The prosecution of Alec Baldwin by New Mexico prosecutors in the “Rust” film set shooting case may finally have come to an end that seemed destined from the start.
NBC News reported Thursday that prosecutors are dropping the involuntary manslaughter charges against the actor in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin was rehearsing with a pistol for a scene when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
News of the case against Baldwin going away, at least for now, won’t come as a great surprise to Deadline: Legal Blog readers. We’ve been tracking the troubled effort every step of the way, since charges were brought back in January, when I (and others, to be sure) opined that prosecutors had a tough task ahead of them.
That was before prosecutors had to drop the gun-charge enhancement in February that carried the most potential prison time for Baldwin, because the law establishing the enhancement was enacted after the alleged crime. That rudimentary charging error was followed by the special prosecutor, Andrea Reeb, who’s also a state legislator, withdrawing from the case, after Baldwin’s lawyers claimed that it violated the separation of powers for her to serve as both a law enforcer and lawmaker.
First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies in Santa Fe, who said she needed outside help because her office didn’t have enough resources, also stepped down from the case, leaving it to new special prosecutors after the defense argued she couldn’t justify staying on alongside them. Her office declined to comment to NBC News on Thursday.
The special prosecution team might technically be keeping its options open. The New York Times reported that Kari Morrissey, one of the special prosecutors who recently took over the case, said the dismissal against Baldwin “will be temporary pending further investigation.”
The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was also charged alongside Baldwin, and…
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