Prosecutor asks for a charge to be reinstated against Alec Baldwin in the ‘Rust’ case
SANTA FE, N.M. — A prosecutor asked a New Mexico judge to reconsider the decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie, according to a court filing made public Wednesday.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said there were insufficient facts to support the July ruling and that Baldwin’s due process rights had not been violated.
State District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case halfway through a trial based on the withholding of evidence by police and prosecutors from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.”
The charge against Baldwin was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can’t be revived once any appeals of the decision are exhausted.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal when it went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired. The case-ending evidence was ammunition that was brought into the sheriff’s office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’ killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers alleged that they “buried” it and filed a successful motion to dismiss the case. In her decision to dismiss the Baldwin case, Marlowe Sommer described “egregious discovery violations constituting misconduct” by law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as false testimony about physical evidence by a witness during the trial.
In the request to reconsider, Morrissey argued again that the undisclosed ammunition was not relevant to the case against Baldwin, which hinged on his responsibility to handle a gun safely under familiar industry guidelines.
“No one on the prosecution team ... ever intentionally kept evidence from the defendant, it simply didn’t occur to the prosecution that the rounds were relevant to the case even if they were the same or similar to the live rounds found on the set of ‘Rust,’” Morrissey wrote.
She asserted that defense attorneys knew about the rounds but canceled an opportunity to view them prior to trial.
“This is a smoke screen created by the defense and was intended to sway and confuse the court ... and it was successful,” Morrissey wrote.
Baldwin attorney Luke Nikas said a response will be filed with the court, without further comment.
Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is serving an 18-month sentence on a conviction for involuntary manslaughter. She was accused of flouting standard safety protocols and missing multiple opportunities to detect forbidden live ammunition on set. Assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to the negligent use of a deadly weapon and was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation. A no contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.