New Mexico’s case against Alex Baldwin may finally be over as of last month, but the Rust star isn’t finished with the state over its investigation and short-lived trial over the fatal 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the indie Western.
“Defendants sought at every turn to scapegoat Baldwin for the acts and omissions of others, regardless of the evidence or the law,” reads a civil rights violations lawsuit filed by Thursday the Emmy winner against prosecutors past and current, the Santa Fe D.A. and others. “Although no verdict in this civil case can undo the trauma the State’s threat of conviction and incarceration has inflicted, Alec Baldwin has filed this action to hold Defendants responsible for their appalling violations of the laws that governed their work.”
Placed in the state court docket by Baldwin’s Rust defense team — Luke Nikas and Alex Spirio of NYC’s Quinn Emanuel and Albuquerque’s Heather LeBlanc — the blood-from-a-stone suit seeks a wide range of unspecified damages and a jury trial. As the suit says, “Because Defendants’ actions were motivated by evil motive or intent and involved a reckless or callous indifference to Baldwin’s federally protected rights, an award of punitive damages is appropriate to the fullest extent permitted by law.”
Now, you’d think Baldwin and his legal beagles would have been happy with New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez pushing aside special prosecutor Kerri Morrissey’s pursuit of a new trial and announcing December 23 that the state had decided not to “pursue the appeal of behalf of the prosecution,” which followed from the actor’s involuntary manslaughter trial being cut short by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer and tossed out due to a successful move by Spiro and Nikas to taint Morrissey and team as suppressing evidence.
With other civil cases against Baldwin over the tragedy on Rust still in California and New Mexico courts, one might assume Baldwin would move on from the matter that he has lamented since he was first charged in early 2023.
You would think so, but even with SNL fave Baldwin back in the A-circle again and headlining his own reality TV show after three years in the Hollywood wilderness, that’s not Alec Baldwin and his acerbic attorneys’ way, as the action over “false and defamatory statements” makes clear.
“Defendants’ misconduct in their pursuit of Baldwin, and the trial judge’s condemnation of them, has already drawn world-wide attention,” the 73-page complaint states. “But this action is necessary to vindicate Baldwin’s rights and deter Defendants from attempting to do this to anyone else.”
Hutchins was killed, and 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 on Rust. Both Baldwin and still-incarcerated Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
In Baldwin’s case, he saw the original 2023 charges dropped under clouds of incompetence from local D.A .Mary Carmack-Altwies’ office. The case was refiled in early 2024 as Morrissey and a then co-special prosecutor took control of the matter. Baldwin has always insisted he did not pull the trigger, saying he had no idea a live round was in it and the gun discharged on its own. He 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, something that may come up again thanks to this latest action.
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