Legal Experts Advise Alec Baldwin to Keep His Mouth Shut

Legal experts have begun to weigh in on the New Mexico District Attorney’s decision to charge actor Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter for the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

As Breitbart News reported on Thursday, the New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney’s office chose to charge Alec Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter, charging that his negligent actions led to the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of his western Rust. Baldwin has maintained that the film’s assistant director, Dave Halls, handed what he described as a “cold gun” and that he never pulled the trigger.

“No, no, no I would never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger at them, never,” Baldwin told George Stephanopoulos in an interview after the shooting.

Baldwin has claimed that he pulled back the hammer and the gun fired; an investigation from the FBI has said otherwise.

The Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will also be charged with involuntary manslaughter alongside Baldwin. Assistant director has already pleaded guilty to an agreement with the district attorney’s office; the question now is if Baldwin will do the same. Some legal experts told Fox News that Baldwin will likely take the case to trial.

“This is an aggressive charging decision by District Attorney Carmack-Altwies. Involuntary manslaughter requires some sort of criminal negligence,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Neama Rahmani told the outlet.

“The prosecution will have to prove that Baldwin had a duty to inspect the gun himself, he knew it had previously discharged, he pulled the trigger despite denying it, his finger shouldnAl’t have been near the trigger, he shouldn’t have cocked the hammer or some combination of these factors,” Rahmani added.

Rahmani said that Hall’s guilty plea to the prosecutors could prove difficult for Baldwin.

“Involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico is a Class D felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison,” Rahmani said. “If Baldwin is convicted, I can see him being sentenced at or near the max.”

“Baldwin has a strong defense case, and I can see him pushing the case to trial for legal and public relations reasons,” he added. “He has to think about his acting career in addition to doing time. But if he rolls the dice and loses at trial, the judge may hammer him for causing Hutchins’ death.”

Rahmani further said that Baldwin would be wise to “keep his mouth shut” and simply follow the advice of his legal counsel.

“The district attorney clearly wants to make an example of him, so he should stop taking advice from his PR team, get with his lawyers and prepare for trial,” said the attorney.

Baldwin’s attorney’s have called the charges a “terrible miscarriage of justice.”

“This decision distorts Halyna Hutchins’ tragic death and represents a terrible miscarriage of justice,” Luke Nikas of Quinn Emanuel said. “Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun — or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We will fight these charges, and we will win.”