A judge in New Mexico denied Alec Baldwin’s bid to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge he faces in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust,” ruling on Friday that the case had been properly presented to a grand jury.
The ruling by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer increased the likelihood that the trial of Mr. Baldwin would move forward this summer.
Lawyers for Mr. Baldwin — who was rehearsing with an old-fashioned revolver on the set in 2021 when it fired a live bullet, killing the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins — have lodged numerous objections to how the case against the actor has been handled, arguing that the prosecution had not sufficiently showed jurors evidence that could have supported Mr. Baldwin’s case. They claimed that the prosecution had “steered grand jurors away” from witnesses who would have testified that it was not Mr. Baldwin’s responsibility to check that the gun was safe to handle on set.
In a written order, Judge Marlowe Sommer, of the First Judicial District Courthouse in Santa Fe, N.M., ordered that the indictment would stand, finding that the prosecution had not operated in bad faith and that the grand jurors had been properly alerted to the existence of the defense’s witnesses and evidence, though they decided not to examine them.
“The court is not in a position to second-guess the grand jury’s decision in this regard,” Judge Marlowe Sommer wrote.
In a statement on Friday, lawyers for Mr. Baldwin, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, said, “We look forward to our day in court.”
The judge’s decision centered on the minutiae of grand jury procedure in New Mexico, where the defense does not have the right to call witnesses during the presentation of a case. Instead it can submit a letter to prosecutors that includes evidence that could help exonerate its client, including any favorable witnesses or documents.
In a tense hearing last week, the lead prosecutor overseeing the case against Mr. Baldwin, Kari T. Morrissey, defended her handling of the case, telling the judge that she had properly presented the defense’s evidence according to the law. She said that she read the defense’s full letter to grand jurors, providing them each with a copy. When she was finished presenting evidence, she said, she reminded them that there were three banker’s boxes full of documents that Mr. Baldwin’s lawyers wanted them to see.
“I know that the defense has continued to argue that this was something that we rushed through,” Ms. Morrissey argued in the hearing. “It’s almost unheard-of to have a day-and-a-half-long grand jury proceeding. We didn’t rush through anything.”
Since the fatal shooting on Oct. 21, 2021, Mr. Baldwin has argued that he is not responsible for Ms. Hutchins’s death, maintaining that he had no reason to believe the gun had been loaded with a live round, which was banned on the set of “Rust,” a western. He has also asserted that he did not pull the trigger, saying that the gun had discharged after he pulled the hammer back and let it go.
The defense has filed other motions to dismiss the indictment that Judge Marlowe Sommer has yet to consider. In one, it argues that the indictment should be thrown out because the gun at the center of the case was broken during F.B.I. testing. The prosecution responded in court papers that the testing was completed only after Mr. Baldwin claimed that he did not pull the trigger, to determine if his account of events was possible, and that the issue was not sufficient to warrant dismissing the case.
They have also sought to capitalize on the conviction of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the movie’s armorer, who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in a jury trial this year and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In court papers filed this month, Mr. Nikas argued that Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe that the gun he was holding could have been loaded with live ammunition. Mr. Nikas quoted a prosecutor at Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s trial, Jason J. Lewis, saying that “it’s a hard and fast industry rule that live ammunition should be miles away from a film set at all times.”
“Throughout these proceedings, the state has never contended that Baldwin had even the slightest reason to believe there might be live ammunition in the gun,” Mr. Nikas wrote.
In response, the prosecution argued that Mr. Baldwin disregarded substantial risks on set that day, declining to participate in the armorer’s safety check and handling the gun in a way that the rehearsal did not call for.
“He violated decades-old gun safety and set safety standards by pointing the gun at a person, cocking it and pulling the trigger,” Ms. Morrissey wrote in court papers.
Mr. Baldwin’s trial is scheduled to start in July.
