Judge upholds dismissal of involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin on set shooting

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

In a ruling Thursday, state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer upheld her decision in July to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. She said prosecutors have not raised any factual or legal arguments to overturn her decision.

“Because the State’s amended motion raises arguments previously made and arguments the State chose not to raise earlier, the court finds the amended motion not well taken,” the judge wrote, adding that the motion was also untimely.

A spokesman for Baldwin’s lawyers said Friday they had no immediate reaction to the decision.

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

The case was dismissed mid-trial based on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie “Rugina”.

Baldwin’s trial was overturned by revelations that ammunition was brought to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March by a man who said it could be connected to Hutchins’ slaying. Prosecutors said they considered the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s attorneys say investigators “buried” the evidence in a separate file and successfully filed a motion to dismiss.

Baldwin, lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing the gun at Hutchins during a film rehearsal outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.

A judge sentenced in April film gun supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to a maximum of 1.5 years in a state penitentiary on an involuntary manslaughter conviction in Hutchins’ death.

Marlowe Sommer last month denied Gutierrez-Reed’s request to throw out his conviction or get a new trial based on allegations that prosecutors failed to share potentially exculpatory evidence. She found that the gunsmith’s lawyers had not established 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 still has an appeal pending in a higher court.

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