Alec Baldwin’s trial for on-set Rust shooting to begin this week

The trial for Alec Baldwin’s on-set Rust movie shooting is set to begin on Tuesday and is scheduled to be held over the course of 10 days.

The shooting occurred in October 2021 when a gun Baldwin was holding fired a live round and killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Jury selection will begin on Tuesday and be followed by opening statements set for Wednesday, with the trial projected to conclude on July 19.

If Baldwin is found guilty, he faces 18 months in prison. The actor has maintained that he did not know the gun carried live ammunition, and he has implied he did not pull the gun’s trigger.

Baldwin’s defense team will argue that an actor is not responsible for checking the bullets of the gun for potential live rounds, which Baldwin’s union, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, has supported. The defense will also contend that they never had the chance to examine the gun Baldwin was holding, arguing that an FBI test caused irreparable damage to the weapon.

The prosecutors in this case, meanwhile, will make the argument that Baldwin was reckless in his handling of the weapon, and will also have film production crew members provide testimony. Among those who could testify are director Joel Souza, who had been injured during the shooting that killed Hutchins, and crew member Zac Sneesby, who is expected to testify that he saw Baldwin pull the gun’s trigger, according to court filings.

Those who wish to watch the trial live can do so with the broadcast channel Court TV and other channels airing it.

Baldwin’s trial comes about three months after Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the 27-year-old armorer of Rust, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with the judge stating that she “alone” was responsible for turning “a safe weapon into a lethal weapon.” Prosecutors argued in the case that Gutierrez-Reed had “repeatedly” failed to maintain proper firearm safety, which led to Hutchins’s death.

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A new court filing has claimed that Baldwin “engaged in horseplay with his gun” and “fired a blank round at a crew member” prior to Hutchins’s death. Other claims in the court filing said that Baldwin was distracted during firearms training because he was talking to his family on FaceTime.

Baldwin announced the launch of a new reality show on TLC last month, which will star him and his family and air in 2025.