The Case Against Alec Baldwin Is Not a Slam Dunk

New Mexico law requires quite a high standard for proving criminal negligence.

Two core details in the Alec Baldwin trial are not up for debate. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died after she was shot on the set of the movie Rust. Baldwin was the one with the gun.

So his involuntary manslaughter case may sound open and shut. It isn't—but probably not for the reason you think.

There's been a great deal of back-and-forth, for example, around Baldwin's claim that he didn't pull the trigger and that the gun instead malfunctioned. A forensics report disputed that. But prosecutors still face an uphill battle due to the contours of the law itself.

Core to securing an involuntary manslaughter conviction in New Mexico is that the government must prove criminal negligence. On its face, it doesn't sound hard to argue successfully that pointing a gun at someone and (allegedly) shooting it qualifies as, er, negligent. 

But "negligence" here doesn't refer to a colloquial understanding of the term. In State v. Skippings (2011), the Supreme Court of New Mexico explained it requires something deeper: that a defendant acted with "willful disregard of the rights or safety of others" and a "subjective knowledge" of the perils posed by that behavior. In practice, that means the jury must unanimously agree beyond a reasonable doubt that Baldwin "actually thought about the possibility that the gun might be loaded," writes UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, "and proceeded to point it and pull the trigger despite that."

It is not sufficient, in other words, to show that Baldwin acted fecklessly or that he was grossly irresponsible with the firearm. Prosecutors must instead take it a step further and demonstrate that he really believed the gun may have had live rounds, and that he shrugged off that reality and took his chances.

Perhaps prosecutors can prove that. The state alleges the Rust set was chaotic and that Baldwin himself had a pattern of carelessness, which included insisting he pull out the gun quickly for dramatic effect.

But the case isn't the slam dunk it's sometimes been made out to be, particularly when considering the basis of Baldwin's defense: that it is well-established on movie sets that prop guns should not be loaded with live rounds in such circumstances, and Baldwin thus believed it was empty. "On a movie set, you're allowed to pull the trigger, so even if, even if he intentionally pulled the trigger…that doesn't make him guilty of homicide," Alex Spiro, one of his defense attorneys, told the jury. "He did not know, or have any reason to know, that gun was loaded with a live bullet."

That doesn't mean Baldwin is blameless. This is complicated, I wrote last year, by the inconvenient fact that Baldwin is a polarizing figure, to put it mildly. Many were likely delighted to see him under scrutiny after listening for years to his political flamethrowing and hearing about his reputation for treating people poorly in inexcusable ways. I myself am not a fan of a lot of his alleged behavior. But there is a distinction, rightfully so, between being guilty in the eyes of the public and being guilty in the eyes of the law. And even those with unpalatable track records are entitled to fairness under the law.