Alec Baldwin gets emotional in court after hearing his manslaughter charge was dismissed with prejudice in Santa Fe, N.M., on July 12, 2024. (Law&Crime Network)
In a stunning turn of events and fortune, a New Mexico judge dismissed the charges against actor Alec Baldwin, 66, with prejudice.
On Friday morning, defense attorneys brought a major flub by law enforcement to the court’s attention during a hearing on a motion to dismiss. As it turns out, the state withheld ammunition evidence related to the shooting that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, on the set of “Rust” in October 2021.
“We don’t know if it’s the live ammunition match or not,” attorney Luke Nikas said. “But what we do know is the state had it.”
The state said the ammunition in question was not collected during the actual “Rust” investigation and, therefore, was not relevant to it. The defense claims the decision about the bullets’ relevance was simply not one law enforcement was allowed to make — and in any event should have disclosed the issue before the trial began.
“This is critical evidence in the case that was never disclosed to us,” the defense attorney argued during the motions hearing. “Continuance is not a remedy. This case should be dismissed.”
First Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer agreed with the defense. In a powerful ruling, she found the state culpable for willingly and deliberately trying to prejudice the defendant.
“There is no way for the court to right this wrong,” the judge intoned. “The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy.”
The locus of the contested ammunition is, in fact, a bit of an oddity.
During a markedly effective cross-examination of Santa Fe County crime scene technician Marissa Poppell on Thursday, defense attorney Alex Spiro pressed the state’s witness about a “good Samaritan” who turned over a container of ammunition to police.
That delivery, the defense argued, was in support of a “sabotage” theory of the case that held some mysterious person aimed to make “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed look bad and get her fired. The ammunition was said to be the same or similar to the kind of bullet that killed Hutchins when the gun Baldwin was holding discharged.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey revealed the identity of the good Samaritan as former Arizona police officer Troy Teske, a friend of veteran Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, Gutierrez-Reed’s father.
When exactly that ammunition drop was made is unclear, but defense attorneys only learned about it after the armorer was convicted of the same involuntary manslaughter charge Baldwin himself faces.
Law enforcement did not have their own stories straight.
Testimony on Thursday suggested Teske brought the ammunition to the sheriff’s office after Gutierrez-Reed’s trial. Testimony on Friday suggested the ammunition was dropped off during Gutierrez-Reed’s trial — but never disclosed to her defense attorneys.
In the end, those questions were left to tumble in the dust.
The courtroom proceedings turned on how police and county employees dealt with the similar-looking bullets — and how the state worked to ensure Baldwin’s team never got wind of them.
The motions hearing was interrupted by several recesses — spanning multiple hours combined — on Friday and eventually spiraled into something like a Russian nesting doll of discovery violations.
Spiro: You put it under a different case number?
Poppell: Yes, as I was instructed to do so @LawCrimeNetwork #AlecBaldwin— Angenette Levy (@Angenette5) July 12, 2024
Those revelations apparently shocked some members of local law enforcement to the core. Near the end of the daylong hearing, Morrissey revealed that prosecutor Erlinda Johnson, the first chair attorney for the state — the one who gave the prosecution’s opening statement during the trial — had resigned.
As more and more witnesses testified about the stash of ammunition, the judge was clearly leaning toward dismissal.
The case lurched toward the bizarre by the end of the day as Morrissey herself took the stand, by calling herself as a witness, to address defense concerns that the evidence was effectively buried.
Spiro, after questioning Morrissey about the alleged cover-up, turned the court into a spectacle of hubris and contempt for the ages.
“The truth of this matter is you don’t like Mr. Baldwin very much, do you?” the defense attorney asked.
“You know,” the prosecutor began, “that is absolutely untrue. I actually really appreciate Mr. Baldwin’s movies. I appreciated the acting that he did on Saturday Night Live. And I really appreciate his politics.”
The defense did not let it end there.
“You told one of the witnesses who disagreed with you during an interview that you thought Mr. Baldwin was a c–––sucker?” Spiro asked.
The prosecutor said she had no recollection of saying that — but refused to deny saying it under oath — and challenged the defense attorney to give her something more specific to respond to.
Questioning continued in this vein for a few minutes more — Morrissey also lightly disputed that she called Baldwin “an arrogant p––––” but by then the state’s case and credibly was fully shot.
And jurors never heard a word of it.
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