A special prosecutor isnāt giving up on the dismissed criminal case against actor Alec Baldwin.
Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey filed a notice Nov. 21 saying she intends to appeal Judge Mary Marlowe Sommerās July dismissal of the case as well as Sommerās denial last month of a motion asking the judge to reconsider her ruling.
The notice doesnāt include Morrisseyās reasoning for the appeal, which state law requires be filed within 30 days of the notice.
Baldwin faced a fourth-degree felony charge in connection with the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was struck by a bullet fired from a gun Baldwin was holding during a walk-through of a scene of his movie Rust at Bonanza Creek Ranch south of Santa Fe. Sommer dismissed the case midtrial after finding prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense.
A spokeswoman for Baldwinās legal counsel declined to comment on the notice Tuesday.
Morrissey filed a lengthy motion several months later asking the judge to reconsider her dismissal and language in her order finding Morrissey āelicited false testimonyā during her cross-examination of Santa Fe County Sheriffās Office crime technician Marissa Poppell. Sommer denied the motion last month.
Morrissey didnāt respond to a call and email seeking comment for this story Tuesday.
District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer addresses special prosecutor Kari Morrissey during the July trial for actor Alec Baldwin.
As of July 16, the First Judicial District Attorneyās Office had spent at least $759,697 prosecuting the cases against Baldwin and Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. The office received emergency funding from the state Board of Finance and a legislative appropriation to cover the costs associated with the prosecutions after District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said she couldnāt afford to do so out of her own budget.
Carmack-Altwies didnāt respond to inquires Tuesday seeking an up-to-date accounting of Rust prosecution costs and whether sheāll seek additional funding to continue litigating the case against Baldwin.
The District Attorneyās Office has generally declined to comment on the case since Carmack-Altwies stepped down as second chair in 2023, following a ruling by Sommer that Carmack-Altwies could prosecute the case herself or hire a special prosecutor but not both.
However, filings in an unrelated case indicate the Baldwin ruling and prosecutorsā reaction to it have bled over into an unrelated child rape case.
In that case, the state asked Sommer to excuse herself, arguing the judgeās findings that Poppell and Santa Fe County Sheriffās Office Cpl. Alexandria Hancock had participated in the suppression of evidence and/or given false testimony meant the judge was biased against the two women, who were also key prosecution witnesses in the case.
If the judge would not recuse herself, Deputy District Attorney Haley Murphy argued in the motion, the court should limit the extent to which the defense could use the judgeās findings in the Baldwin case to cast doubt upon the truthfulness of the two. And, Murphy suggested, āthere should be an independent arbitrator of the issues related to the admissibility of the Courtās ruling as it will arise in numerous cases pending in the First Judicial District.ā
Public defender Jennifer Burrill argued the court should take the District Attorneyās Office off the case instead.
āThe Stateās extensive involvement in the Baldwin prosecution appears to have colored the district attorneyās ability to be objective towards the compromised law enforcement witnesses who were part of the Baldwin investigation,ā she wrote.
Burrill wrote the two women could be criminally charged but that rather than charging the women ā or asking another prosecutorās office to determine if charges were warranted ā āthe district attorney has doubled down on defending the honorā of witnesses whom the court found had given false testimony or participated in the suppression of evidence.
Carmack-Altwies did not respond to emails Tuesday seeking comment on the allegations in Burrillās motion.
