Less than six months before Alec Baldwin is set to go on trial for involuntary manslaughter over the on-set 2021 shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the actor who steadfastly claims he never pulled the trigger says prosecutors “have stacked the deck” against him.
“The State prosecutors have engaged in this misconduct—and publicly dragged Baldwin through the cesspool created by their improprieties—without any regard for the fact that serious criminal charges have been hanging over his head for two and a half years,” proclaims a motion to dismiss filed today in New Mexico court.
“Enough is enough”
Recharged in January and facing up to 18 months behind bars if found guilty, the multiple Emmy winner’s criminal trial is scheduled to start in Santa Fe on July 9. Having plead not guilty, Baldwin earlier this week saw some restrictions placed on when he could be deposed in various civil cases connected to the killing of Hutchins over two and half years ago. Today his NYC-based Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan lawyers and Albuquerque firm LeBlanc Law slammed Special Prosecutors Kerry Morrissey and Jason Lewis, and basically everyone ever connected to the investigation of what really happened that tragic day on the Bonanza Creek Ranch set.
“This is an abuse of the system, and an abuse of an innocent person whose rights have been trampled to the extreme,” says the deep dive 52-page motion signed by attorney Luke Nikas. “If the State had conducted the grand jury process consistent with New Mexico law, the outcome should and almost certainly would have been different. In short, the State concealed substantial exculpatory and favorable evidence from the grand jury. The Court should therefore dismiss the indictment.”
Special Prosecutors Lewis and Morrissey did not respond to request for a comment on the latest Baldwin filing. If and when they do, this post will be updated.
Among the various claims the duo will have to respond to in the court docket is the claim by Baldwin’s defense that reports the Colt .45 could not have fired without someone pulling the trigger may not be some clear cut. Citing the appearance of “Michael Haag, one of the State’s purported firearms experts” before the Grand Jury, today’s motion says his testimony “omitted several essential facts regarding that testing, including that the FBI testing established that the gun did fire without a trigger pull when the firearm was fully loaded with six rounds, as it was on the day of the incident.”
From his primetime interview with ABC George Stephanopoulos mere weeks after the October 21, 2021 shooting that killed Hutchins and wounded Rust director Joel Souza until today , Baldwin has always insisted he did not pull the trigger. Reports from the FBI and others have disagreed with him, but the information in Thursday’s motion may throw all that up in the air.
Still fighting civil suits in California and New Mexico over the Rust shooting, Baldwin’s move today comes just over a week after the Indie Western’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a Santa Fe jury. Taken into custody immediately, Gutierrez-Reed will be sentenced on April 15 by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer. Having been declared innocent of the evidence tampering charge the Special Prosecutors slapped on late last year, Gutierrez-Reed could get a maximum of 18 months in a state prison and forced to pay thousands in fines.