The armorer brought the live rounds on to the set. Stupid. She was convicted. Baldwin was equally stupid to be pointing any gun at any one, even if he was told it was "cold". He should probably be convicted of involuntary manslaughter and serve some time in jail.
A DRAMATIC, SURPRISE ENDING
Judge tosses criminal charge against Alec Baldwin, siding with defense allegation that prosecution ‘hid’ evidence
BY OLIVIER UYTTEBROUCK JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
SANTA FE — The criminal case against actor Alec Baldwin imploded in spectacular fashion Friday when a judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter charge after finding that prosecutors had withheld evidence. Baldwin wept in court as District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled that “dismissal with prejudice is warranted” because prosecutors failed to provide Baldwin’s legal team a collection of live bullets obtained by law enforcement officers. The case will not be refiled.
Baldwin, his attorneys and family members walked out of the Santa Fe District Courthouse without commenting to the throngs of reporters and camera crews asking for his response to the dismissal.
The Baldwin trial took a wild turn Friday morning when defense attorneys demanded that prosecutors produce ammunition that a “good Samaritan” turned over in March to the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office. His attorneys asked Marlowe Sommer to dismiss the case against Baldwin, alleging that prosecutors and investigators “hid” critical evidence from the defense. The dramatic turn brought the trial to a crashing halt as Marlowe Sommer considered the motion to dismiss the case. The judge dismissed the jury around 10:15 a.m. and told them to return Monday. At 4:30 p.m., she made the jury’s dismissal permanent.
By the end of the day, lead special prosecutor Kari Morrissey had taken the witness stand to testify, her co-counsel, Erlinda O. Johnson, had resigned as a special prosecutor, and the judge herself had put on blue latex gloves to unseal an evidence envelope. “Dismissal with prejudice is a very extreme thing,” Marlowe Sommer said before granting it.
“The defendant must show that the prosecution suppressed evidence, the evidence was favorable to the accused and the evidence was material to the defense,” the judge said. Marlowe Sommer found that Baldwin’s legal team met all three of those prongs required to show a Brady violation, which allows a judge to dismiss charges against defendant — with prejudice, meaning they can’t be refiled.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer of the movie, was rehearsing a scene on the set at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe when the gun he was holding discharged, fatally shooting the cinematographer, 42-year-old Halyna Hutchins, and injuring director Joel Souza, who was shot in the shoulder.
The surprise ending to the high-profile trial may have exceeded anything a Hollywood scriptwriter could have written, with Morrissey taking the witness stand under cross-examination by a defense attorney. “The truth of the matter is, you don’t like Mr. Baldwin very much,” said Alex Spiro, one of Baldwin’s attorneys, accusing Morrissey of using profane language to describe the actor.
“That is absolutely untrue,” Morrissey replied. “I actually really appreciate Mr. Baldwin’s movies. I really appreciated the acting that he did on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ And I really appreciate his politics.” When Spiro asked Morrissey why her co-counsel wasn’t in the courtroom, she explained that Johnson had been opposed to a public hearing about the defense’s motion to dismiss.
The motion hearing included a dramatic scene in which the judge donned blue latex gloves and came down from her bench to examine about a dozen live rounds as attorneys and a crime scene investigator gathered around the table. “This is unusual,” Marlowe Sommer said as she put on the gloves, cut open the evidence envelope and removed the live rounds.
The examinat ion revealed that at least one of the rounds, provided to the sheriff’s office on March 6 by a retired Arizona police officer, was a Starline Brass .45-caliber round with similar characteristics to five rounds of live ammunition collected at the “Rust” movie set. One of those rounds, discharged by Baldwin’s replica Colt .45 revolver, killed Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021.
Defense attorneys seized on the revelation to accuse prosecutors of withholding “critical evidence” from the defense. “We asked to see every single round that related to the ‘Rust’ case, and this was hidden from us,” Spiro said. Morrissey argued that the bullets turned into the sheriff’s office had “no evidentiary value” and called the defense motion “a wild goose chase.” After viewing the rounds, however, Morrissey said that she had never seen the rounds — or a report written by the crime scene investigator who received them.
Morrissey, testifying from the witness stand, said the live rounds had no relevance to the case against Baldwin. The rounds, which were in the possession of an Arizona man, belonged to veteran movie armorer Thell Reed, the father of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed. “I have absolutely no reason to believe that they are relevant to the incident that took place on the set of ‘Rust,’” Morrissey testified. “These are rounds that were in the possession of Thell Reed and never left the state of Arizona.”
The bullets, which arrived at the sheriff’s office the day Gutierrez Reed was convicted, were stored in the department’s evidence vault but assigned a number different from that of the other “Rust” evidence, witnesses testified. When Spiro asked Morrissey why prosecutors hadn’t turned over the bullets or a sheriff’s office report about them, Morrissey said she didn’t know they were logged under a different number. Nor did she notice that the report wasn’t included in the “terabyte of discovery” provided to the defense. “And in addition to that, I have no reason to believe, and still have no reason to believe, that those rounds have anything to do with these cases,” she said.
Gutierrez Reed, 27, who had previously supervised weapons for only one movie, was convicted on March 6 of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death following a closely watched trial in Santa Fe. Morrissey was lead prosecutor in that trial, which was also held in Santa Fe before Marlowe Sommer.
On April 14, Marlowe Sommer sentenced Gutierrez Reed, who was only 24 at the time of the shootings, to the maximum 18 months in prison. Baldwin also faced a maximum sentence of 18 months had he been convicted of the same crime. Whether the new evidence would have exonerated Baldwin may never be known. Another unknown is how the new evidence may affect the ongoing appeal of Gutierrez Reed’s conviction.
“We don’t know if it’s a live ammunition match or not,” Baldwin attorney Luke Nikas told the judge. “But we do know that the state had it, and it’s disclosable.” Nikas also argued that the failure to turn over evidence is part of a broader pattern by the prosecution and told the judge “enough is enough.”