Alec Baldwin is set to stand trial on a demand of involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 killing of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins just after a New Mexico judge denied the actor’s bid to dismiss the case Friday.
Baldwin, who has pleaded not responsible, is set to go to demo in July.
Judge Mary Marlowe’s conclusion will come after she heard oral arguments from Baldwin attorneys and prosecutors in a Santa Fe court on May 17.
In the course of that hearing, unique prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey stated, referring to Baldwin, that “the actor has responsibility for the firearms after it is in their hands.”
But Baldwin’s lawyers argued that the case should really be tossed simply because Morrissey failed to present significant evidence throughout a grand jury proceeding in January that resulted in Baldwin’s indictment on the manslaughter charge.
The demand of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum prison sentence of 18 months on conviction.
Hutchins was killed Oct. 21, 2021, as Baldwin rehearsed a scene on the “Rust” established.
Baldwin has explained that Hutchins instructed him to aim the gun at her although he practiced a cross-attract maneuver. As he produced that move, he has mentioned, the gun discharged a reside round of ammunition, fatally striking Hutchins and injuring the film’s director, Joel Souza.
Baldwin has managed in interviews that he did not pull the induce and that the gun malfunctioned.
Prosecutors in January 2023 at first charged Baldwin and the film’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed with involuntary manslaughter.
Two months following that, a unique prosecutor assigned to the situation, Andrea Reeb, resigned.
A month afterwards, special prosecutors who replaced Reeb cited “new details in the case” when they introduced that they would briefly dismiss the manslaughter demand in opposition to Baldwin.
Baldwin afterward flew from New York to Montana, the place he filmed the remaining scenes of the film as element of a settlement of a wrongful loss of life declare from Hutchins’ spouse and children.
In January, the grand jury indicted Baldwin on the similar manslaughter demand. He pleaded not guilty.
Gutierrez-Reed was convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter, but jurors identified her not responsible of tampering with evidence.
She is serving an 18-month sentence at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility.
Baldwin and Hutchins’ spouse, Matthew Hutchins, in 2022 agreed to settle on undisclosed phrases the lawsuit her loved ones filed against the actor and declared that Matthew Hutchins would serve as an executive producer on the movie.
In a statement he issued at the time, Matthew Hutchins explained, “I have no interest in participating in recriminations or attribution of blame (to the producers or Mr. Baldwin). All of us imagine Halyna’s demise was a terrible accident.”
“I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment local community have come together to fork out tribute to Halyna’s final work,” Hutchins stated.
Sumiko Moots contributed.
