SANTA FE, N.M. — A defense attorney told jurors Wednesday that the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was an ''unspeakable tragedy'' but that '' Alec Baldwin committed no crime; he was an actor, acting.''
Baldwin's lawyer Alex Spiro emphasized in his opening statement in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, courtroom that Baldwin, who is on trial for involuntary manslaughter, did exactly what actors always do on the set of the film ''Rust,'' where Hutchins was killed in October 2021.
''I don't have to tell you any more about this, because you've all seen gunfights in movies,'' Spiro said.
Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said in her opening statement that before the shooting, Baldwin skipped safety checks and recklessly handled a revolver.
''The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin,'' Ocampo Johnson said.
Spiro replied that ''these cardinal rules, they're not cardinal rules on a movie set."
''On a movie set, safety has to occur before a gun is placed in an actor's hand,'' Spiro told the jury.
The first witness to take the stand was the first law enforcement officer to arrive at Bonanza Creek Ranch after the shooting. Video shown in the courtroom from the body camera of Nicholas LeFleur, then a Santa Fe county sheriff's deputy, captured the frantic efforts to save Hutchins, who looked unconscious as several people attended to her and gave her an oxygen mask. In the courtroom, Baldwin looked at the screen somberly as it played.