Rust prosecutor withdraws appeal of dismissal of Alec Baldwin case

The effort to prosecute

Alec Baldwin for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer in 2021

ended on Dec 23, when the special prosecutor withdrew her appeal of the judge’s decision to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge during the actor’s trial.

The prosecutor, Ms Kari T. Morrissey, said in a news release that she was abandoning the case because the New Mexico attorney-general’s office, which handles appeals of criminal cases, did not intend to “exhaustively pursue the appeal”.

“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,” the news release added.

Mr Luke Nikas and Mr Alex Spiro, lawyers for Baldwin, said in a statement that the decision was 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”.

The case in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was upended on the third day of Baldwin’s trial in July after his lawyers argued that the state had not properly disclosed certain evidence.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer of the 1st Judicial District in New Mexico determined that the evidence – ammunition delivered to the local sheriff’s office months before the trial – had been “intentionally and deliberately” withheld from the defence. She found that the state’s actions amounted to prosecutorial misconduct and dismissed the case without the potential for it to be retried.

Ms Morrissey pushed back on the judge’s decision, filing a notice of appeal. Although she conceded that the state had failed to provide the defence with the ammunition in question, she argued that the evidence was not material to Baldwin’s defence, and questioned the extent to which his legal team knew about the evidence before the trial.

In the news release on Dec 23, Ms Morrissey said she maintained those positions, but could not pursue the appeal without the attorney-general’s full backing.

Ms Mary Carmack-Altwies, the local district attorney who appointed Ms Morrissey as special prosecutor, said in a statement that she supported the decision to withdraw the appeal.

On Oct 21, 2021, Baldwin was filming the independent western Rust on a movie ranch outside Santa Fe when the gun he was positioning for the camera went off. It fired a live bullet that killed the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and injured its director.

The movie’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who loaded the gun that day, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and is serving an 18-month prison sentence. She has appealed the conviction. NYTIMES