Nine months after charges against the actor were dismissed, a New Mexico grand jury revives the case
Alec Baldwin has once again been indicted on involuntarily manslaughter charges stemming from the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film Rust.
Baldwin previously pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in February 2023, but prosecutors in New Mexico ultimately dismissed the charges against the actor in April 2023 before he went to trial.
However, with new prosecutors assigned to the case since the dismissal, a grand jury voted to revive the criminal case against Baldwin; per New Mexico law, only eight of the 12 grand jurors had to agree to indict Baldwin, the New York Times reports.
“We look forward to our day in court,” Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said in a statement on Friday. If convicted, Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison.
Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed also faces charges of involuntary manslaughter in the October 21, 2021, on-set accident where Baldwin shot and killed Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza while rehearsing a Rust scene; it remains unclear how a “live round” ended up in the firearm.
One person tied to Hutchins’ shooting death has already faced some accountability: Assistant Director Dave Halls. Halls entered a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon at the end of March. He will not face any jail time and will serve six months of unsupervised probation.
After the charges against Baldwin were dropped, Rust went back into production, with the movie wrapping up filming last year.
