Judge upholds decision to dismiss manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin

A New Mexico judge has upheld her decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin after the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.

In a ruling on Thursday, District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stood by her July decision to dismiss the charge against Baldwin.

She said prosecutors did not raise any factual or legal arguments that would justify reversing her decision.

“Because the state’s amended motion raises arguments previously made, and arguments that the state elected not to raise earlier, the court does not find the amended motion well taken,” the judge wrote.

>
The case was thrown out halfway through trial on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defence after the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film Rust.

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 Ms Hutchins’ killing.

Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant but Baldwin’s lawyers claimed investigators “buried” the evidence in a separate case file, and filed a successful motion to dismiss.

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey can now decide whether to appeal to a higher court.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for Rust, was pointing a gun at Ms Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing the cinematographer and wounding director Joel Souza.

Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.

A judge in April 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.

Judge Marlowe Sommer last month rejected Gutierrez-Reed’s request to dismiss her conviction or convene a new trial on allegations that prosecutors failed to share evidence that might have cleared her.

She found that the armourer’s attorneys did not establish that there was a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the trial would have been different had the evidence been available to Gutierrez-Reed, who still has an appeal pending with a higher court.