The New Mexico criminal case against actor Alec Baldwin stemming from a fatal shooting on the set of his film Rust in 2021, it was closed on Monday (23).
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey withdrew her appeal of the dismissal of the case, according to a statement from the First Judicial District District Attorney’s office.
Baldwin’s attorneys, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said in a statement that “today’s decision to dismiss the appeal is the final confirmation of what Alec Baldwin and his attorneys have said from the beginning – this was an unspeakable tragedy, but Alec Baldwin he did not commit any crime.”
A New Mexico judge had dismissed manslaughter charges against Baldwin in July, agreeing with the actor’s lawyers that Morrissey and the sheriff’s office hid evidence about the origin of the murder.
The district attorney’s office said it still strongly disagreed with the judge’s decision to dismiss the case against Baldwin.
However, the decision was made after the Attorney General’s Office informed Morrissey that it “did not intend to fully pursue the appeal on behalf of the prosecution,” according to the statement.
Hutchins died when Baldwin pointed a gun at her while they were preparing a scene on a movie set near Santa Fe. The gun fired a live bullet accidentally loaded by the gun. Gutierrez was convicted of manslaughter in March and sentenced the following month.
The actor denied pulling the trigger and stated that he was instructed to point it at the camera. However, the FBI and an independent firearms expert concluded that the gun would not fire without the trigger pulled.
Hutchins’ death was the first fatal on-set shooting with a live bullet mistaken for a blank since the silent film era in Hollywood, according to historian Alan Rode.
Accidental shootings on Hollywood movie sets have in the past been resolved through civil litigation, as in the case of the last victim in 1993, when Brandon Lee was killed after a blank bullet dislodged a bullet stuck in the barrel of a revolver during the filming of The Crow.
