Judge upholds Alec Baldwin’s dismissal of involuntary manslaughter charge for shooting on set

SANTA FE, North America – A New Mexico judge upheld his decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.

In her ruling Thursday, state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stood by her July decision to dismiss the manslaughter charge against Baldwin. He said prosecutors did not put forward any factual or legal arguments that would justify reversing his decision.

“Because the state’s amended motion raised arguments previously made and arguments the state had previously chosen not to raise, the court did not find the amended motion well received,” the judge wrote, adding that the request was also untimely.

A spokesman for Baldwin’s attorneys said in a statement Friday that they had no immediate reaction to the ruling.

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey told The Associated Press that she disagreed with the court’s analysis and would appeal the decision. Morrissey He was appointed by the Santa Fe district attorney in March 2023 to take over the case after the previous special prosecutor resigned following missteps in filing initial charges.

The case was dismissed halfway through the hearing amid allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense about his death in 2021. cinematographer Halyna Hutchins On the set of the movie “Rust”.

Baldwin’s case was upended in March when it was revealed that the ammunition had been brought to the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office by a man who said it might be related to Hutchins’ killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition irrelevant and insignificant, while Baldwin’s attorneys said investigators “buried” the evidence in a separate case file and successfully filed a motion to dismiss the case.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer of “Rust,” He points a gun at Hutchins. In October 2021, a gun went off during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer but did not pull the trigger and the gun went off.

A judge was sentenced in April film weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed He faces a maximum sentence of 1.5 years in state prison for manslaughter in Hutchins’ death.

Marlowe Sommer last month He rejected Gutierrez-Reed’s request dismissing his conviction or holding a new trial on allegations that prosecutors did not share potentially exculpatory evidence. It found that the armorer’s lawyers failed to prove that there was a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the evidence had been available to Gutierrez-Reed, who is pending an appeal in a higher court.

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Associated Press reporter Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque contributed to this report.