Alec Baldwin weeps in court as judge announces involuntary manslaughter case is dismissed midtrial

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This article was published 11/07/2024 (807 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — 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 misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of evidence from the defense 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 County 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 case-ending evidence, revealed during testimony Thursday, was ammunition that was brought into the 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 and filed a motion to dismiss the case.

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,” 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. It’s not clear what opportunities will await him now, but he and his wife signed an agreement for a reality show on their large family in June.

Baldwin and other producers still face civil lawsuits from Hutchins’ parents and sister, and from crew members. Hutchins’ widower and young son had agreed to settle their own lawsuit about a year after the shooting, with the widower becoming an executive producer on the then-unfinished film.

But that settlement was reportedly in jeopardy before the trial, and the lawyer who filed it, Brian Panish, now said in a statement that “we look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr. Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna Hutchins.”

“Rust,” an independent Western, was completed in Montana. It has not found a distributor or been seen by the public.

Prosecutors did get one conviction for Hutchins’ death: Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on an involuntary manslaughter conviction.

She is appealing, and her attorney Jason Bowles said he would file a motion to dismiss his client’s case on the same basis as Baldwin’s.

Marlowe Sommer put a pause on the trial earlier Friday and sent the jury home so she could hear testimony and arguments on the dismissal motion.

Troy Teske, a retired police officer and a close friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father Thell Reed, who is a gun coach and armorer on movies, was the person who appeared with the ammunition on the same day the guilty verdict in her case was read.

Teske and the ammunition had been known to authorities since a few weeks after the shooting, 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 it was not presented to Baldwin’s team when they examined ballistics evidence in April.

The issue came up during defense questioning of crime scene technician Marissa Poppell, who acknowledged receiving the ammunition, a moment that the judge watched on a police supervisor’s body camera Friday.

Morrissey argued that the emergence of the evidence 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 said. “This is just a man trying to protect his daughter.”

The evidence might not have mattered in Baldwin’s case were it included. The charges against him did not allege that he was responsible for the deadly rounds being on set. But the defense’s lack of access to it was deemed egregious enough for a dismissal.

The trial’s other special prosecutor, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, who delivered the state’s opening statement just two days ago, resigned from the case Friday, a move that would have been stunning in itself were it not followed moments later by the dismissal. Baldwin attorney Alex Spiro asked Morrissey whether Johnson quit based on the evidence issues, and Morrissey said she believed it was over the holding of the public hearing itself.

Morrissey said she respects the judge’s decision but that there was no reason to believe the undisclosed evidence was related to the movie set.

The trial was over after it had barely begun. 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 patio outside.

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.

Spiro, the defense lawyer, argued that his client 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.

Baldwin was first charged with involuntary manslaughter along with Gutierrez-Reed in January 2023. The charges were dismissed a few months later, but a new team of special prosecutors got a grand jury indictment against the actor this year.

The 16 jurors, including alternates, went home Friday thinking they would return Monday for one of the most high-profile trials in state history. They were instead informed by the court that their service had ended.

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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.

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For more coverage of Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/alec-baldwin