The Santa Fe D.A.’s office has made clear throughout the high-profile ‘Rust’ trial that it is focused on convicting Alec Baldwin.
When the “Rust” trial began two weeks ago, Mary Carmack-Altwies, the district attorney in Santa Fe, N.M., sent a campaign message to supporters.
In it, she made it clear that the case is not just about Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the young armorer who was convicted Wednesday in the 2021 gun accident that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Without naming him, the D.A. conveyed that her office is really focused on a bigger fish: Alec Baldwin, the producer and actor who pulled the trigger.
“Here’s what is critical to me: in the First Judicial District, no one is above the law. No one,” she wrote. “No one avoids culpability due to fame, wealth, or connections in my jurisdiction.”
After a series of stumbles in the case, Carmack-Altwies got a much-needed win when the jury returned a guilty verdict on involuntary manslaughter. (The jurors acquitted Gutierrez Reed of a charge of tampering with evidence.) The D.A. had initially planned to prosecute the case herself, but stepped aside last year amid controversy, handing the job to two private attorneys, Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis.
Carmack-Altwies is up for re-election, and is facing a challenge from her predecessor, Marco Serna, in the June 4 Democratic primary. Serna has criticized the decision to outsource the case and to hire a PR professional, who arranged for national TV interviews to coincide with the announcement of the charges last year.
In an interview on Thursday, Serna acknowledged that the special prosecutor had ably handled the Gutierrez Reed trial.
“Ms. Morrissey is a good attorney,” he said. “Clearly, she got a guilty verdict.”
But he added that he still has concerns, noting that the “Rust” prosecutors have been paid by a special appropriation from the state government.
“Taxpayers have paid $600,000 at this point,” he said.
