Judge declines to reconsider criminal charges against Alec Baldwin in ‘Rust’ shooting – National

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

In a ruling Thursday, District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stood by her July decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. She said prosecutors had not presented any factual or legal arguments that would justify overturning their decision.

“Because the State’s amended motion raises arguments that have been previously made and arguments that the State did not wish to make earlier, the court finds the amended motion not well received,” the judge wrote, adding that the motion also stands It was untimely.

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

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Alec Baldwin breaks down in tears as judge dismisses Rust case for involuntary manslaughter

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Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey told the Associated Press that she disagreed with the court’s analysis and would appeal the ruling. Morrissey was hired 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.

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The case was dropped midway through the trial amid claims police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense about the death of camerawoman Halyna Hutchins on the film’s set in 2021 rust.

Baldwin’s trial was upended by revelations that ammunition had been brought to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March by a man who claimed it might be linked to Hutchins’ killing. Prosecutors said they considered the ammunition irrelevant and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers said investigators “buried” the evidence in a separate file and filed a successful motion to dismiss.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer of rustDuring a rehearsal for a film set outside Santa Fe in October 2021, he was pointing a gun at Hutchins when the revolver exploded, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer – but not the trigger – and fired the revolver.

In April, a judge sentenced movie gun officer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed to a maximum of one and a half years in state prison for involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death.

Marlowe Sommer last month rejected Gutierrez-Reed’s request to overturn her conviction or set a new trial because prosecutors had failed to turn over exculpatory evidence. She found that the gunsmith’s attorneys had not shown 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 still on appeal in a higher court .

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

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