Judge dismisses charges against Alec Baldwin after defense alleges government misconduct
The involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin was dismissed in dramatic fashion on Friday after the judge overseeing the case ruled prosecutors did not properly turn over evidence to the defense.
Baldwin’s attorneys had filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing state investigators did not properly share with the defense that a man had delivered a box of ammunition purportedly connected to the case to investigators.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home for the day and heard several hours of testimony about the alleged issue. At about 4 p.m. local time, she sided with the defense and dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again.
Baldwin could be seen crying as the decision was announced, and he immediately hugged his wife Hilaria as court was excused for the day.
The decision came after a chaotic hearing Friday just a few days into Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial related to the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on October 21, 2021, on the New Mexico set of the Western film “Rust.” Baldwin had pleaded not guilty and could have faced up to 18 months in prison.
Baldwin was practicing a “cross draw” – pulling a gun from a holster on the opposite side of his body from his draw hand – with a prop gun when it fired a live round, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
At opening statements Wednesday, prosecutors alleged Baldwin violated the “cardinal rules of firearm safety” by pointing the prop gun at Hutchins and pulling the trigger.
However, the defense blamed the film’s armorer and the first assistant director – jointly in charge of firearm safety on set – for allowing a real bullet to be loaded into the prop gun and failing to make it safe before it reached Baldwin.
“This was an unspeakable tragedy, but Alec Baldwin committed no crime. He was an actor, acting, playing the role of Harlan Rust,” attorney Alex Spiro said. “These ‘cardinal rules’ are not cardinal rules on a movie set.”
The case against Baldwin has been marked by yearslong fits and starts with turnovers in prosecutors, a prosecution stalled by questions surrounding the integrity of evidence and a steady spate of motions from Baldwin’s team attempting to get the charge thrown out.
This is the third criminal case related to the on-set shooting. In March, Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer for “Rust,” was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Her attorney Jason Bowles spoke to CNN after Baldwin’s case was dismissed. “The judge found intentional misconduct and we also have had the same failures in Hannah’s case, by the State,” he said. “We will be moving for dismissal of Hannah’s case.”
Dave Halls, the assistant director, agreed to plead no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon, the district attorney for New Mexico’s First Judicial District said. The terms of the deal included six months of probation and a suspended sentence, prosecutors said.
How the case unraveled
The case unraveled in real time on Friday afternoon and culminated with a bizarre scene in which special prosecutor Kari Morrissey agreed to take the stand as a witness and answer sharp questions under oath from defense attorney Alex Spiro.
In her testimony, Morrissey stated special prosecutor Erlinda Johnson – who delivered opening statements against Baldwin – had resigned from the prosecution team that day.
“My understanding is that she didn’t agree with the decision to have a public hearing,” Morrissey said.
The evidence issue first came to light on Thursday. In court, a crime scene technician testified that a man had delivered a box of ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March after the conviction of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed. The man, Troy Teske, a retired police officer and friend of the armorer’s father, told investigators he believed the ammunition could be associated with the “Rust” incident, crime scene technician Marissa Poppell testified.
However, the technician testified the items were catalogued separately from Baldwin’s case and were not included in the “Rust” case inventory or tested to see if they matched the lethal round.
Baldwin’s team argued prosecutors did not properly disclose this evidence to the defense and asked for the case to be dismissed.
In response, Morrissey said investigators determined the ammunition was not a match to those found on the “Rust” set and had no evidentiary value to the case. “This is a wild goose chase,” Morrissey argued.
The judge sent the jury home for the day and allowed further testimony about the issue.
In a “very unusual” development, the judge asked for Poppell to be called back to the stand to discuss the rounds outside the presence of the jury.
The witness, judge, and attorneys all donned blue gloves and gathered around a table in the center of the courtroom, where the envelope holding the rounds was unsealed and examined by the judge to determine whether it matches the rounds recovered from the film set. The courtroom was silent and thick with tension as the judge compared the rounds.
The judge then ordered additional witnesses to testify, and several law enforcement investigators took the stand and spoke about how Teske had delivered a box of ammunition to the sheriff’s office in March, which he said was a match to the live rounds found on set.
The investigators testified they and Morrissey determined the ammo was not relevant to the “Rust” case and so did not turn it over to the defense. Poppell said she filled out a report on the interaction but it was filed under a different case number.
However, Cpl. Alexandria Hancock, the lead investigator on the case, testified under questioning from the judge the rounds looked “similar” to the dummy rounds on the set of “Rust.” She said she attempted to reach Teske for a further interview, but he did not return her calls.
After a break, Morrissey then called herself to the stand as a witness in a remarkably unusual setup. She said she had received a photo from Teske of some live rounds earlier and determined they were not similar to those on the set of “Rust,” and when he brought the box of ammo to the sheriff’s office in March she believed they were similar to those in the photo.
Spiro, the defense attorney, then sharply questioned her, eliciting testimony that her colleague had resigned, and about her personal feelings about Baldwin.
“I appreciate his movies. I appreciated the acting he did on Saturday Night Live, and I really appreciate his politics,” she said.
Outside court after the dismissal, Morrissey said she was disappointed by the decision and argued there was no evidence any of that ammunition was related to Hutchins’ death.
“I understand the court disagrees with me, and I respect the court’s decision,” she said. “I think the people can disagree. I’m disappointed because I believe that the importance of the evidence was misconstrued by the defense attorneys, but I have to respect the court’s decision.”
She said she does not believe they let down Hutchins’ family.
“We did everything humanly possible to bring justice to Halyna and to her family and we’re proud of the work we did,” she said.
How we got here
The shocking death of Hutchins on set was the first of its kind since the 1993 death of actor Brandon Lee, who was killed in the filming of “The Crow” when his co-star fired a prop gun containing a fragment of a bullet.
A journalist turned promising cinematographer, Hutchins was a native of Ukraine and worked as an investigative journalist with British documentary productions in Europe, where she did feature documentaries for the BBC and Discovery.
She lived in New York City, where she found a love for photography, before moving to Los Angeles. After taking a UCLA extension course for directing, Hutchins quickly figured out she loved cinematography more than directing, according to an interview for “Why Women Are Excelling in Hollywood” posted on YouTube months before her death.
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