Baldwin, 66, and his wife Hilaria Baldwin were among those watching in the courtroom as lawyers on Tuesday questioned 70 prospective jurors about issues such as their knowledge of the case and attitude toward gun experts, the start of a process to choose a jury.
Twelve jurors and four alternates - 11 women and 5 men- were chosen.
The trial will start on Wednesday, nearly three years after Baldwin pointed his gun at Halyna Hutchins as she set up a camera shot inside a movie-set church about 30km southwest of Santa Fe in New Mexico.
Prosecutors questioned prospective jurors on their knowledge of the case and a defense lawyer asked them if they had seen Baldwin's performances and if that might influence their opinion of the actor.
"There's a man who's sitting here who has his day in court now, finally, Alec Baldwin, and so he's obviously not just a person in the media, he's a real person," Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro told potential jurors.
Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial in a modern, brown-stucco courthouse in downtown Santa Fe is expected to last eight days and run to July 19.
It is remarkable in that there is little or no precedent in United States history for an actor to face criminal prosecution for an on-set shooting death. The 30 Rock actor could be imprisoned for up to 18 months if found guilty.
In March this year, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez, the set employee in charge of firearm safety, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a Santa Fe jury for mistakenly loading a live round into Baldwin's gun.
Gutierrez received the maximum 18-month sentence.
Legal analysts and firearms specialists had long expected Baldwin's case to hinge on whether he should have inspected the gun after he was told it was "cold," an industry term meaning it was empty or contained inert, dummy rounds.
But in a pivotal interview in December 2021, Baldwin told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos he did not pull the trigger, sending prosecutors and defence lawyers into the world of forensic firearms testing.
Baldwin, 66, said he cocked the reproduction 1873 Single Action Army pistol before it fired a live round that killed the rising-star cinematographer and wounded director Joel Souza.
Santa Fe police set out to test Baldwin's claims. An FBI examination found the gun worked normally and would not fire at full cock without the trigger pulled. State prosecutors filed charges thereafter, alleging Baldwin was lying about the trigger.
Baldwin's legal team last year countered with photographic evidence the Italian-made Pietta gun's full-cock notch had been filed down, making it easier to fire. That allowed a mechanical failure or "accidental discharge" without a trigger pull, they said.
UPHILL BATTLE
Whether the revolver was modified or not, legal experts see an uphill battle for the prosecution to prove Baldwin knew he could kill Hutchins but showed wilful disregard to the risk - a level of criminal negligence required for an involuntary manslaughter conviction.
"The gun is probably the best defence, because there is no way to definitively say what the condition of the firearm was," said gun historian Ashley Hlebinsky who is executive director of the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center.
Prosecutors last year dropped charges, convinced the gun was modified, only to have a grand jury reinstate them in January after independent firearms expert Lucien Haag confirmed findings of the FBI examination.
The FBI destroyed the gun during testing and the actor's lawyers said they were left with no way to prove it was modified.
“The worst evidence against Baldwin is the FBI ballistics report that says he pulled the trigger, and his ABC interview where he said he didn’t," said Neama Rahmani, a Los Angeles trial attorney and former federal prosecutor.
Another possible hurdle for the prosecution is persuading jurors Baldwin is guilty of criminal negligence after Gutierrez and first assistant director Dave Halls were convicted for the shooting.
Halls accepted blame in a plea deal, acknowledging he did not check rounds in Baldwin's gun. He was convicted on a misdemeanour charge and given a six-month suspended sentence.
"Juries have difficulty with the idea that people can share guilt," said University of New Mexico law professor Joshua Kastenburg, a former lawyer and judge in the US Air Force.
Still, jurors may not buy Baldwin's argument that, as an actor, he was not responsible for firearms safety and relied on set experts like Gutierrez and Halls.
Gun ownership is common in the Southwest United States where there is a cultural norm to check a weapon and never point it at someone and pull the trigger, according to Hlebinsky.
Then there is Baldwin's on-set behaviour.
Using videos and photos from Rust filming, state prosecutor Morrissey will try to show Baldwin was a man with "no control of his emotions," whose "off script" firing of guns, pointing them at people and rushing of Gutierrez to reload weapons contributed to a collapse in firearms safety, according to court filings.
The judge in the case ruled on Monday that Baldwin's producer role could not be linked to Hutchins' death, marking a possible setback to prosecutors who argued the actor was the de facto "boss" of the set and responsible for overall firearm safety.
The two other most powerful people on the set, Souza and Halls, are likely to defend the actor. Both have been called as witnesses by the defence and prosecution, respectively.
During Gutierrez's trial, Souza and Halls dismissed Baldwin's on-set antics as typical of high-powered actors.
Baldwin's best defence may be doubts his lawyers can sow about the workings of the pistol, according to Hlebinsky.
"I don't think anyone can say 100% what happened," said the firearms historian, who has acted as an expert in court cases on single action Colt. 45 type revolvers similar to Baldwin's.
