Lawyers for the actor Alec Baldwin filed a motion on Tuesday seeking to disqualify the special prosecutor who was part of the team that brought involuntary manslaughter charges against him for the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the “Rust” movie set.
The motion, filed in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico, argues that Andrea Reeb’s role as special prosecutor violates the New Mexico Constitution because she is also an elected member of the state’s House of Representatives.
Mary Carmack-Altwies, the Santa Fe County district attorney, appointed Ms. Reeb to help her prosecute the case.
“Representative Reeb is not constitutionally permitted to serve simultaneously as a legislator and a special prosecutor,” a lawyer for Mr. Baldwin, Luke Nikas, wrote in the motion. “Doing so vests two core powers of different branches — legislating and prosecuting — in the same person and is thus barred by the plain language of Article III of the New Mexico Constitution.”
The filing is the first substantive legal response by Mr. Baldwin’s team since he and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, were charged last month. Prosecutors accused them of failing to follow standard film safety protocols on set before the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was killed.
Lawyers for both defendants have pledged to fight the charges.
Ms. Reeb was district attorney for the Ninth Judicial District in New Mexico before resigning in March 2022. She was named special prosecutor for the “Rust” investigation in August — two months after securing the Republican nomination for the State House — and was elected to the Legislature in November.
New Mexico legislators are part time and do not receive a salary, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Ms. Carmack-Altwies, a Democrat, wrote to state officials last year that her office needed to hire an “additional, more qualified attorney to assist in the prosecution of this matter,” noting that the lawyers on her staff had other cases to deal with and that she had the responsibility of handling the administration of her office, which oversees three counties.
In a statement, Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors, said Mr. Baldwin and his lawyers could “use whatever tactics they want to distract from the fact that Halyna Hutchins died because of gross negligence and a reckless disregard for safety on the ‘Rust’ film set.”
“However, the district attorney and the special prosecutor will remain focused on the evidence and on trying this case so that justice is served,” she said in the statement.
The fatal shooting of Ms. Hutchins, on Oct. 21, 2021, occurred when the film crew was setting up a tight shot of Mr. Baldwin drawing an old-fashioned revolver from his holster ahead of a gunfight. He has said that Ms. Hutchins, who was standing next to the camera, was directing the position of the gun and that he was told the weapon was “cold,” meaning it should not have contained any live rounds.
In his filing, Mr. Nikas argued that Ms. Reeb’s double role could lead to unethical behavior, such as future prosecutors’ seeking to “curry favor” with legislators — who control their budgets — by offering them positions as prosecutors on high-profile cases.
He noted that there did not appear to be judicial precedent for a similar situation in New Mexico, “perhaps because no one has attempted such a facially unconstitutional action in this state.”
Mr. Baldwin is scheduled to appear before Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer via videoconference this month for the first hearing in the case. The actor has added new lawyers to his legal team for this case: John F. Bash, former United States attorney for the Western District of Texas; Heather M. LeBlanc, a local lawyer in Albuquerque, N.M.; and Alex Spiro, a New York lawyer who has represented Jay-Z, as well as Elon Musk in his recent trial over taking Tesla private.
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