Prosecutor calls for retrial of Alec Baldwin in Rust case

SANTA FE, NM (AP) — A prosecutor asked a New Mexico judge to Decision to dismiss Alec Baldwin has been charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cameraman on the set of a Western film, according to a court document released Wednesday.

Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey said there were not enough facts to support the July verdict and Baldwin's due process rights were not violated.

State District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case mid-trial because police and prosecutors had denied the defense in the shooting of Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie “Rust”.

The charges against Baldwin were dismissed immediately, meaning they cannot be reinstated once all appeals against the decision have been exhausted.

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer of “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal when it went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer – but not the trigger – and the gun fired.

The evidence included ammunition brought to the sheriff's office in March by a man he said might be linked to Hutchins' killing. Prosecutors said they considered the ammunition unimportant and unrelated, while Baldwin's lawyers claimed they “buried” it and filed a successful motion to dismiss the case.

In her decision to dismiss the Baldwin case, Marlowe Sommer described “egregious breaches of disclosure requirements that constitute misconduct” by law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as false testimony by a witness about physical evidence during the trial.

In his motion for retrial, Morrissey again argued that the undisclosed ammunition was not relevant to the case against Baldwin because that case involved his responsibility to safely handle a firearm in accordance with known industry guidelines.

“None of the prosecutors … ever intentionally withheld evidence from the defendant. It simply did not occur to the prosecution that the ammunition might be relevant to the case, even if it was the same or similar live ammunition found on the set of 'Rust,'” Morrissey wrote.

She claimed that defense lawyers knew about the rounds but denied the opportunity to view them before trial.

“This is a smokescreen created by the defense to influence and confuse the court … and it succeeded,” Morrissey wrote.

Baldwin's attorney, Luke Nikas, said a response would be filed with the court without further comment.

Movie gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is serving an 18-month prison sentence for manslaughter. She was accused of ignoring standard safety protocols and missing several opportunities to spot prohibited live ammunition on set. Assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest and was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.

It has not been officially determined who brought the live ammunition that killed Hutchins to the set, although prosecutors claim that Gutierrez-Reed was responsible.

The ammunition that foiled the case was turned over to a Santa Fe County Sheriff's crime scene technician, who filed the evidence under a different case number. Three of those rounds resembled live ammunition collected from the “Rust” set after the fatal shooting.

The mysterious ammunition was delivered to the sheriff's office by Troy Teske of Bullhead City, Arizona, who regularly stored guns and ammunition for his friend and longtime film firearms trainer Thell Reed – Gutierrez-Reed's stepfather and mentor as a gun master on the film set.

Morrissey asked the judge to order the defense to explain when and how they learned about the ammunition supplied by Teske and called the defense's motion to dismiss the case “all a ruse.”

Baldwin's lawyers have said he was unaware that live ammunition was brought to the film set and that prosecutors hid evidence while trying to establish a link between the live ammunition on set and Gutierrez-Reed. They said prosecutors wanted to bolster the argument that Baldwin should have recognized the gunsmith's clumsy youth and inexperience.

Gutierrez-Reed is seeking to overturn her manslaughter conviction on the grounds that evidence was suppressed in Baldwin's trial.

Separately, Gutierrez-Reed has requested a hearing on a proposal to change her plea to guilty in exchange for probation on a felony weapons charge alleging that she took a gun to a Santa Fe bar weeks before filming began on “Rust.”

Under the agreement with prosecutors, Gutierrez-Reed would spend 18 months under probation supervision and face prison time if he violates probation. The terms of the probation agreement, if approved, would prohibit possession of firearms, use of drugs or alcohol, and require registration in a criminal justice DNA database.