Alec Baldwin returns to SNL for first time since Rust shooting trial

Baldwin will not face another trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter relating to Ms Hutchens’ death after the case against him in New Mexico was dismissed in July.

He denied pulling the trigger on the set of the western, which was being filmed in the state, and said he did not know who put live bullets in the gun.

He called it a “one in a trillion episode”.

The trial collapsed after his lawyers claimed police and prosecutors had hidden evidence – a batch of bullets – that could have been connected to the shooting.

While prosecutors argued the bullets were not relevant, the judge in New Mexico decided they should have been shared with Baldwin’s team regardless.

In April, the production’s armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was jailed after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors said she had failed to notice that live bullets had been mixed with dummy rounds in a box of ammunition on set – one of which was in the firearm used by Baldwin.