Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Defense attorney says ‘Alec Baldwin committed no crime’
SANTA FE, N.M. | A defense attorney told jurors Wednesday that the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was an “unspeakable tragedy” but that “Alec Baldwin committed no crime; he was an actor, acting.”
Baldwin’s lawyer Alex Spiro emphasized in his opening statement in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, courtroom that Baldwin, who is on trial for involuntary manslaughter, did exactly what actors always do on the set of the film “Rust,” where Hutchins was killed in October, 2021.
“I don’t have to tell you any more about this, because you’ve all seen gunfights in movies,” Spiro said.
Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said in her opening statement that before the shooting, Baldwin skipped safety checks and recklessly handled a revolver.
“The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin,” Johnson said.
Spiro replied that “these cardinal rules, they’re not cardinal rules on a movie set.”
“On a movie set, safety has to occur before a gun is placed in an actor’s hand,” Spiro told the jury.
The first witness to take the stand was the first law enforcement officer to arrive at Bonanza Creek Ranch after the shooting. Video shown in the courtroom from the body camera of Nicholas LeFleur, then a Santa Fe county sheriff’s deputy, captured the frantic efforts to save Hutchins, who looked unconscious as several people attended to her and gave her an oxygen mask. In the courtroom, Baldwin looked at the screen somberly as it played.
Later in the video, LeFleur can be seen telling Baldwin not to speak to the other potential witnesses, but Baldwin repeatedly does.
When special prosecutor Kari Morrissey asked whether the sheriff’s deputy handled the situation ideally he responded, “Probably not. But it’s what happened.”
Spiro pressed LeFleur on why he left the word “accidental” out of his description of the shooting call during his questioning by the prosecution. LeFleur said it was not intentional.
And LeFleur acknowledged that in a pretrial interview he said the circumstances of the scene suggested that Baldwin’s actions were unintentional.
Johnson in her opening walked the jurors through the events leading up to Hutchins death. She said on that day, Baldwin declined multiple opportunities for standard safety checks with armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed before the rehearsal in the small church about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the courthouse where Hutchins, “a vibrant 42-year-old rising star,” was killed. She said Baldwin instead “did his own thing.”
“He cocks the hammer, points it straight at Miss Hutchins, and fires that gun, sending that live bullet right into Miss Hutchins body,” said Johnson, a relative newcomer to the case, appointed in late April by the Santa Fe district attorney’s office.
During the presentation, Baldwin trained his eyes downward on a notepad, away from the jury. He watched Spiro intently during his opening. His wife Hilaria Baldwin, younger brother Stephen Baldwin and older sister Elizabeth Keuchler — who wiped away tears at times — were among the family and friends sitting behind him.
The 16 jurors — 11 women and five men — come from a region with strong currents of gun ownership and safety informed by backcountry hunting. Four of the jurors will be deemed alternates while the other 12 deliberate once they get the case.
Hutchins’ death and the wounding of director Joel Souza nearly three years ago sent shock waves through the film industry and led to one felony charge against Baldwin, 66, that could result in up to 18 months in prison.
“It killed an amazing person,” Spiro said. “It wounded another, and it changed lives forever.”
Baldwin has claimed the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that it was loaded with a live round, he said he pulled back the hammer — not the trigger — and it fired.
“No one saw him intentionally pull the trigger,” Spiro said.
But he said even if Baldwin had pulled it and was lying, Spiro said, it still would not have been manslaughter.
“On a movie set, you’re allowed to pull that trigger,” Spiro said, adding, “that doesn’t make it a homicide.”
The lawyer emphasized that the responsibility for safety lay with the film’s armorer, Gutierrez-Reed, who has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and assistant director David Halls, who pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon in exchange for his testimony at trial.
Baldwin had been told “cold gun” before getting the revolver, not knowing there was a live round in it.
“It had been checked and double checked by those responsible for ensuring the gun was safe,” Spiro said. “He did not tamper with it he did not load it himself. He did not leave it unattended.”
Spiro has in recent years become one of the most sought-after defense attorneys in the country. His clients have included Elon Musk, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Baldwin — the star of “Beetlejuice,” “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “30 Rock” — has been a household name as an actor and public personality for more than three decades.
Spiro said in concluding his opening that witnesses will attest that “no actor in history” has “intercepted a live bullet from a prop gun.”
“No one could have imagined or expected an actor to do that,” the lawyer said.
Testimony at trial will delve into the mechanics of the weapon and whether it could have fired without a trigger pull. Prosecutors say it couldn’t have.
“That gun the defendant had asked to be assigned worked perfectly fine as it was designed,” Johnson said.
Attorney Gloria Allred sat in the front row of the courtroom audience, a reminder of Baldwin’s other legal difficulties. Allred is representing “Rust” script supervisor Mamie Mitchell and Hutchins’ sister and parents in a civil lawsuit against Baldwin and other producers.
Allred said that from her observations in court, the jury appeared to be riveted by testimony and evidence including the police lapel camera video.
Actor George Clooney asks president to leave race
Movie star and lifelong Democrat George Clooney added his voice to calls for Joe Biden to leave the presidential race on Wednesday, just weeks after headlining a fundraiser that brought in a record single-night haul for the president’s reelection campaign.
Clooney said in a New York Times opinion piece that he loves Biden, but the party would lose the presidential race as well as any control in Congress with him as the nominee.
“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private,” wrote Clooney. He’s hosted several high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers, including for Biden last month.
Clooney argued the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month, saying the process would be “messy” but “wake up” voters in the party’s favor, mentioning Vice President Kamala Harris and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California among those from who the country should now hear.
Focusing much of his piece around Biden’s age, Clooney noted differences he saw in the 81-year-old president during their recent Los Angeles event compared to years past.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Last month, Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among those who took the stage for a fundraiser that took in a record $30 million-plus for Biden, in hopes of energizing would-be supporters for a White House contest they said may rank among the most consequential in U.S. history.
Clooney isn’t alone in his characterization of his recent exchange with Biden.
A person who interacted closely with Biden described the president as vibrant and engaging at a fundraiser in March but, at the Los Angeles event months later, said they noticed a notable diminishment in Biden’s presence.
The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private interactions with the president, recalled being struck by how tired and “out of it” the president seemed during backstage conversations at the Los Angeles event, adding that they gave Biden the benefit of the doubt for not being as voluble and showing lower energy off-stage because he arrived in Los Angeles after traveling from Italy where he had attended an international summit.
Asked for comment on Clooney’s essay, Biden’s campaign pointed to the president’s letter to congressional Democrats earlier in the week vowing to stay in the race.
His team also disputed the actor’s representation of Biden’s demeanor during the Los Angeles fundraiser, with campaign officials who attended the event pointing out that the president stayed for more than three hours at the event, despite just having returned from Europe.
Luminaries from the entertainment world have increasingly lined up to help Biden’s campaign. Leading up to the fundraiser, Clooney’s name appeared on numerous fundraising missives from the campaign, which he called “the fight of our lives.”
Representatives for Clooney did not immediately return a message seeking comment on insight into his decision, when precisely he had made it or how recently he had spoken with Biden.
Biden has refused to end his reelection bid after his weak debate performance against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on June 27.
Kevin Costner’s second ‘Horizon’ film pulled from theatrical release
NEW YORK | The August theatrical release for the second chapter of Kevin Costner’s ambitious Western epic “Horizon: An American Saga” has been canceled after the first film fizzled in theaters.
New Line Cinema announced Wednesday that “Horizon: Chapter 2” will not hit theaters on Aug. 16 as scheduled. The studio had planned an unusually fast back-to-back release for the two “Horizon” films. But after the first chapter collected a modest $23 million in its first two weeks in theaters, the distributor pivoted.
“Territory Pictures and New Line Cinema have decided not to release ‘Horizon: Chapter 2’ on August 16 in order to give audiences a greater opportunity to discover the first installment of ‘Horizon’ over the coming weeks,” a spokesperson for New Line said in a statement.
For now, the release of “Chapter 2” will be marked TBD on the theatrical calendar. The first “Horizon,” which opened in theaters on June 28, will land on premium on-demand July 16. No streaming date on Max has yet been announced. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the shift in plans.
The move is a humbling acknowledgement that Costner’s big theatrical gamble for his decadeslong passion project has failed to catch on with audiences. The first chapter of “Horizon,” which debuted in May at the Cannes Film Festival, cost some $100 million to make, making its path to profitability extremely challenging if not impossible. Costner put some of his own money into it, and has already begun shooting a third installment of what he envisions will ultimately be four movies.
When asked in May about the movies hitting theaters in quick succession, Costner said, “The studio wanted to try that. I knew this was going to come out fairly quickly, like every four or five months. That may have been easier. But this is something they feel like people can remember the first one and it can tie into the second one.”
Costner, who directed, co-wrote and co-stars in the films, had been trying to make “Horizon” for more than 30 years. While releasing the film, Costner confirmed his exit from the hit series “Yellowstone.” The ultimate destination of “Horizon,” he acknowledged, was always going to be on TV.
“They’re going to break this up into a hundred pieces, you know what I mean?” said Costner. “After four of these, they’re going to have 13, 14 hours of film and they’re going to turn into 25 hours of TV, and they’re going to do whatever they’re going to do. That’s just the way we live in our life but they’ll also exist in this form. And that was important for me, to make sure that happened. And I was the one who paid for it.”
—From AP reports
