New Mexico
Alec Baldwin sues New Mexico prosecutors, investigators for civil rights violations
Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ case dismissed by judge over ‘suppressed’ evidence
Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charge was abruptly dismissed with prejudice. He cannot be retried for involuntary manslaughter.
Alec Baldwin, whose involuntary manslaughter case was dismissed last summer over suppressed evidence, is taking the fatal 2021 “Rust” set shooting back to the court room.
The actor on Thursday filed a civil lawsuit in Santa Fe County District Court alleging prosecutors violated his civil rights and defamed him. The defendants named in the filing included special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, personnel within the district attorney’s office for New Mexico’s First Judicial District and members of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.
The complaint detailed Baldwin’s claims that prosecutors and investigators “conspired to procure a groundless indictment against Baldwin” by not following the proper criminal process and also intentionally kept exculpatory evidence from the defense.
In a statement to USA TODAY, Morrissey said, “In October 2023 the prosecution team became aware that Mr. Baldwin intended to file a retaliatory civil lawsuit. We look forward to our day in court.”
USA TODAY has reached out to lawyers for Baldwin as well as the DA’s office for comment. The sheriff’s office declined to comment.
Last summer, Baldwin’s lawyer Alex Spiro forewarned the sheriff’s office and prosecutor in letters sent to the parties on July 12 to preserve evidence for “potential for future litigation,” according to copies obtained at the time by USA TODAY.
The actor and producer’s attorney advised Morrissey and Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza to preserve all “devices, hard drives, emails, text messages, and other electronic communications” in addition to “documents, records, electronically stored information (‘ESI’), and other materials and data existing in any form whatsoever, that are actually or potentially relevant or relate in any way to the investigation(s) and/or prosecution(s) conducted by the State in connection with the death of Halyna Hutchins.”
The filing comes nearly six months after First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer abruptly dismissed the criminal case against Baldwin on the grounds that prosecutors and law enforcement withheld evidence that might be favorable to the actor’s defense. In October, she upheld her dismissal; though prosecutors appealed the judge’s decision in November, they withdrew the notice of appeal the following month.
Baldwin’s criminal charge stemmed from an Oct. 21, 2021, incident in which Baldwin’s prop gun, which he said he’d been told did not contain live ammunition, discharged during a rehearsal for the movie, killing 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
‘No verdict’ can ‘undo the trauma’ of criminal case against Alec Baldwin, lawsuit says
Baldwin’s legal complaint accused New Mexico investigators and prosecutors of being ” blinded by their desire to convict Alec Baldwin for all the wrong reasons, and at any cost, for the October 2021 accidental shooting of Halyna Hutchins.”
“Defendants sought at every turn to scapegoat Baldwin for the acts and omissions of others, regardless of the evidence or the law,” the filing continued.
Baldwin seeks a jury trial and an award of financial compensation for his “injuries suffered” as well as punitive damages against the defendants.
“Defendants must now be held accountable for their malicious and unlawful pursuit of Baldwin,” the lawsuit states. “Although no verdict in this civil case can undo the trauma the State’s threat of conviction and incarceration has inflicted, Alec Baldwin has filed this action to hold Defendants responsible for their appalling violations of the laws that governed their work.”
Why was Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case dismissed?
The conclusion of Baldwin’s case with the state of New Mexico arrived more than two years after the on-set tragedy. Sommer dismissed the charge with prejudice, meaning prosecutors cannot refile the same claim.
Baldwin’s lawyers alleged in their filing that Santa Fe sheriffs and state prosecutors “concealed” evidence that could be linked to the source of the bullet that killed Hutchins. Prosecutors and sheriffs argued the evidence had no relevance or value to Baldwin’s case.
The judge reprimanded Morrissey and her team as “they have continued to fail to disclose critical evidence to the defendant.”
“The state’s willful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate,” Sommer said. “If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching.”
Testimony revealed withheld evidence in ‘Rust’ case
On July 12, Baldwin’s lawyers said the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office was in possession of live rounds they argued might be connected to the one that killed Hutchins but failed to list them as evidence in the “Rust” investigation file or disclose their existence to defense lawyers.
On July 11, testimony revealed Troy Teske, a friend of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s stepfather, had delivered Colt .45 live rounds to the sheriff’s office on March 6. Baldwin’s team claimed this was evidence that could have established a connection to Seth Kenney, the prop supplier for “Rust.”
Baldwin’s attorneys alleged the rounds were evidence that the bullet that killed Hutchins came from Kenney. Kenney has denied supplying live ammunition to the production and has not been charged in the case.
Baldwin’s team has blamed Gutierrez-Reed, who is serving 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, and first assistant director Dave Halls for negligence that led to Hutchins’ death. Meanwhile, prosecutors argued Baldwin handled the gun irresponsibly, exhibited “bullyish behavior on set” and changed his story to cast blame on others.
Contributing: Andrew Hay, Reuters
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Good to moderate air quality will persist in Albuquerque but may be worse in places where wildfires, like the Sacaton Fire, are burning Sunday.
The smoke may be little thicker to the south near the Sacaton fire into Socorro County and near Truth of Consequences. No weather advisories are in effect but we may see some showers and thunderstorms pop up this afternoon. That may mostly be over the eastern and southern counties. The Sacaton Fire might get little rain, which would be relief for the ever-growing fire.
Rain chances in the Albuquerque metro are lower — maybe 10%. We’re more likely to see a shower or storm over the East Mountains or Sandia Mountains later this afternoon.
Storms in eastern New Mexico, closer to Texas, might have some strong winds later. About the same weather is expected Monday. Highs in the 90s both days will trend back to drier and hotter weather later in the week.
By John Miller
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bob Rodgers once specialized in cave rescues, but since becoming resource officer for New Mexico Search and Rescue in 2011, he has shifted from navigating underground passages to analyzing data that shows, among other things, how often his teams are deployed.
The overall conclusion hasn’t changed: New Mexico’s more than 40 all-volunteer search and rescue teams are being called out less often, even as the total number of incidents requiring their services continues to rise.
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In 2023, for example, search and rescue teams responded to about 76% of 149 incidents involving people who were lost or injured in remote areas.
That rate has trended downward in recent years, despite a slight uptick last year: Teams responded to 50% of 187 incidents in 2024, 55% of 191 incidents in 2025 and just 40% of 75 incidents as of June 10 this year.
“Throughout the state of New Mexico, the volunteers are being called less and less to participate in search and rescue incidents,” Rodgers said. “Fire departments, county sheriffs, feel they can do it without us, and if they get into a problem, they’re waiting two or three hours, if not days, before they finally realize they needed SAR.”
As the law enforcement arm of the Department of Public Safety, New Mexico State Police can deploy search and rescue teams when circumstances require. But Rodgers said county and local law enforcement agencies, which are often first on the scene, can be reluctant to request state assistance.
He cited the case of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William McCasland, who disappeared from his Albuquerque home in late February, as a recent example.
” The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office didn’t call for search and rescue until two days after his report was overdue,” Rodgers said. “We don’t know where he’s at, and by the time we’re called in, it’s too late.”
McCasland has not been found.
Rodgers said any delay in mobilizing the proper resources for a missing person search can significantly reduce the chances of a successful outcome.
Similar concerns have surfaced elsewhere in New Mexico.
In March, Taos Search and Rescue President Delinda VanneBrightyn said the Taos County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately contact the Department of Public Safety to dispatch volunteers after two teenagers became trapped at the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge.
“We had a very hard time getting search and rescue involved,” she said.
Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera was unavailable for comment, but he has previously said he wants to train his deputies in search and rescue techniques. For years, he and his staff have overseen responses at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the site of numerous suicides, as well as missing person cases in the rare instances when bodies could not be located.
Still, law enforcement can benefit from search and rescue’s specialized expertise, said VanneBrightyn, who has volunteered for more than 20 years and specializes in K-9 search and rescue.
“We should be having many more missions,” VanneBrightyn said. “The sheriffs are now doing this across the state.”
A 2025 amendment to the state Search and Rescue Act requiring first responders to notify state police when a call involves “lost, stranded, entrapped or injured persons” took effect earlier this year. But state data suggests volunteer teams continue to be underused in 2026.
In some cases, declining mission numbers have caused all-volunteer teams to lose members, as volunteers find the hours they devote to training are rarely put to use.
“It has been frustrating because the sheriff doesn’t have the resources, the trained resources that we have,” VanneBrightyn said. “They are law enforcement.”
The decline in search and rescue missions in New Mexico dates to 1996, when there were 191 missions involving 4,004 personnel and 22,602 hours in the field. Rodgers said, however, that the state’s older data is less reliable than more recent records.
Speaking to the Journal last week about the state’s ephemeral waters running dry, Grant County Search and Rescue President Russ Imler said the decline in missions may also relate to more advanced wayfinding technologies, like Garmins and smartphones.
“The electronics that people carry nowadays, people aren’t getting as lost,” he said.
Meanwhile, some studies showed that search and rescue missions rose elsewhere at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2021 study by a Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and a 2022 story by PBS News Hour both concluded that missions were creeping upward as more Americans re-entered the outdoors.
When search and rescue services are needed in the Land of Enchantment, Rodgers said trained teams can provide expertise law enforcement agencies usually don’t have — like advanced land navigation, wilderness survival and technical rope rescue skills.
They also often save hours of overtime pay and other public expenses accrued by paid law enforcement, he added.
“It doesn’t cost the taxpayers a whole lot of money,” he said, adding, “I can put 30 people on a mountain someplace and leave them there, and we are self-sufficient. We run at least 24 hours without support from anybody, and it costs me — the state of New Mexico — about $200 to run a mission. I’m not paying salary. I’m not giving them overtime. I’m not even providing them food.”
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© 2026 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.).
Visit www.abqjournal.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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