Alec Baldwin Is Charged, Again, With Involuntary Manslaughter

On the day of the shooting, Oct. 21, 2021, the production was setting up a tight frame of Mr. Baldwin’s character — a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust — drawing an old-fashioned revolver from a shoulder holster and pointing toward the camera when the weapon fired. A bullet struck and killed Ms. Hutchins and then hit the movie’s director, Joel Souza, who was wounded. In the aftermath of the shooting, investigators found five additional live rounds on the set, but law enforcement officials who have investigated the case have never put forward a theory about how they wound up there.

The movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for weapons and ammunition on the set of the film, also faces an involuntary manslaughter charge. She pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial in February. Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who was in charge of safety on set, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in the case, avoiding prison time.

The legal question has been whether Mr. Baldwin acted with “willful disregard” for the safety of others when he handled the gun that day — even though the actor had been told the gun did not contain any live ammunition, and live ammunition was banned on set.

The prosecutors who initially handled the case — Mary Carmack-Altwies, the Santa Fe County district attorney, and Andrea Reeb, a lawyer who was named a special prosecutor — argued that he did.

They brought charges against him one year ago, in January 2023, arguing that both as an actor and as a producer on the movie, Mr. Baldwin had a responsibility to ensure the gun did not contain live rounds. His lawyer and others in the film industry, including armorers and actors, contested that idea, saying that actors are expected to trust the professionals hired to manage weapons on set. SAG-AFTRA, the union representing film and TV actors, said at the time that the “prosecutor’s contention that an actor has a duty to ensure the functional and mechanical operation of a firearm on a production set is wrong and uninformed” and that “an actor’s job is not to be a firearms or weapons expert.”

The prosecutors’ original case broke down amid challenges from Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers, who noted that Mr. Baldwin had been improperly charged under a law that did not exist at the time of the shooting, and that Ms. Reeb was improperly serving simultaneously as a special prosecutor and a member of the New Mexico Legislature.