A court ruling on Friday put an involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin on track for trial in early July as a judge denied a request to dismiss the case on complaints that key evidence was damaged by the FBI during forensic testing.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sided with prosecutors in rejecting a motion to dismiss the case.
Defense attorneys had argued that the gun in the fatal shooting was heavily damaged during FBI forensic testing before it could be examined for possible modifications or problems that might exonerate the actor-producer.
The ruling removes one of the last hurdles before prosecutors can bring the case to trial with jury selection scheduled for July 9 in Santa Fe.
Because in the film industry, actors are not the ones responsible when it comes to firearms. There are armourers/props, people, and even assistant directors who are responsible for on set safety, actors and crew trust other departments to do their job correctly and safely. There are so many rules and regulations for how guns are handled on set, on every set I have worked on guns were locked in a safe with the armourer being the only one with the key, they would have to have their eyes on the weapon at all times with no exceptions when it was outdside the safe. You don’t hold an actor responsible if there is a stunt gone wrong or a piece of the set falls down because it isn’t their job unless he was behaving recklessly or outrageously. Although he may hold some culpability due to his role as a producer and the financial stuff, i.e., budget cutting, hiring inexperienced crew, etc. I can’t stand the man myself, but he is not the one who is most responsible for this incident
Ultimately the person holding the gun is responsible for what happens with said gun.
That’s not true on movie sets though. Actors rely on armorers to keep everyone safe. Expecting actors to also be responsible would be unduly onerous. The system, when it works, works incredibly well. There have only been a handful of firearms accidents on sets. Which is crazy seeing as how almost every movie these days has guns in it somewhere.
The rust shooting had failures at multiple levels but the actor isn’t responsible for those failures.
This is more because he was the producer. IIRC Baldwin said to ignore a bunch of that safety stuff.