Alec Baldwin has filed a civil rights suit against the district attorney and other officials in Santa Fe, N.M., alleging that he was wrongfully prosecuted for manslaughter in the accidental shooting of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
In the 73-page complaint, Baldwin accuses D.A. Mary Carmack-Altwies, special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, and investigators on the case of a series of abuses, including eliciting false testimony and withholding exculpatory evidence.
“Defendants, while acting under the color of law, conspired to procure a groundless indictment against Baldwin and to maliciously bring about or advance Baldwin’s trial and conviction, thus violating Baldwin’s constitutional rights by their improper use of the criminal process,” the lawsuit states.
Baldwin filed the suit two weeks after the state attorney general refused to pursue an appeal of a judge’s order dismissing the case, thus ending the prosecution. Among the defendants are the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office and the Santa Fe County Board of Commissioners.
“Criminal prosecutions are supposed to be about the search for truth and justice, not to pursue personal or political gain or harass the innocent,” said Baldwin’s lawyers, Alex Spiro and Luke Nikas, in a statement. “Kari Morrissey and the other defendants violated that basic principle, over and over, and trampled on Alec Baldwin’s rights. We bring this action to hold the defendants accountable for their misconduct and to prevent them from doing this to anyone else.”
“In October 2023 the prosecution team became aware that Mr. Baldwin intended to file a retaliatory civil lawsuit,” Morrissey said. “We look forward to our day in court.”
Baldwin went on trial in Santa Fe last July. He was accused of involuntary manslaughter, on the theory that he willfully violated the gun safety rules for movie sets when he pointed a Colt .45 at Hutchins and pulled the trigger. Unbeknown to anyone on the set, the gun was loaded with a live .45-caliber round, which killed Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza.
The case was dismissed three days into the trial, after Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled that the special prosecutor had improperly withheld evidence from the defense.
Shortly after the trial, Spiro sent letters to Morrissey and to Sheriff Adan Mendoza advising them to preserve evidence given “the potential for future litigation based on your actions in connection with Mr. Baldwin’s prosecution.”
Baldwin’s attorneys repeatedly argued that he should never have been charged, saying it was not his job to verify that the gun was loaded only with dummy ammunition.
In the weeks and months leading up to the trial, they also vociferously complained that Morrissey had withheld evidence that should have been turned over in the discovery process.
During the trial, the defense uncovered that Morrissey had not disclosed a cache of bullets that had been turned over to investigators in March. That evidence could have been relevant in understanding how live ammunition made its way onto set.
Morrissey argued that she believed the bullets did not match the live rounds from the “Rust” set, and therefore she had no obligation to turn them over. But when the judge cut open an evidence envelope in open court, she discovered that three of the bullets did share the same characteristics as the fatal round.
Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice — meaning it could not be refiled — finding the state “highly culpable” for failing to turn over the evidence.
Carmack-Altwies, the elected D.A. in Santa Fe, has defended Morrissey, a private attorney whom she appointed to handle the “Rust” cases. But the attorney general’s office was sharply critical of Morrissey, saying that appealing the judge’s decision would have been “untenable” given the judge’s “blistering assessment of the special prosecutor’s gross mishandling of the case at trial.”
“Perhaps if the District Attorney had selected someone with more direct experience as a prosecutor this outcome could have been avoided,” the attorney general’s spokesperson said last month.
