Alec Baldwin Loses Latest Appeal

(NationRise.com) – On June 21, Hollywood star Alec Baldwin lost his latest appeal to get the involuntary manslaughter charge against him formally dismissed following his role in the accidental death of film cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The famous actor will go to trial for the charge in July, after he fired a handgun during the filming of the western movie Rust back in October 2021. The incident wounded the film director Joel Souza and killed Hutchins.

Many journalists claimed at the time that Baldwin didn’t know that the gun was loaded and even revealed that it wasn’t supposed to be. However, the actor has been consistently claiming that he didn’t pull the trigger and has pleaded not guilty to the involuntary manslaughter charge.

In a virtual hearing, with Baldwin’s lawyers arguing that the actor had no reason to believe that the handgun he shot was loaded with real bullets, Judge Mary Sommer formally dismissed his request. She additionally rejected prosecutors’ request to offer immunity to the film’s armorer, Hanna Gutierrez-Reed, in exchange for testifying against the actor. Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter.

Both the armorer and the actor’s team have rejected numerous calls for Gutierrez-Reed to testify in Baldwin’s case. When talking about her, Sommer said during the virtual hearing that it was clear to her that Gutierrez-Reed wasn’t trying to cooperate, detailing that she hadn’t heard anything that the armorer could testify to that anyone else couldn’t.

Entertainment reporters revealed that Baldwin’s legal team has another motion for a dismissal and that they are arguing that the testing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation damaged the gun so much that the defense couldn’t examine it. In court filings, the actor’s attorneys claimed that the government “destroyed” the most important piece of evidence in the case by “pointlessly” and “repeatedly” striking it with a mallet. The legal team added that government agents knew that the gun wouldn’t “survive.”