A New Mexico judge on Friday brought a sudden and stunning end to the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin, dismissing it in the middle of the actor's trial and saying it cannot be filed again.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case based on the misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of evidence from the defence in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust."
Baldwin cried, hugged his two attorneys, gestured to the front of the court, then turned to hug his crying wife Hilaria, the mother of seven of his eight children, holding the embrace for 12 seconds. He climbed into an SUV outside the Santa Fe courthouse without speaking to the media.
"The late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings," Marlowe Sommer said. "If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith it certainly comes so near to bad faith to show signs of scorching."
The evidence that sank the case, revealed during the trial's second day of testimony Thursday, was the existence of ammunition that was brought into the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins' killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin's lawyers alleged they "buried" it. The defence filed one of many motions they had made to dismiss the case over evidence issues. All the others were rejected. But this one took.
The judge's decision ends the criminal culpability of the 66-year-old Baldwin after a nearly three-year saga that began when a revolver he was pointing at Hutchins during a rehearsal went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
"Our goal from the beginning was to seek justice for Halyna Hutchins, and we fought to get this case tried on its merits," District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said in a statement. "We are disappointed that the case did not get to the jury."
The career of the "Hunt for Red October" and "30 Rock" star and frequent "Saturday Night Live" host — who has been a household name for more than three decades — had been put into doubt, and he could have gotten 18 months in prison if convicted.
Baldwin and other producers still face civil lawsuits from Hutchins' parents and sister.
Prosecutors did get one conviction for Hutchins' death. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film's armourer, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on an involuntary manslaughter conviction, which she is now appealing.
Her attorney Jason Bowles said Friday that he would be filing a motion to dismiss his client's case as well.
"The judge upheld the integrity of the system in dismissing the case," he told The Associated Press in an email.
Marlowe Sommer put a pause on the trial earlier Friday and sent the jury home for the weekend so she could spend the day hearing testimony and arguments on the motion to dismiss.
Troy Teske, a retired police officer and a close friend of Gutierrez-Reed's father Thell Reed who is a gun coach and armourer on movies, was the person who brought the ammunition into the sheriff's office in March on the same day the guilty verdict in her case was read.
Teske and the ammo he said might be relevant had been known to authorities since a few weeks after the shooting, and special prosecutor Kari Morrissey had met with him last year, but they determined it was not relevant.
The evidence was collected but crucially was not put into the same file as the rest of the "Rust" case, and was not presented to Baldwin's defence team when they examined the ballistics evidence in April. The defence would argue that they should have had a chance to weigh in on the evidence's importance, and that the prosecution "buried" it.
The issue came up during the defence questioning Thursday of sheriff's crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, who acknowledged receiving the ammo, a moment that the judge watched on a police supervisor's body camera on Friday.
Morrissey argued that the emergence of the ammunition was part of an attempt by Reed to shift blame away from his daughter.
"This is a wild goose chase that has no evidentiary value whatsoever," Morrissey told the judge during the hearing. "This is just a man trying to protect his daughter."
The case's other special prosecutor, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, resigned from the case earlier Friday. Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro asked whether she had resigned based on the evidence issues being discussed. Morrissey said she believed it was over the holding of the public hearing itself.
Speaking outside the courthouse doors, Morrissey said she respects the judge's decision but that there was no reason to believe the undisclosed evidence in question was related to the set of "Rust."
The trial had barely begun when it was brought to a close. Prosecutors had only started to make their case, and none of the eyewitnesses from the set had testified yet.
Baldwin's younger brother Stephen Baldwin and older sister Elizabeth Keuchler, both actors themselves, sat behind him in the gallery next to his wife each day of the trial, which was streamed live by AP and Court TV. Reporters from both coasts filled the small courtroom, and had stations outside for arrivals and departures of trial players.
The judge dealt a serious blow to the prosecution's case when on the eve of the trial on Monday when she ruled that Baldwin's role as a producer on the film was not relevant and had to be left out.
Still, prosecutors forged ahead, painting Baldwin in their openings as a reckless performer who "played make-believe" while flouting basic gun safety rules.
Baldwin's attorney Spiro argued that he did only what actors always do on the "Rust" set, and that the necessary safety steps must be taken before a gun reaches a performer's hand.
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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
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