It was a brief and to the point testimony. Alessandro Pietta, a gunmaker, traveled from Italy to defend the replica of the Colt revolver that has been at the center of controversy since a bullet in its chamber killed photographer Halyna Hutchins on October 21, 2021. The European was called by the prosecution on the second day of the trial against Alec Baldwin for reckless homicide so that the court could hear whether the weapon had undergone a quality control process. “Of course,” the Italian assured with a confident gesture.
Pietta spoke proudly of the .45-caliber pistol he made in 2017 for a gun fair in the United States. He sent the replica of a late 19th-century weapon in a wooden box, missing one key part: a trigger. It was a display piece. Years later, an Arizona gunsmith named Seth Kenney considered it valuable and bought it. Kenney and his company would become the supplier of weapons and ammunition for Rust, the western starring Baldwin, in 2021. When they arrived on set, a trigger was added to the gun to make it more realistic.
Since the incident, Baldwin has maintained that he never pulled the trigger and that he merely cocked the gun. The claim has led many to suspect that the gun went off after a malfunction in its mechanism. Prosecutor Erlinda Johnson was quick to address this:
-“Is there any other way to operate the gun other than pulling the trigger?” Johnson asked.
-“No, that’s the only way,” Pietta told him.
The FBI conducted a dozen tests to see if it was possible to fire the revolver without pulling the trigger. In eleven attempts it only fired in this way. The last test was more radical. The technicians hit it with a mallet to see if it would discharge with the strong impact. The result was positive. But the blow destroyed the revolver.
Triumphs of the Prosecutor’s Office
The prosecution has had a big day. Kari Morrissey and Erlinda Johnson, the prosecuting attorneys, have successfully persuaded Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to allow Baldwin to subpoena a pair of communications after the incident. They include a phone call with his wife, Hilaria, and a statement by the defendant in which he admits to knowing that even blank ammunition can kill.
Baldwin’s defense team, who could face 18 months in prison if convicted of manslaughter, tried at all costs to prevent these two statements, just a few moments in a sea of communications that the actor had after the incident on the set, from becoming part of the official record of the criminal trial. If this evidence is not included in the public version, it cannot be offered to the jury. In fact, the 16 members of the panel were outside the courtroom while the parties argued.
The footage in question is part of a personal conversation Baldwin had with his wife. After the incident, which occurred on a Thursday, the actor was trying to convince his family not to cancel plans to visit him in New Mexico. His children and wife were due to arrive the next day to be together in the state while he worked on the western. “We’re going to have a great time,” Baldwin was heard saying, according to the records. One of his daughters even had a small role in the independent film scheduled for Saturday. The actor argued that if they canceled, they would lose the money for the plane tickets.
“One person was injured and the other had been taken to the hospital by helicopter. Meanwhile, Mr. Baldwin was concerned that his wife was thinking of cancelling the trip. He was not devastated, as the defense wants to make him out to be,” argued prosecutor Morrissey. The judge agreed with her and said it was a snippet of interest. The defense rejected the idea, saying the jury could misinterpret the sentence. “He was just trying to protect his family,” said one of the defense assistants.
The other portion allowed by the judge is a statement Baldwin made to New Mexico State Police Detective Alexandra Hancock. During questioning, the actor said he had experience with several types of firearms on other productions, but that he did not own any. Baldwin also said he knew blanks could be lethal.
![An assistant hands a box of evidence to expert Marissa Poppell.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/2NCUVQFZAWZSH32JYCJHM6R2KU.jpg?auth=9f62fb05e20f7ebde103b0c6f6cd47407d9a7f925652bf4058760fb8d7acc3b8&width=414)
The defense attacks the police investigation
Rust’s tragedy seemed destined to happen. The defense attorneys painted a fine picture of the chaotic world that reigned on the set of the Western. Real bullets shared the same space as blanks and fake bullets, all of these ammunitions almost identical to the naked eye. The attorneys for Baldwin, 66, spent the morning questioning the role of the police in the early hours of the investigation at the Bonanza Creek ranch.
Attorney Alex Spiro went on the offensive against prosecution witness Marissa Poppell, one of the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office investigators. Poppell was tasked with collecting evidence inside the church where the 42-year-old filmmaker and the film’s director, Joel Souza, were fatally shot.
In turn, Spiro criticized the work of Poppell and his colleagues. Authorities found live bullets on the set of the filming. One of them was in a cartridge belt used by another actor, Jensen Ackles. The same was also found in Baldwin’s bandolier. The lawyer accused Poppell of not following up on the clues that could clarify how live bullets got onto the set.
-“Tell the jury how long it took the police to apply for a search warrant for Seth Kenney’s warehouse (Rust’s supplier of weapons and ammunition),” Spiro asked.
-“This was executed on November 30, one month and one week after the incident,” Poppell replied.
In a two-hour examination of the witness, Spiro attempted to cast a shadow of suspicion on Kenney. Kenney, however, testified under oath at the trial of gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed that he did not deliver a single live round to the production line. Poppell reported this morning that neither she nor her colleagues found a single live .45-caliber round in the warehouse during the search. Baldwin’s attorney speculated that Kenney might have destroyed evidence because police did not seize surveillance footage from the warehouse.
Spiro went even further. He said police tried to cover up the fact that a “good Samaritan” showed up at the department to deliver a box of .45-caliber bullets. The man claimed it was the same lot that produced the bullet that killed Hutchins. The statement raised eyebrows in the courtroom until Morrisey came on the microphone again.
The prosecutor then established that the subject who carried the alleged bullets was Troy Teske. “The man is a friend of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s father and the bullets are delivered in March 2024, after the sentencing of the gunsmith,” she explained. In that process it was determined that the real bullets that appeared on the set were carried by the inexperienced gunsmith and did not come from Kenney’s warehouse.
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