Alec Baldwin wants his manslaughter case thrown out

In an unsurprising turn to the ongoing Rust case, Alec Baldwin’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the manslaughter charges against him in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The years-long legal tangle surrounding the shooting has revealed negligence and incompetence both on the set of the film as well as within the prosecutor’s office. As both a performer and producer on the movie, Baldwin has denied culpability for the accident. This is the second time he has been charged.

In the filing on Thursday, Baldwin’s attorney Luke Nikas accused prosecutors of “violating nearly every rule in the book” to secure a grand jury indictment, per ABC News. “The State did not make Baldwin’s witnesses available to testify. Nor did it present the exculpatory and favorable evidence to the grand jury,” the motion reads. (According to Deadline, the defense wanted the grand jury to hear testimony from Rust director Joel Souza, assistant director Dave Halls, and producer Ryan Smith, among others.) “The State prosecutors have engaged in this misconduct—and publicly dragged Baldwin through the cesspool created by their improprieties—without any regard for the fact that serious criminal charges have been hanging over his head for two and a half years. Enough is enough.”

Baldwin, as the person wielding the prop gun when Hutchins was killed, maintained from the beginning that he never pulled the trigger when he was pointing it in Hutchins’ direction. The gun was damaged over the course of the investigation, and the charges were initially dropped. However, a subsequent forensic recreation of the gun reportedly proved that Baldwin would have had to pull the trigger in order for the gun to go off, leading to the charges being re-filed and his indictment by a grand jury.

Earlier this month, Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the case. In closing arguments, prosecutors stated that her “astonishing lack of diligence with regard to gun safety is, without question, a significant cause of the death of Halyna Hutchins.” Further, in regards to her interaction with Baldwin, they argued that “it’s her job to say to an A-List actor, if that’s what you want to call him, ‘Hey, you can’t behave that way with those firearms.’”