Alec Baldwin’s Defense Concedes He May Have Pulled Trigger on ‘Rust’ Set: ‘That Doesn’t Make Him Guilty’
variety.comGene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Since shortly after the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust,” Alec Baldwin has been adamant that he did not pull the trigger.
That claim has been a key element of Baldwin’s public defense and a way for him to disclaim all responsibility for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Prosecutors find the claim “absurd on its face” and have gone to great lengths to disprove it. But in his opening statement on Wednesday, defense attorney Alex Spiro acknowledged, for the first time, that Baldwin may be wrong, and that he may have pulled the trigger.
He argued that would still not make him criminally negligent. “On a movie set, you’re allowed to pull the trigger,” Spiro said. “Even if he intentionally pulled the trigger… that doesn’t make him guilty of homicide.” The prosecution intends to spend much of the manslaughter trial proving that Baldwin did pull the trigger.
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