A grand jury has indicted Alec Baldwin on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set, reviving a dormant case against the actor.
Special prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury in Santa Fe this week, months after receiving a new analysis of the gun that was used. They declined to answer questions after spending about a day and a half presenting their case to the grand jury.
Lawyers for Baldwin indicated they’ll fight the charge.
“We look forward to our day in court," Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said in an email.
While the proceeding is shrouded in secrecy, two of the witnesses seen at the courthouse included crew members — one who was present when the fatal shot was fired and another who had walked off the set the day before due to safety concerns.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie Rust, was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired.
The charge has again put Baldwin in legal trouble and created the possibility of prison time for an actor who has been a TV and movie mainstay for nearly 40 years, with roles in the early blockbuster The Hunt for Red October, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and the sitcom 30 Rock.
Prosecutors have two avenues to pursue the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. One would be based on negligent use of a firearm, and the other alleges felony misconduct “with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others”.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing the slain cinematographer’s parents and younger sister in a civil case, said on Friday her clients have been seeking the truth about what happened the day Hutchins was killed and will be looking forward to Baldwin's trial.
Special prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They later pivoted and began weighing whether to refile a charge against Baldwin after receiving a new analysis of the gun.
The analysis stated that although Baldwin repeatedly denied pulling the trigger, “given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver”.
The weapons supervisor on the movie set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. Her trial is scheduled to begin in February.
Rust assistant director and safety co-ordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm last March and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to co-operate in the investigation of the shooting.
The 2021 shooting resulted in a series of civil lawsuits, including wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins’ family, centred on accusations the defendants were lax with safety standards. Baldwin and other defendants have disputed those allegations.
The Rust Movie Productions company has paid a $US100,000 ($A151,717) fine to state workplace safety regulators after a scathing narrative of failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.
