Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case for the fatal 2021 shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was tossed out in July, but the Emmy winner is still trying to make sure the whole thing is truly over.
In a filing Friday in New Mexico state court, lawyers for Baldwin requested that Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey’s long-shot move to have the case reconsidered be firmly and finally shut down.
“No basis exists to reconsider the Court’s decision,” says Baldwin’s attorneys led by Alex Spiro and Luke Nikas regarding their opposition to Morrissey’s request, which Judge Mary Marlowe Sonner has already rejected for being way too long.
“But here comes Kari Morrissey,” they add with no small drip of condescension (read Alec Baldwin’s response to efforts to reopen his case here).
“After she repeatedly violated the State’s disclosure obligations, buried evidence, lied about it at trial, and then lied about her reasons for lying about it, Morrissey has the audacity to ask the Court to order Baldwin to ‘to provide a description and all documents related to when and how they learned of’ evidence that the State suppressed,” the 16-page document reads.
With barely a straight face in what has been a bitter battle on both sides, the lawyers continue: “It is difficult to imagine a more backwards or conceited attempt to blame the victim of the State’s own ‘willful and deliberate misconduct.’ Not only has the State failed to present any new information to warrant reconsideration, but the new information that has emerged since trial only underscores the strength and necessity of the Court’s judgment.
While there isn’t a hearing, virtual or in-person, scheduled for this Hail Mary matter on Morrissey’s part, you can be sure it isn’t a big priority for Sommer, evident in how the judge mocked Morrissey’s initial 52-page retrial request and seemed to have simply ignored subsequent filings by the prosecutor.
You might put a bow on it too based on Sommer’s September 6 quip about Morrissey’s over-the-page-limit argumen: “A winning argument can fit within the limitations of the rule.” Or you might just go with her terming of the prosecution’s sleight of hand conduct over the evidence of more bullets as “egregious” before she ended the whole thing “with prejudice” (which means it can’t be filed again) on the fourth day of Baldwin’s trial in the Santa Fe County courthouse.
Hutchins was killed, and Rust director Joel Souza was injured, on October 21, 2021 after the Colt .45 Baldwin was pointing at the cinematographer fired off a live round during a rehearsal at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe, where the indie Western was filming. Baldwin, who always insisted he did not pull the trigger and the gun discharged on its own, had faced up to 18 months in state prison if found guilty. The FBI, an independent analysis and the man who actually made the gun all disagreed with Baldwin’s assertion.
Soon set to star in his own TLC reality show with wife Hilaria and their children, Baldwin saw prosecutors fall into a well-timed defense snare when it emerged there were bullets handed over to the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office that the actor’s lawyers hadn’t seen. The decision by Sommer on July 12, at the end of a rocky evidentiary hearing over a defense motion to dismiss the case over the bullets dropped off to police by ex-Arizona cop Troy Teske, could also mean the release of incarcerated Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed from New Mexico state prison.
Currently appealing and trying to get her own case dismissed, Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in a state prison in April after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. While a range of theories from sabotage to stray ammunition coming from her father and seasoned Hollywood gun coach Thell Reed have been floated, no full explanation has been established for how several live rounds got onto the already troubled Rust set and how one of those rounds got in the gun Baldwin was holding.
Baldwin still faces nearly a dozen civil suits over the Rust tragedy, while Gutierrez-Reed has a hearing on September 26 that could see her receive an immediate release from detention if Sommer agrees the suppression of the Teske bullets tainted her case too.