New Mexico Prosecutor Ends Alec Baldwin’s Manslaughter Case

A criminal case against actor Alec Baldwin related to the fatal shooting on the set of his 2021 film Rust has officially ended. On Monday, Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey dropped her appeal of the case’s dismissal, according to a statement from the First Judicial District Attorney’s office.

Baldwin’s legal team, consisting of attorneys Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, celebrated the move, calling it a “final vindication” for Baldwin. They reiterated that while the shooting was a “tragic accident,” Baldwin committed no crime. In July, a New Mexico judge had dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin, agreeing with the defense that key evidence had been concealed by the sheriff’s office regarding the source of the live round that killed Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

While the district attorney’s office expressed strong disagreement with the judge’s ruling, the decision to drop the appeal came after the New Mexico Attorney General’s office signaled that it would not pursue the case further.

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Hutchins died when Baldwin pointed a prop gun at her during a camera setup on the Rust set near Santa Fe. The gun discharged a live round, which had been loaded by the film’s chief weapons handler, Hannah Gutierrez. In March, Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced a month later. Baldwin, who denies pulling the trigger, stated he was directed to aim the gun at the camera. However, investigations by the FBI and an independent firearms expert found that the gun could not have fired without the trigger being pulled.

This tragic incident was the first fatal on-set shooting involving a live round mistaken for a dummy or blank round since Hollywood’s silent era. In the past, such on-set tragedies have been settled through civil suits, such as the 1993 fatality of actor Brandon Lee, who died after a blank round dislodged a bullet in the barrel of a revolver on the set of The Crow.

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