Rust shooting: Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case is officially over

The actor was charged with involuntary manslaughter after the Rust incident in 2021. Photo / Getty Images

Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case is officially over after prosecutors dropped their appeal.

The 68-year-old actor was charged with involuntary manslaughter after a gun he was holding on the set of Rust discharged in October 2021, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, but his trial collapsed in July after prosecutors allegedly withheld evidence.

A month after special prosecutor Karri Morrissey made a bid to revive the issue, the office of New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez announced it had decided not to “pursue the appeal on behalf of the prosecution”. Shortly afterwards, the special prosecutor dropped her bid to overturn Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer’s decision to throw out the case, Deadline has confirmed. Baldwin’s legal team praised the news.

Baldwin's lawyers argued the star committed no crime. Photo / Getty Images

Lawyers Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro said in a statement: “Today’s decision to dismiss the appeal is the final vindication of what Alec Baldwin and his attorneys have said from the beginning – this was an unspeakable tragedy, but Alec Baldwin committed no crime. The rule of law remains intact in New Mexico.”

However, multiple civil suits relating to the tragedy are still to be heard in California and New Mexico. In April, armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Halyna’s death. Meanwhile, Baldwin – who has repeatedly maintained his innocence – recently insisted “the truth of what happened has never been told”.

Speaking to David Duchovny on the Fail Better podcast, he said: “We have more s*** that’s gonna come out in ensuing legal filings and so forth ... There’s more to come, but the more to come is now my effort and it’s going to be undeniably a successful effort, to raise and to expose what really happened.

“I was counterpunching. I was on the defensive. I was being accused. I was being indicted. The truth of what happened has never been told.”

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The Boss Baby actor claimed people were desperate to see him punished one way or another as a result of the incident. “These last three years, people have just dined out.

“In this country, when people hate you on that level, they want three things: They want you to die. They want you to go to prison.

“And the third thing is they want you cancelled, which is like being in prison or being dead because you roam the earth and you’re invisible.”