Alec Baldwin won’t be showing up next month for the New Mexico mini-trial over the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins, and he doesn’t believe he should be a defendant in the lawsuit the parents and sister of slain Rust cinematographer have filed in Los Angeles.
Acknowledging the horror of the October 2021 shooting and that “the loss of a daughter and sister is undoubtedly painful in any circumstance,” Baldwin’s bicoastal Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan defense team also assert that Ukrainian-based Olga Solovey, Anatoli Androsvych and Svetlana Zemko have “been distanced from Halyna physically, financially, and emotionally for years before her death” and “have no viable cause of action against Defendants” (read it here).
Filed on April 13, the demurrer by the indie Western star/EP and El Dorado Picture goes on to state of the February 9 negligence and battery civil complaint by Hutchins’ parents and sister:
Already up against criminal charges in the Land of Enchantment that could see him behind bars for 18 months, Baldwin and his team are seeking a DTLA July 13 hearing on their request in front of LA Superior Court Judge Michael E. Walker.
Along with Baldwin, various Rust producers, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, and 1st assistant director David Halls are among the defendents in the California case by the Gloria Allred represented Solovey, Androsvych and Zemko. The high-profile Allred also is among the attorneys representing Rust script supervisor Maime Mitchell in her November 2021-filed negligence suit against Baldwin, Rust producers and others.
Today, Allred was surgically in her rejection of Baldwin’s latest request.
“We are not surprised Alec Baldwin is once again attempting to avoid responsibility for what he did,” the lawyer told Deadline this evening. It’s abundantly clear under New Mexico law, which will be applied in the California court, that he is responsible for all the harm he did to the entirety of Halyna Hutchins’ family. We are here to make sure that he is held accountable for his actions.”
With a two-week preliminary examination a.k.a. mini-trial starting in Santa Fe on May 3, Baldwin may already know by the time of that mid-July in LA if the troubled New Mexico case against him and Reed is even going to trial. Facing a witness list of Hutchins’ widower, Rust director Joel Souza, various cops and more, both Baldwin and Reed have plead not guilty. Having faced a number of legal faceplants, Santa Fe D.A. Mary Carmack-Altwies dropped out of the case on March 29 and appointed New Mexico attorneys Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis to point as special prosecutors.
It was just the latest in a series of missteps that have characterized prosecution of the tragedy since the beginning of the year.
In a media maelstrom, more than a year after the October 21, 2021 killing of Hutchins on the Rust set, the D.A. finally filed involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin and Reed on January 31.
Even with all the civil suits against Baldwin in New Mexico and other jurisdictions, the D.A. strong stance didn’t last long.
On February 20, Carmack-Altwies dumped a firearm enhancement, that came with a five-year prison stint, after defense lawyers asserted it was “unconstitutional.” Then, with the slings and arrows of campaign hijinks ad more unconstitutionality, there was the March 14 resignation of the besieged previous special prosecutor and current GOP New Mexico state legislator Andrea Reeb. That, plus early hearing losses in front of Judge Mary Marlow Sommer, were turning the D.A.’s office into the Keystone Cops.
As the Santa Fe minitrial looms and the new special prosecutors duo settle into their roles, Baldwin on April 10 was granted a waiver by Judge Sommer to not have to appear at the preliminary hearing. After Morrissey and Lewis present the evidence in the matter, Judge Sommer will determine if there is enough there to go to trial later this year – a big if, at this juncture.
Not that Santa Fe docket isn’t busy already.
Next week, there will be a hearing to seal the settlement of Matthew Hutchins’ wrongful death suit with Baldwin and Rust producers. The mostly confidential agreement was first announced in October 2022, and the April 17 hearing seems mainly focused on protecting the privacy of Hutchins’ young son Andros.
To further muddy the murky Rust waters, a resurrected version of the low budget film is supposedly still going into production in Montana on April 20, as Deadline exclusively reported on March 16. Along with a separate documentary on the life and career of Halyna Hutcins, that Rust 2.0 will star Baldwin, be directed again by Souza, who was injured in the 2021 shooting and will have Matthew Hutchins as an executive producer.
Despite a FBI report made public last summer and the Santa Fe Sheriff’s final word in November 2022 on their investigation into what happened at the Bonanza Creek Ranch set in October 2021, Baldwin continues to insist he did not pull the trigger on the 1880s prop gun that killed Hutchins and wounded Souza during a Rust rehearsal.