Legal jousting surrounds Baldwin case
Motions filed by actor’s defense team have had some mitigating effect
The criminal case against Alec Baldwin is heating up with testy exchanges between prosecutors and the legal team defending the actor.
Baldwin’s attorneys filed a motion last week taking aim at the 1st Judicial District Attorney’s Office and its special prosecutor, claiming emails and public statements unfairly criticized Baldwin’s attorneys and misstated his potential sentence.
The DA’s office did not immediately respond this past week to a request for comment about the motion.
The dispute centers on the specific criminal charges Baldwin faces in the October 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins while the two were rehearsing a scene on the “Rust” movie set near Santa Fe. Baldwin was holding a gun that discharged on the movie set, killing Hutchins.
District Attorney Mary Carmack Altwies initially charged Baldwin on Jan. 31 with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death. The most serious of those charges carried a mandatory fiveyear prison sentence under the state’s current firearm-enhancement statute.
Prosecutors changed course last Monday and downgraded the involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin, dropping the possibility of a mandatory five-year sentence.
The remaining alternative standard now requires proof of negligence and is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine under New Mexico law.
The dispute over charges led to heated exchanges between prosecutors and Baldwin’s legal team.
The decision to remove the firearm enhancement was made “to
avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys,” the DA’s office said in a written statement issued the day the amended complaint was filed.
“The prosecution’s priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys,” the statement said.
The amended complaint was filed following days of legal jousting between the two sides.
Baldwin’s attorneys argued in a Feb. 10 motion that prosecutors “committed a basic legal error” by charging him under a law that was not enacted until May 2022, seven months after Hutchins’ shooting death on Oct. 21, 2021.
Two days later, on a Sunday, special prosecutor Andrea Reeb fired off an email to Baldwin’s attorneys saying prosecutors were “a tad confused on your motion on the firearm enhancement” and chastised Baldwin’s attorneys for failing to follow proper procedure.
“We are requesting you withdraw this motion as it does not correlate to how the process works here in New Mexico,” Reeb said in the Feb. 12 email. She said a judge must determine the appropriate sentencing enhancement for use of a firearm.
“Local counsel should have advised you of that issue,” she said. “This often happens when we are dealing with out of state (attorneys) and local counsel who doesn’t specialize in the criminal area.”
Reeb’s email, which Baldwin’s attorneys cited in their recent motion, suggested that the attorneys could face sanctions “if you aren’t following proper procedure.”
Less than an hour later, Reeb sent another email saying she would look into the specific numbers and sections and “make sure we have it correct.”
And then, about two hours later, Reeb sent another email to Baldwin’s attorneys acknowledging the original complaint was based on a law that had not been enacted at the time of the shooting and agreed to file a new criminal complaint.
Baldwin’s Feb. 20 motion also contends prosecutors “amplified the error” in national television interviews in January — including a Jan. 21 Fox News interview — claiming the actor faced a mandatory five years in prison if convicted.
Baldwin’s attorneys also are seeking Reeb’s removal from the case. They argued in a Feb. 7 motion that because the Clovis Republican is a state representative, Reeb is violating the state Constitution’s separationof-powers provision by serving simultaneously as a legislator and a prosecutor.
Baldwin entered a plea of not guilty to involuntary manslaughter on Thursday and waived his first appearance, which had been scheduled for Friday.
The actor was allowed to remain free on personal recognizance by order of 1st Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer. As a special condition, Baldwin is permitted to have limited contact with potential witnesses in connection with completing the “Rust” movie, but cannot discuss the case with people who may offer testimony, Sommer ordered.
The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was also charged in the case and had her first hearing before Marlowe Sommer on Friday. Gutierrez-Reed did not enter a plea during the hearing and was placed on conditions of release pending trial.
The producers of “Rust” have announced that they plan to complete filming at the Yellowstone Film Ranch in Montana with production set to begin this spring.