When the Rust trial began two weeks ago, Mary Carmack Altwiss, the district attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sent a campaign message to supporters.
In it, she explained that the case is not just about Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the young gunsmith who was convicted Wednesday in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halina Hutchins.
Without naming him, the prosecutor conveyed that her office was really focused on a bigger fish: Alec Baldwin, the producer and actor who pulled the trigger.
“Here’s what’s important to me: In the First Judicial District, no one is above the law,” she wrote. “No one avoids guilt by reason of fame, wealth, or connections in my jurisdiction.”
After a series of missteps in the case, Carmack Althuis got a much-needed win when the jury returned a guilty verdict on a charge of manslaughter. (Jurors acquitted Gutierrez Reed of tampering with evidence.) The prosecutor had initially planned to prosecute the case herself, but stepped aside last year amid controversy, handing the job to two private attorneys, Carrie Morrissey and Jason Lewis.
Carmack Altwiese is up for re-election, facing a challenge from her predecessor, Marco Serna, in the June 4 Democratic primary. Serna criticized the decision to outsource the case and hire a public relations specialist, who arranged national television interviews to coincide with the announcement of the charges last year.
In an interview Thursday, Serna acknowledged that the special prosecutor ably handled Gutierrez Reed’s prosecution.
“Miss. Morrissey is a good lawyer,” he said. “She obviously got a guilty verdict.”
But he added that he still had concerns, noting that Al-Rust’s prosecutors received money from a special appropriation from the state government.
“Taxpayers have paid $600,000 at this point,” he said. “You have a full staff of lawyers. I don’t agree with spending that kind of money on private prosecutors. I’ll trust my own office.”
Morrissey and Lewis will also handle Baldwin’s trial, which is scheduled to begin July 9. Lawyers who followed the first trial had mixed opinions about whether the outcome was a good or bad sign for Baldwin.
“He probably had an uncomfortable night last night,” said John Day, a Santa Fe criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. “The Special Prosecution team has shown that it can win.”
At the same time, Baldwin’s attorneys could point to the conviction as evidence that Gutierrez-Reed — not her managers, not the producers — was solely responsible for bringing a live bullet to set and loading it into his gun.
“It could go either way,” said Kate Mangels, a criminal defense attorney with Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir LLP. “On the one hand, it shows that the jury is willing to find criminal liability for what is arguably workplace negligence or mismanagement. On the other hand, it is possible that she, as the armorer, is ultimately solely responsible.”
Baldwin’s lawyers got a preview of key testimony in the case and a sense of how prosecutors will treat him. Baldwin’s local attorney, Heather LeBlanc, sat in the audience throughout the trial, two rows behind the defense table.
At times, it seemed that prosecutors did more to present evidence against Baldwin than against Gutierrez-Reed.
Prosecutors spent a significant amount of time in court refuting Baldwin’s claim that he did not pull the trigger, explaining that his gun was in good condition when it fired — although Gutierrez-Reed’s defense did not dispute that.
In the biggest revelation of the trial, prosecutors played footage in which Baldwin can be seen rushing the crew to “reload,” using his gun as a pointer, firing blanks at the camera while in close proximity, and firing a blank. – interspersed with an expletive – after shouting the word “cut”.
The footage showed that not only did Baldwin contribute to the safety problems in “Rust,” he also appeared to be the man responsible.
Some crew members who testified against Gutierrez also criticized Reed Baldwin for failing to adhere to safety rules. International actor Ross Adego said he didn’t remember anyone standing up to him on set, and agreed that Baldwin was the “big boss”.
When asked why Baldwin needed to carry a real gun when the cameras hadn’t started rolling yet, Addiego said, “Sir. Baldwin always wanted to use his hero tools.”
In her closing argument, Morrissey took some swipes at Baldwin that she noted would portray him to a Santa Fe jury as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. At one point, she alluded to an allegation that Baldwin was acting like a “diva” and controlling everyone on set.
“This is Hollywood, for goodness sake,” the prosecutor said. “I imagine this is relatively common.”
She even seemed to take a dig at Baldwin, calling him “a first-rate actor – if that’s what you want to call him in reality.” She repeatedly noted that Baldwin would face his own jury, and that his guilt would not be overlooked.
“Did Mr. Baldwin also contribute (to the death) when he pointed the gun at people, pulled the hammer back and — regardless of what I said to George Stephanopoulos — pulled the trigger?” she asked. “Yes…we’ll deal with that again.”
Baldwin’s team declined to comment.
His lawyers are expected to file pretrial motions they hope will narrow the scope of the case and rule out the theory that he is criminally liable as a producer of the film.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the DA thanked the special prosecutors for their work on this case, but again made clear that their work is far from over.
“District Attorney Carmack Althuis supports the special prosecutors as they continue to fight for justice in this matter.”