In New Mexico, a special prosecutor has decided to drop the appeal of the dismissal of a case against Alec Baldwin for involuntary manslaughter. This concludes the extensive legal battle over the tragic movie set shooting that resulted in the death of the film’s cinematographer.
The Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office made the announcement on Monday, citing various obstacles that hindered their ability to fully pursue the case within the confines of the law. This development brings an end to the prosecution process, as reported by KOAT.
The trial took a sudden turn when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the charges against Baldwin related to Halyna Hutchins’ death during proceedings in July. The defense team accused the prosecutors of withholding crucial evidence, prompting this decision, as highlighted by CrimeOnline. With one of the special prosecutors stepping down from the case, Kari Morissey was left as the sole prosecutor tasked with continuing the legal proceedings.
Hutchins was killed in the shooting during a rehearsal for the “Rust” movie in 2021, and the movie’s director, Joel Sousa, was wounded. Baldwin and the film’s armor, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, were charged in the case, and Gutierrez-Reed was ultimately found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 16 months in prison.
Baldwin went to trial in June, but the trial came to a screeching halt when his attorneys revealed that retired Arizona police officer Troy Teske had brought a collection of live ammunition into the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office and given them to crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, saying that some of the bullets matched the live bullet that killed Hutchins.
But Poppell did not put the ammunition into the inventory of the “Rust” case, and the sheriff’s department did not disclose the existence of the evidence to defense attorneys. Prosecutors argued that the ammunition wasn’t connected to the case, but defense countered that they should have had the opportunity to find out for themselves.
Sommer agreed with the defense and dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it could not be filed again, and the only option for prosecutors was to pursue an appeal.
The district attorney’s office said in its statement the case would have have continued forward but that the state attorney general “did not intend to exhaustively pursue the appeal on behalf of the prosecution.”
“As a result, the State’s efforts to continue to litigate the case in a fair and comprehensive manner have been met with multiple barriers that have compromised its ability to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,” the statement said.
Baldwin’s attorneys, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said in a statement that the appeal’s dismissal “is the final vindication of what Alec Baldwin and his attorneys have said from the beginning,” CNN reported.
“This was an unspeakable tragedy but Alec Baldwin committed no crime,” Nikas and Spiro said. “The rule of law remains intact in New Mexico.”
