A dis­trict at­tor­ney in San­ta Fe fought back Mon­day against ef­forts to dis­qual­i­fy the spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor pur­su­ing manslaugh­ter charges against ac­tor Alec Bald­win in the fa­tal shoot­ing of a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er on a New Mex­i­co film set.

Bald­win’s le­gal team in Feb­ru­ary sought to dis­qual­i­fy spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor and Re­pub­li­can state Rep. An­drea Reeb of Clo­vis based on con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions that safe­guard the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers be­tween dis­tinct branch­es of gov­ern­ment.

De­fense at­tor­neys ar­gued that Reeb’s role as a state law­mak­er and pros­e­cu­tor are in­com­pat­i­ble and could dis­tort leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial ac­tions, in­clud­ing state spend­ing on the pros­e­cu­tion of Bald­win over the 2021 shoot­ing on the set of the West­ern movie “Rust.”

San­ta Fe Dis­trict At­tor­ney Mary Car­ma­ck-Al­twies on Mon­day called the ob­jec­tion a “nov­el the­o­ry that has no sup­port in new Mex­i­co statutes or case law.”

She said the state con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides a va­ri­ety of safe­guards against leg­is­la­tors in­ter­fer­ing with the out­come of on­go­ing court cas­es.

“Any at­tempt by Ms. Reeb as a leg­is­la­tor to in­flu­ence the out­come of this tri­al would be com­plete­ly in­ef­fec­tive,” Car­ma­ck-Al­twies said in a court fil­ing.

Since join­ing the leg­is­la­ture in Jan­u­ary, Reeb has steered clear of vot­ing on pub­lic spend­ing to pros­e­cute Bald­win and film-set weapons su­per­vi­sor Han­nah Gutier­rez-Reed. She was ex­cused from a House floor vote in Feb­ru­ary on a pro­posed state bud­get that in­cludes $360,000 for spe­cial pros­e­cu­tion ex­pens­es in the fa­tal film-set shoot­ing.

Bald­win and Gutier­rez-Reed have plead­ed not guilty to charges of in­vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter in the shoot­ing death of cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Ha­ly­na Hutchins. The charges car­ry a max­i­mum penal­ty of 18-months in prison and fines.

Hutchins died short­ly af­ter be­ing wound­ed Oct. 21, 2021, dur­ing re­hearsals at a ranch on the out­skirts of San­ta Fe. Bald­win was point­ing a pis­tol at Hutchins when the gun went off, killing her and wound­ing the di­rec­tor, Joel Souza. A like­ly pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing is still months away to de­cide whether ev­i­dence is suf­fi­cient to pro­ceed to tri­al.

Pros­e­cu­tors say as­sis­tant di­rec­tor David Halls, who over­saw safe­ty on set, has signed an agree­ment to plead guilty in the neg­li­gent use of a dead­ly weapon. A judge is sched­uled to con­sid­er ap­proval of the plea agree­ment lat­er this month.

Pros­e­cu­tion in the death of Hutchins is cur­rent­ly un­der­writ­ten by an emer­gency state grant, ap­proved in Sep­tem­ber 2022 by the State Board of Fi­nance that is led by Gov. Michelle Lu­jan Gr­isham.

Reeb is list­ed as a spon­sor or cospon­sor on sev­er­al crim­i­nal jus­tice ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing en­hanced pun­ish­ments for firearms vi­o­la­tions, as leg­is­la­tors ex­plore ways to rein in surg­ing vi­o­lent crime. She pre­vi­ous­ly served as dis­trict at­tor­ney for a ju­di­cial dis­trict on the east­ern plains of New Mex­i­co.

By MOR­GAN LEE

SAN­TA FE, N.M. (AP)