Celebrity
Judge Upholds Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Charge Against Alec Baldwin In On-Set Shooting
Santa Fe, New Mexico – A New Mexico judge affirmed her decision to dismiss Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter allegation in the fatal shooting of a cameraman on the set of a Western film.
In a ruling issued Thursday, state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer upheld her July decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter allegation against Baldwin. She claimed that prosecutors did not present any factual or legal arguments to support altering the decision.
“Because the state’s amended motion raises arguments previously made and arguments that the state chose not to raise earlier, the court does not find the amended motion well taken,” the judge stated, adding that the request was also late.
Judge Upholds Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Charge Against Alec Baldwin In On-Set Shooting
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey told The Associated Press that she disagrees with the court’s analysis and intends to appeal the decision. The Santa Fe district attorney appointed Morrissey to take up the case in March 2023, after a previous special prosecutor resigned due to errors in filing first charges.
The case was dismissed halfway through the trial due to allegations that police and prosecutors suppressed information from the defense in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.”
Baldwin’s trial was disrupted by discoveries that ammunition was brought into the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office in March by a guy who claimed it was related to Hutchins’ death. Prosecutors maintained the ammunition was unconnected and inconsequential, but Baldwin’s lawyers claim detectives “buried” the evidence in a different case file and successfully moved to dismiss.
Judge Upholds Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Charge Against Alec Baldwin In On-Set Shooting
Baldwin, the primary actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a film set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver fired, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. Baldwin claims he pulled back the hammer but not the trigger, and the handgun fired.
In April, a judge sentenced Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the movie weapons supervisor, to a maximum of 1.5 years in a state prison for involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death.
Last month, Marlowe Sommer denied Gutierrez-Reed’s plea to overturn her conviction or a new trial based on concerns that prosecutors failed to communicate potentially exculpatory evidence. She determined that the armorer’s attorneys failed to prove that there was a reasonable likelihood that the trial decision would have been different if Gutierrez-Reed had access to the evidence, which is now pending in a higher court appeal.
SOURCE | AP
