One of Alec Baldwin’s attorneys said Thursday that the gun the actor was holding during a fatal October 2021 incident on the ill-fated set of Rust has been destroyed by the state of New Mexico.
However, a Rust prosecution spokeswoman said later Thursday this isn’t true and that the gun “is in evidence and is available for the defense to review.”
Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed are both being charged with involuntary manslaughter in relation to the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during the production of the movie Rust at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe County. Baldwin was holding the gun which killed Hutchins, but has claimed he did not pull the trigger.
“The court, I don’t think is aware at this point, but I think I should tell the court that the firearm in this case, that’s a great subject of it, was destroyed by the state,” Alex Spiro, one of Baldwin’s lawyers, told State District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer during a virtual status conference Thursday. “So, that’s obviously an issue and we’re going to have to see that firearm or what’s left of it.”
The handgun and the timetable for when Baldwin’s defense team would be able to view evidence were not mentioned again during Thursday’s proceeding. Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies, said the gun exists and that Baldwin’s lawyers might have misunderstood last year’s FBI report.
“The defense’s unexpected statement in the status hearing today that the gun had been destroyed by the state may be a reference to a statement in the FBI’s July 2022 firearms testing report that said damage was done to internal components of the gun during the FBI’s functionality testing,” Brewer wrote in an email. “However, the gun still exists and can be used as evidence.”
A call to the law offices of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan, where Spiro works, was not immediately returned Thursday afternoon.
Baldwin was not present during the conference. One of his lawyers, Luke Nikas, filed a waiver of appearance for Baldwin Thursday morning in First Judicial District Court, according to online court records. Gutierrez-Reed was not present either; her presence was not required, said Barry Massey, spokesman for the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts.
Sommer set a hearing for March 27 to address Baldwin’s attorneys’ motion to disqualify special prosecutor Andrea Reeb based on what they are arguing is a constitutional conflict since the prosecutor is also a state legislator. She tentatively scheduled preliminary examinations for Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed to start May 3 and run through May 17.
The judge also imposed an April 17 deadline for Carmack-Altwies to provide Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed’s defense teams with a list of witnesses whom her office plans to call during the lengthy preliminary hearings. The district attorney had asked Sommer not to impose a deadline. However, Spiro said the list had grown to about 46 people during the proceeding.
“I think it’s reasonable to have a deadline, especially with 46 [witnesses]. We’ve got a two-week trial here. I would think that there’d be a certain point where you really had certainty,” Sommer said.
Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed’s co-defendant David Halls has a virtual plea hearing scheduled for March 29 in front of Sommer. He is charged with negligent use of a deadly weapon, according to online court records.
Prosecutors initially attempted to charge Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed with a five-year sentencing enhancement to the manslaughter charges, but Carmack-Altwies’s office agreed to remove it after a defense motion challenging the enhancement on the grounds that the law in question didn’t go into effect until 2022, months after the 2021 shooting. The change reduced the maximum incarceration for the defendants, if convicted, from 6 years to 18 months.