Two jurors concerned in Alec Baldwin’s Rust case that was dropped final week are talking out.
In a dialog with The New York Occasions, jurors Gabriela Picayo and Johanna Haag expressed their doubts within the prosecution’s case in opposition to the 30 Rock alum, 66. (If the case hadn’t been dismissed — which was a results of Baldwin’s protection attorneys arguing that the prosecution had buried proof — all 12 jurors would have needed to come to a unanimous resolution on the decision.)
Baldwin’s prison cost was finally dropped on July 12, practically three years after Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed when the gun he was holding discharged on set in October 2021. Director Joel Souza was additionally injured.
“Because the week glided by, it simply didn’t, it didn’t appear to be a really robust case,” Haag, who works within the promoting and advertising and marketing subject and was generally known as juror No. 7, advised the Occasions.
Particularly, Haag recalled the prosecution exhibiting the jury emotional legislation enforcement footage of the taking pictures aftermath. As she defined, Baldwin “regarded shocked and surprised and so unhappy.”
“It was clearly an accident, and the concept there’s something purposeful, or the concept there was this grave carelessness that precipitated this, didn’t appear reasonable to me,” Haag stated.
Equally, Picayo — a scientist who served as juror No. 9 — advised the Occasions that as an actor, Baldwin shouldn’t have been anticipated to know lots about gun security, including he as an alternative ought to have trusted the specialists on set.
“I believe he would have trusted the folks, you realize, on the set to do their job,” she stated.
Picayo additionally mirrored on discovering out that Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was already convicted of involuntary manslaughter. “I’m nonetheless right here, I’m nonetheless open to listening to and clearly making an attempt to remain unbiased,” she stated, “however I used to be beginning to transfer in the direction of the route of considering that this was very foolish and he shouldn’t be on trial.”
Nonetheless, whereas she leaned in opposition to convicting Baldwin after the trial’s second day, she famous that she “wasn’t introduced with all the proof, so I don’t know what might have swayed me.”
Finally, the jury didn’t have to decide within the case, because it was dismissed after Baldwin’s lawyer Luke Nikas stated that “crucial” proof — ammunition found by a person named Troy Teske (a good friend of the daddy of the convicted Rust armorer) — “was by no means disclosed to us.”
“At that time, I actually began to really feel sorry for Mr. Baldwin,” Haag stated. “I assumed, you realize, ‘What’s occurring right here? What is going on?’ ”
The Occasions reported that jurors came upon the case was dismissed solely after they had been despatched dwelling, and once they acquired a textual content from the courtroom studying “Path CANCELLED” (with the phrase “trial” misspelled).
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Baldwin spoke out a day after the dramatic dismissal, writing in an Instagram caption that there have been “too many individuals who’ve supported me to thank simply now.”
“To all of you, you’ll by no means understand how a lot I respect your kindness towards my household,” he wrote.
