: the argument his lawyers made in their motion to dismiss that the gun was modified to make it “easier to shoot without pull the trigger”. This request is currently being examined by a judge.
“The defense just needs to plant doubt in the minds of the jury,” said Mr. Hlebinksy, who has acted as a firearms expert in court cases involving single-action Colt .45 revolvers similar to the “Rust” weapon. “I think they can definitely do it.”
CONTRADICTORY TESTIMONY
It was six weeks following the October 21, 2021 shooting that Baldwin said, during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News, that he did not pull the trigger on the Italian-made weapon.
Days later, the actor told a New Mexico workplace safety inspector that Pietta’s replica Colt Single Action Army revolver had no mechanical defects.
Baldwin’s statement that the gun went off on its own and his comment that it was functioning properly are part of New Mexico District Attorney Kari Morrissey’s claim that the ’30’ actor Rock” “lied with impunity” regarding the details of the shooting.
“They’re going to have to walk back that statement a little bit,” attorney Neama Rahmani said of Baldwin’s legal team.
The former federal prosecutor expected the actor’s lawyers to portray the incident as an “accidental discharge,” a term that means the gun fired due to a mechanical failure.
He said it’s an unusual, but not unprecedented, legal position that is most often used in cases where a defendant seeks to upgrade a charge from murder to manslaughter.
According to Baldwin’s lawyers, someone filed down the switchblade on the long Colt .45 following it was delivered new to production, to make it easier to fire.
Lucien Haag, an independent firearms expert hired by the state, testified at Gutierrez’s trial that the switchblade had been worn and broken by FBI testing, rather than filed down.
Tests by the FBI revealed that the weapon was in normal working order when it arrived at the laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, following the shooting. An investigator had to hit the hammer with a mallet so that it would go off without pulling the trigger, with the blows damaging the hammer and trigger, according to the FBI.
Baldwin risks compromising his credibility if he changes his story regarding the trigger, lawyer Kate Mangels said. She expects he will continue to blame others for gun safety lapses as prosecutors accuse him of negligence, both as an actor and as a producer on most powerful in the film.
“At this point, it would be difficult for Baldwin’s defense team to change course,” said Ms. Mangels, a partner at the entertainment law firm Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir.
Ms. Hlebinsky, a firearms expert, said gunsmiths she knows who have seen photos of the hammer in Baldwin’s gun don’t know whether the switchblade was worn away by mallet blows or by filing. She expects Baldwin’s legal team to find a gun expert to testify that it’s the latter.
“I don’t think anyone can say 100 percent what happened,” she said of the gun.
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