New Mexico Judge Denies Alec Baldwin’s Motion To Dismiss Involuntary Manslaughter Charge Ahead Of ‘Rust’ Trial
Alec Baldwin will be facing trial for the killing of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, as a New Mexico judge denies the disgraced actor’s request to drop the involuntary manslaughter charge raised against him.
Ahead of the trial, which is expected to begin on July 10th, the actor had already filed 3 separate motions to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter indictment.
Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, Baldwin’s legal team, originally argued that the prosecution had failed to present evidence to the grand jury, noting that the firearm the actor unloaded on Halyna Hutchins and Rust Director Joel Souza had been destroyed by the FBI during testing, one motion to dismiss over failure to allege a criminal act, and another motion to dismiss over presumption the grand jury was prejudiced against him, Fox News reports.
Per documents obtained by Breitbart, New Mexico District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer rejected the actor’s request to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter charge, concluding that prosecutors did not act in “bad faith.”
“New Mexico law does not require a prosecutor to present exculpatory evidence to a grand jury, or require a grand jury to even consider exculpatory evidence after alerted to its existence,” Marlowe Sommer wrote.
Following the judge’s decision to dismiss Baldwin’s request to drop his involuntary manslaughter charge, Nikas and Spiro issued a statement that simply read, “We look forward to our day in court.”
Filed in April of this year, the state’s response to Baldwin’s motion to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter charge stated, “The defendant’s motion to dismiss is predictably false, misleading, and histrionic misrepresentation of the facts and circumstances of the history of the case.”
“The two special prosecutors who have been assigned the prosecution of Mr. Baldwin have experienced near countless lies and manipulation from the defense for more than one year. In addition, we have, and certainly will continue to be, the subject of the defendant’s contrived and unwarranted personal attacks,” it added.
Late in January of this year, in what can be described as a fairly expected move, Baldwin pleaded not guilty to the new involuntary manslaughter charges filed against him a few weeks earlier, as a New Mexico grand jury sought to hold the actor accountable for the killing of the Rust cinematographer.
In response to the new charges filed against the actor, Baldwin’s legal team issued a statement that read, “Enough is enough. This is an abuse of the system, and an abuse of an innocent person whose rights have been trampled to the extreme.”
In a separate trial that took place in April of this year, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison by New Mexico District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer.
Much like Gutierrez-Reed, were Baldwin to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, the disgraced actor faces up to 18 months in prison and could also be required to pay a $5,000 fine.
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