New Mexico prosecutors won’t pursue an appeal of a court’s decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting on a cinematographer on the set of a western movie, the Santa Fe district attorney’s office announced on Monday.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey withdrew the appeal of a July decision made at trial to dismiss the charge against Baldwin in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on set for the movie Rust outside Santa Fe in October 2021.
“Today’s decision to dismiss the appeal is the final vindication of what Alec Baldwin and his attorneys have said from the beginning — this was an unspeakable tragedy but Alec Baldwin committed no crime,” said defence lawyers Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro. “The rule of law remains intact in New Mexico.”
Representatives for the state attorney general could not be be reached immediately for comment.
The decision to drop the appeal solidifies the ruling by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer halfway through Baldwin’s trial that dismissed the case on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defence.
Baldwin’s trial was upended by revelations that ammunition was brought into the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’s killing.
Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers said investigators “buried” the evidence in a separate case file and filed a successful motion to dismiss.
The district attorney’s office said that under state law, the New Mexico attorney general would have carried forward the appeal but “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,” local prosecutors said.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed charges of involuntary manslaughter against actor Alec Baldwin, in New Mexico. His defence lawyers accused Santa Fe law enforcement of hiding evidence of the source of the live round that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021, failing to list the rounds in the Rust investigation file or inform the defence lawyers of their existence.
Baldwin faces several lawsuits
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for Rust, was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on set when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
In April, a judge sentenced movie weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to the maximum of one and a half years at a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction in Hutchins’s death.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of Rust, where it was expressly prohibited, and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.
Assistant director and safety co-ordinator 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.
Several civil lawsuits have been brought against Baldwin and Rust producers, including a complaint by Hutchins’s parents and sister.
Prosecutors said Hutchins’s death has prompted industry-wide scrutiny of safety protocols, especially the use of firearms and live ammunition on set.