'It Was Clearly an Accident': 2 Jurors in Alec Baldwin's Rust Case Speak Out After Its Dismissal

Two jurors involved in Alec Baldwin's Rust case that was dropped last week are speaking out.

In a conversation with The New York Times, jurors Gabriela Picayo and Johanna Haag expressed their doubts in the prosecution's case against the 30 Rock alum, 66. (If the case hadn't been dismissed — which was a result of Baldwin's defense attorneys arguing that the prosecution had buried evidence — all 12 jurors would have had to come to a unanimous decision on the verdict.)

Baldwin's criminal charge was ultimately dropped on July 12, nearly 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 also injured.

“As the week went by, it just didn’t, it didn’t seem like a very strong case,” Haag, who works in the advertising and marketing field and was known as juror No. 7, told the Times.

Specifically, Haag recalled the prosecution showing the jury emotional law enforcement footage of the shooting aftermath. As she explained, Baldwin "looked shocked and stunned and so sad."

"It was clearly an accident, and the idea that there’s anything purposeful, or the idea that there was this grave carelessness that caused this, didn’t seem realistic to me," Haag said.

Similarly, Picayo — a scientist who served as juror No. 9 — told the Times that as an actor, Baldwin should not have been expected to know a lot about gun safety, adding he instead should have trusted the experts on set.

“I think he would have trusted the people, you know, on the set to do their job," she said.

Picayo also reflected on finding out that Rust armorer Ha -

Ben Affleck Wasn't in Attendance at ,...

nnah Gutierrez-Reed was already convicted of involuntary manslaughter. “I’m still here, I’m still open to hearing and obviously trying to stay unbiased,” she said, “but I was starting to move towards the direction of thinking that this was very silly and he should not be on trial.”

Still, while she leaned against convicting Baldwin after the trial's second day, she noted that she "wasn’t presented with all of the evidence, so I don’t know what could have swayed me."

Ultimately, the jury did not need to make a decision in the case, as it was dismissed after Baldwin's lawyer Luke Nikas said that "critical" evidence — ammunition discovered by a man named Troy Teske (a friend of the father of the convicted Rust armorer) — "was never disclosed to us."

“At that point, I really started to feel sorry for Mr. Baldwin,” Haag said. “I thought, you know, ‘What’s going on here? What is happening?’ ”

The Times reported that jurors found out the case was dismissed only after they were sent home, and when they received a text from the court reading “Trail CANCELLED" (with the word "trial" misspelled).

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Baldwin spoke out a day after the dramatic dismissal, writing in an Instagram caption that there were "too many people who have supported me to thank just now."

"To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family," he wrote.

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