Actor Alec Baldwin To Be Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter and What Rashida Tlaib Just Said Is Disgustingly Antisemitic

This morning, Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies announced that actor Alec Baldwin will be criminally charged by prosecutors in New Mexico for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins while working on the set of the film “Rust.”

We assembled our team of lawyers to break down this breaking news legal story. A statement from the DA’s office says:

New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies announced on Thursday that, in keeping with her commitment to pursue justice for all victims and to hold everyone accountable under the law, her office before the end of the month will file criminal charges in the “Rust” film-set shooting. “Rust” actor and producer Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the film’s Santa Fe County set in 2021. Assistant director David Halls has signed a plea agreement for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. The terms include a suspended sentence and six months of probation. A copy of the plea agreement will be available after it has been filed with the court.

No charges will be filed specific to the non-fatal shooting of “Rust” director Joel Souza.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomou has tried many murder and involuntary manslaughter cases. Murder and manslaughter are not the same, but manslaughter is a serious charge. Andy said:

You’ve got homicide: the killing of a human being. This is not a murder case . . . . Involuntary manslaughter consists of manslaughter committed in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death if done in an unlawful manner.

If convicted, Alec Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison. 

I’ve worked on a number of films, and the question plaguing everyone’s mind right now, is how could live ammo end up on a movie set in the first place? And that’s a difficult one. Tragically, this has happened before. It’s not like this is the lone time someone has been killed on a movie set. Often, it’s not by live rounds. Often it is by an issue that happens even with blanks being a problem if you’re close enough in range. So this does happen from time to time, very rarely, where there are deaths on movie sets.

ACLJ Senior Military Analyst Wes Smith explains the job of an armorer on a movie set:

The armorer is in charge of the transportation, storage, and the safe use of any weapon on a movie set, [including] firearms. All of the weapons aren’t necessarily firearms. I looked at the website today for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and on their site it says that an armorer specifically has to make sure the actor is competent, the actor knows how many blank rounds there are each time they shoot a scene, and where to aim the weapon. And it seems like in this case a lot of those requirements were not met. Each state is different, but each state does require a licensed armorer on the set. Sometimes it’s called an Entertainment Firearms Permit, but you cannot have weapons on a set without a licensed armorer there. 

Yesterday on the show, we told you that we’d expand more on a discussion regarding a malicious lie that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-13) is spreading about one of our greatest allies. Tlaib recently tweeted:

I’m outraged that the @StateDept is moving forward with plans to build the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on land stolen from Palestinians. By doing so, the U.S. is complicit in the illegal confiscation of Palestinian property. @POTUS should reverse this Trump era policy immediately.

ACLJ Senior Counsel for International and Government Affairs Jeff Ballabon says he hasn’t heard anybody from the Left speak out against this outrageous claim:

She did a series of tweets, which frankly are all lies. It’s been American policy for decades to move the embassy to Jerusalem. Finally it was done, and yes we were there. And now she is declaring that this is confiscating Palestinian land. This Administration has been tolerant of this. It’s been allowing this to be their tone of voice, and this is happening around the world. People see it. They’re trying to deny Jewish history . . . .

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast also includes analysis from ACLJ Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy Ric Grenell about the United Nations envoy to Lebanon thanking Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, for a “tour d’horizon” of Lebanese issues.

Watch the full broadcast below: