DA Drops Gun Enhancement Charge in “Rust” case

DA reduces Rust charges

In motions filed on Friday, First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies removed firearm enhancement charges carrying mandatory five-year prison sentences from the involuntary manslaughter charges filed against Rust actor and producer Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. The removals follow a challenge from Baldwin’s lawyers filed Feb. 10 contending prosecutors “committed an unconstitutional and elementary legal error” by charging Baldwin under a statute that did not exist on the date of the accident. The motion says the version of the firearm enhancement statute at the time of the accident specified it only applied when a weapon had been “brandished,” a characterization Baldwin’s lawyers say is inapplicable because the DA has not accused Baldwin of intentionality. The most current version of the firearm enhancement statute, they say, wasn’t enacted until seven months after the fatal Oct. 21, 2021 Rust shooting that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on set. In a quote provided to SFR and other outlets, First Judicial District Attorney spokesperson Heather Brewer said, “In order to avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys, the District Attorney and the special prosecutor have removed the firearm enhancement to the involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the Rust film set. The prosecution’s priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys.” Baldwin’s attorneys on Feb. 7, filed a motion requesting special prosecutor Andrea Reeb be disqualified and removed from the case because she is a member of the state House of Representatives (R-Clovis). As of press time, both Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed remained scheduled for their first court appearances on Feb. 24.

Judge clears McCulley for murder trial; jury finds Jones guilty

Following a near three-hour preliminary hearing yesterday, First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled Kiara McCulley, 20, can go to trial on two of the three charges sought by the district attorney’s office. McCulley is accused of killing Grace Jennings last October in a detached garage at McCulley’s mother’s house. The DA sought to charge McCulley with one count each of first degree murder; conspiracy to commit murder; and tampering with evidence. Marlowe Sommer ruled prosecutors presented sufficient evidence yesterday to move forward with the murder and conspiracy charges, but not enough for evidence tampering. Last month, Marlowe Sommer ruled there is also enough evidence to move forward to trial against Isaac Apodaca, who’s accused of coercing McCulley to kill Jennings and faces one charge of conspiracy to commit murder as well as one accessory to murder charge.

Also at the First Judicial District Courthouse yesterday, the Santa Fe New Mexican reports a jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding Joseph Jones guilty of felony murder in the 2018 shooting death of Robert Romero. Jones, 29, shot Romero, 52 in the early morning July 30, 2018 in Romero’s backyard. The case remained unsolved until Jones’ arrest in 2020, when the Santa Fe Police Department enlisted Parabon NanoLabs to create a genetic profile from the DNA left at the scene and compared it against profiles on a public database.

Gov signs Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon recovery bill

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham yesterday signed Senate Bill 6, legislation that will provide the Department of Finance and Administration the ability to distribute $100 million in zero-percent interest loans to local governments or agencies waiting on public assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the aftermath of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon wildfire. Those loans—which the federal government will ultimately reimburse—must be used to replace or repair public infrastructure damaged by the fire, flooding or debris flow caused by the fires. In a statement, the governor—who signed the bill alongside its legislative sponsors and other state and local leaders—said the legislation “speaks loud and clear: New Mexicans come first. The passage of this critical bipartisan legislation exemplifies how swiftly we can come together to serve the people of New Mexico, providing immediate assistance to communities affected by these devastating fires.” Bill co-sponsor Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, said the aid from the bill is essential “as Norteños y Norteñas rebuild after the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak Fire.…at the end of the day, somos una familia.”

PRC hires chief of staff

Former Chief Deputy Attorney General Cholla Khoury began her new role as chief of staff for the reconstituted Public Regulation Commission yesterday. “I’m honored to be asked by the commissioners to join their team and look forward to continuing to serve the people of New Mexico during this exciting time in our energy future,” Khoury said in a statement. In the AG’s office, Khoury served as civil affairs and as director of the Consumer and Environment Protection Division. She also previously served as assistant AG in the Water, Environment and Utilities Division. All three commissioners praised Khoury’s hiring in statements, with Commissioner James F. Ellison saying he was confident “that together we will make significant strides towards making the Public Regulation Commission a more responsive and proactive organization.” Khoury holds a bachelor of arts degree from Briar Cliff University in Iowa and a Juris Doctor degree from Drake University Law School in Iowa. The PRC began advertising for a chief of staff and general counsel last month.

COVID-19 by the numbers

Reported Feb. 20: New cases: 395 (includes the weekend); 667,899 total cases. Deaths: one; Santa Fe County has had 396 total deaths; 9,013 total fatalities statewide. Statewide hospitalizations: 56. Patients on ventilators: nine

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Feb. 16 “community levels” map shows the entire state has green—low—levels. Corresponding recommendations for each level can be found here.

Resources: Receive four free at-home COVID-19 tests per household via COVIDTests.gov; Check availability for additional free COVID-19 tests through Project ACT; CDC interactive booster eligibility tool; NM DOH vaccine & booster registration; CDC isolation and exposure interactive tool; COVID-19 treatment info; NMDOH immunocompromised tool kit. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453. DOH encourages residents to download the NM Notify app and to report positive COVID-19 home tests on the app.

You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.

Listen up

Mega-problems on New Mexico State University’s men’s basketball team have dominated local and national headlines in recent weeks, culminating last week in the school’s firing of head coach Greg Heiar, following allegations of serious hazing incidents among student athletes. On the most recent episode of Las Cruces Sun-News’ podcast The Reporter’s Notebook, Lead Sports Reporter Jason Groves discusses all the news surrounding the Aggies, all the way back to the fatal Nov. 19 shooting at the University of New Mexico.

Santa Fe flavor

Food and pop culture website The Takeout (from the folks behind the AV Club and The Onion) shows love for Santa Fe’s Kakawa Chocolate House (three locations here; one in Salem, Massachusetts), talking with co-owner Bonnie Bennett who, along with her husband Tony, has been working to preserve the history of chocolate since the store’s founding in 2007. “We’ve been consuming this food product for over 5,000 years,” Bennett tells The Takeout. “Many people don’t even know that chocolate has such a long, amazing history.” (FYI, Chocolate: The Exhibition remains on view at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science through March 12.) Bennett walks through how Kakawa has developed the recipes for its elixirs, building off ancient recipes and making concoctions “as close to the originals as possible using present-day ingredients,” such as Kakawa’s Mayan Spiced Chocolate and the Aztec Warrior elixirs. In both Salem and Santa Fe, the Bennetts use local ingredients whenever possible, such as lavender, prickly pear and pine nuts, in the case of New Mexico. Bottom line: “We don’t tend to look back that far and understand how related and tied to history we are,” Bennett says. “To me, this is where you taste it.”

Oooh, that smell

As we await the New Mexico Senate to take up Senate Bill 188, aka formalize the scent of green chile roasting in the fall as New Mexico’s official aroma, other US states are pondering their own scents. Axios asked its Colorado readers to weigh in on the question after (wisely) recognizing Colorado should not also pick roasting green chile, NM/Colorado chile wars not withstanding. In fact, even the fiscal analysis for New Mexico’s state aroma bill notes “the new state aroma could help draw visitors away from Colorado, which, for some reason, thinks it has green chile comparable to that of New Mexico.” (ICYMI, SFR recently spoke with Legislative Finance Committee Analyst Amanda Dick-Peddi about that report). Back to Colorado where the winner for state scent in Axios’ poll is…marijuana (natch). “Pine” as in either ponderosa forests or piñon came in second; beer brewing and hops a close third. Colorado Public Radio listeners had some additional suggestions, including the smell of a new Subaru. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports “answers are mixed when it comes to Pennsylvania’s signature smell because, well, different cities and regions smell like different things. Hershey, for example, smells distinctly like chocolate, while skeptics say Philadelphia just smells like garbage.” As for ye olde Google, asking “‘What does Pennsylvania smell like?’ brought mixed results. Depending on when they were asked, residents throughout the state reportedly smelled sulfuric, funky or plainly, ‘like cat urine.’”

Winds of change

The National Weather Service forecasts a combination of sun, clouds, rain, snow and wind this week. In other words: Spring is coming. Today, look for increasing clouds, with a high temperature near 49 degrees and northeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming southwest 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Tonight will bring scattered rain before 11 pm; rain and snow likely between 11 pm and 5 am; then snow very likely after 5 am combined with a high wind warning that starts Wednesday morning.

Thanks for reading! The Word wouldn’t necessarily want to encounter a penguin weighing more than 300 pounds, but if the current megafaunal lull turns out to be temporary, so be it.