Two jurors in the Alec Baldwin trial told Variety they were leaning toward a guilty verdict when the involuntary manslaughter case was abruptly dismissed.
Their views are at odds with those of three other jurors who told the New York Times and People that they had serious doubts about Baldwin’s guilt.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case on July 12, after learning that prosecutors had failed to provide the defense with evidence of a trove of bullets. Baldwin could have faced up to 18 months in prison if convicted in the October 2021 shooting of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins at a film ranch near Santa Fe, N.M.
The two jurors who spoke to Variety, Chris Montoya and Dennis Garcia, each said that they are gun owners, and had been taught that it is the handler’s responsibility to make sure that a gun is safe.
“Even if your friends are handing you a firearm for you to look at, you always clear that immediately,” said Garcia, who works as a plumber. “You make sure there’s nothing in it.”
Montoya, who works for the New Mexico IT department, said he was not persuaded by the defense’s claim that Baldwin’s gun may have malfunctioned.
“It seemed like their whole defense was he didn’t pull the trigger, and the gun was possibly defective,” Montoya said. “I truly feel like neither one of those was the case.”
The trial was supposed to last eight days, but jurors saw only the attorneys’ opening statements and two days of testimony before being sent home. The prosecution had yet to play Baldwin’s police interviews or call experts on set safety, and the defense had not called any of its witnesses.
A third juror, Jonathan Graboff, told Variety he was not sure how he would have voted, not having seen all of the evidence. Graboff was listed on a court filing as one of four alternates, though he said he was never told if he was an alternate or on the panel of 12.
Two other jurors, Johanna Haag and Gabriela Picayo, told the New York Times that the case seemed weak to them.
“I’m still here, I’m still open to hearing and obviously trying to stay unbiased,” Picayo told the Times, “but I was starting to move towards the direction of thinking that this was very silly and he should not be on trial.”
Another juror, Martina Marquez, told People that pursuing a charge against Baldwin seemed “pointless.”
Garcia said that while he was “torn” about the circumstances and that Baldwin must feel terrible about what happened. But he said he felt Baldwin had a responsibility to check the gun.
“Looking at it from an objective point of view, when you’re functioning as an individual on a movie set, you should still make sure everything is safe,” he said. “If I had to say anything, I’d say, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s a guilty charge.’ The thing went boom. Somebody died.”
The jurors were not supposed to discuss the case amongst each other. Even so, Montoya said he got the sense that the panel was “somewhat split,” and that a couple of other jurors were leaning towards a guilty verdict.
“I wish we could have got deeper into it,” he said. “I was interested to see some of the other stuff the prosecution said.”
The prosecution argued that Baldwin violated the “cardinal rules” of gun safety by pointing his Colt .45 at Hutchins and pulling the trigger.
“It goes back to how I was taught,” Montoya said. “I’ve been shooting since I was a kid. I’ve taught my children to handle guns safely. I taught them the exact same thing: make sure you know what’s in it, don’t point it, know exactly what you’re shooting at.”
The defense argued that those rules don’t apply on movie sets, and that Baldwin, as an actor, was not responsible for gun safety.
Graboff, who has long worked in TV and music, said the argument “resonated with me.”
Graboff said he was surprised to be seated on the jury, after telling the judge that his work history had given him a point of view on the case.
“I quite simply told them that I expect people to do their jobs properly. There’s two people whose job was to make sure it was a safe gun and they failed,” he said. “In similar situations, if I’m handed a piece of equipment, I expect it to be functioning properly.”
He said he told the judge that unless there was evidence that Baldwin and the production knew that those in charge of the guns were incompetent, “I would find it difficult to find for the prosecution.”
He was seated anyway, and said the prosecutor’s opening statement did not dispel his reservations.
“Their argument was that he should have checked the gun himself,” he said. “Y’know, that’s not the way the real world works.”
Overall, the jurors’ views were preliminary, and it’s impossible to know whether they would have dug in or been persuaded to change their minds after hearing all the evidence and deliberating.
“It’s hard to make a full assessment,” Garcia said. “I don’t know what my fellow jurors were thinking.”
The jurors were advised not to consume any news coverage about the case. Garcia said that after being sent home, he avoided the news and social media, and refused to engage with friends who told him the case had been dismissed.
He said he showed up to court the following Monday, only to be told his service was complete and he could go home.
