The judge hearing the case against actor Alec Baldwin on Friday dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against him after a contentious hearing over the handling of ammunition that defense attorneys said was withheld from them and that saw one of two special prosecutors abruptly resign.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home for the day Friday morning so she could hear testimony about the ammunition, The Hollywood Reporter said. At the end of the day, after prosecutor Erlindo Ocampo Johnson resigned from the case, Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice — meaning prosecutors cannot recharge Baldwin.
BREAKING: The judge DISMISSES the case against #AlecBaldwin with prejudice! pic.twitter.com/qIG6viky5k
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) July 12, 2024
“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,” the judge said, according to the Associated Press. “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.”
Baldwin was on trial for the fatal shooting on the set of his movie, “Rust,” in 2022 outside Santa Fe. During a rehearsal, the gun Baldwin was handling went off, striking director Joel Sousa and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Earlier this year, the armorer for the movie Hannah Guttierrez-Reed, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Gutierrez-Reed had been scheduled to testify on Friday, but Sommer delayed her testimony so she could hear testimony on the defense’s motion to dismiss the case.
Baldwin’s defense said that retired Arizona police officer Troy Teske had brought a collection of live ammunition into the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office and given them to crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. But Poppell did not put the ammunition into the inventory of the “Rust” case, even though Teske told her that some of the bullets he was handing over matched the live bullet that killed Hutchins.
That the sheriff’s department had the bullets was not disclosed to defense attorneys nor presented at the evidence viewing on April 16. Prosecutors argued that the ammunition wasn’t connected to the case, but defense countered that they should have had the opportunity to find out for themselves.
Alex Spiro, Baldwin’s attorney, brought the existence of the bullets up in court on Thursday during Poppell’s testimony, saying then that Teske was a “good Samaritan.” Teske is also a friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father, veteran armorer Thell Reed.
It’s unclear what the dismissal will mean for Gutierrez-Reed’s appeal. Investigators were never able to determine how live ammunition got on the set, while prosecutors contended that Gutierrez-Reed herself was responsible.
It wasn’t the first time that a case against Baldwin was dismissed, but the first time, it was dismissed without prejudice, and prosecutors eventually recharged him.
