Actor Alec Baldwin has pleaded not responsible to an involuntary manslaughter cost within the deadly taking pictures of a cinematographer throughout a rehearsal on a film set in New Mexico.

Seth Wenig/AP

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Seth Wenig/AP

Actor Alec Baldwin has pleaded not responsible to an involuntary manslaughter cost within the deadly taking pictures of a cinematographer throughout a rehearsal on a film set in New Mexico.

Seth Wenig/AP

SANTA FE, N.M. — Actor Alec Baldwin has pleaded not responsible to an involuntary manslaughter cost within the fatal shooting of a cinematographer throughout a rehearsal on a Western film set in New Mexico.

Court paperwork filed Wednesday present Baldwin entered the plea in state district courtroom in Santa Fe, waiving an arraignment that had been scheduled to happen remotely by video convention the subsequent day.

Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western film Rust, was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins throughout a rehearsal exterior Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.

A grand jury in Santa Fe indicted Baldwin in January after prosecutors obtained a brand new evaluation of that gun, renewing a cost that prosecutors initially filed and then dismissed in April 2023. Baldwin faces as much as 18 months in jail if convicted.

Baldwin stays free pending trial beneath situations that embrace not possessing firearms, consuming alcohol or leaving the nation. Baldwin can have restricted contact with witnesses in terms of selling Rust, which has not been launched for public viewing. Baldwin is prohibited from asking members of the “Rust” forged or crew to take part in a associated documentary movie.

Baldwin has mentioned he pulled again the hammer — however not the set off — and the gun fired.

“Halyna and I had something profound in common, and that is that we both assumed the gun was empty … other than those dummy rounds,” Baldwin advised George Stephanopoulos in an interview broadcast in December 2021 on ABC News.

The grand jury indictment supplies particular prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis with two various requirements for pursuing the felony cost towards Baldwin.

One could be based mostly on the negligent use of a firearm. A second various for prosecutors is to show past an inexpensive doubt that Baldwin brought on the loss of life of Hutchins with out due warning or “circumspection,” additionally outlined as “an act committed with total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.”

An evaluation of the gun carried out by Lucien and Michael Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona concluded that “the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.”

An earlier FBI report on the company’s evaluation of the revolver discovered that, as is frequent with firearms of that design, it might go off with out pulling the set off if pressure was utilized to an uncocked hammer, reminiscent of by dropping the weapon. The gun finally broke throughout testing.

Morrissey and Lewis dismissed the sooner cost after they have been knowledgeable the gun may need been modified earlier than the taking pictures and malfunctioned.

The grand jury heard from a Rust crew member who was a number of ft from the deadly taking pictures and one other who walked off the set earlier than the taking pictures in protest of working situations. Weapons forensics skilled Michael Haag, a Mississippi-based film armorer and a detective with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office additionally testified.

Rust weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed additionally has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, with a jury trial scheduled to begin Feb. 22. She has pleaded not responsible to that cost and a second cost of tampering with proof in Hutchins’ loss of life.

Gutierrez-Reed additionally was charged with carrying a gun right into a downtown Santa Fe bar days earlier than she was employed to work because the armorer on Rust. She has pleaded not responsible to that cost, too.

The deadly taking pictures of Hutchins resulted in a sequence of civil lawsuits, together with wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins’ household, centered on accusations that Baldwin and producers of Rust have been lax with security requirements. Baldwin and different defendants have disputed these allegations.

Rust assistant director and security coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe dealing with of a firearm final March and obtained a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate within the investigation of the deadly taking pictures.