Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Trial Tossed Out Over “Critical” Bullet Evidence; Incarcerated Armorer Could Be Released Too
In a dramatic turn of events, Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial for the fatal 2021 shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was dismissed Friday over “critical evidence” that a New Mexico judge ruled had been concealed.
“The state has repeatedly made representations to defense and to the court that they were compliant with all their discovery obligations,” New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said in her ruling from the bench just now. “Despite their repeated representations, they have continued to fail to disclose critical evidence to the defendant.”
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“The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide discovery to the defendant,” Sommer added in a measured tone. “Dismissal with prejudice is warranted,” she concluded.
The ruling ends any hope of the state recharging Baldwin again.
Breaking down in tears at the defense table, the multi-Emmy-winning actor was in the courtroom when Sommer announced her ruling on the defense motion to dismiss based on concealed evidence that Baldwin’s lawyer filed late Thursday, relating to ammunition brought to police by an ex-cop.
The decision by Sommer on Friday, at the end of an evidentiary hearing over a defense motion to dismiss over bullets dropped off to Santa Fe police in recent weeks by ex-Arizona cop Troy Teske, could also mean the release of incarcerated Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed from New Mexico state prison.
With the constant chorus of local police missteps, blatant professional incompetence, DA stumbles and eccentrics that has been center stage in this matter since that terrible day almost three years ago, the dismissal of the case was simultaneously shocking and not that unexpected.
Hutchins was fatally shot, and Rust director Joel Souza was injured, on October 21, 2021 after the Colt .45 Baldwin was pointing at the cinematographer fired off a live round during a rehearsal at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe where the indie Western was filming. Facing up to 18 months in state prison if found guilty, Baldwin has always insisted that while he cocked the hammer, he did not pull the trigger and the gun somehow went off on its own. The FBI, an independent analysis and, yesterday in court the man who actual made the gun all disagreed with Baldwin’s contention — which we will likely never know definitively now.
After nervous Rust ammunition supplier Seth Kenney and a series of Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office members gave testimony Friday, including bodycam footage of Teske bringing the ammunition to the cop shop, an exasperated special prosecutor Kari Morrissey decided to roll the dice and take the stand herself.
Although Rust armorer Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in a state prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, no full explanation has ever been given for how a live round got on the Rust set.
Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers plan to file a motion for her release ASAP, I hear; Sommer was also the judge in the armorer’s trial. Gutierrez-Reed had been brought to Santa Fe earlier this week from prison, where she is serving her sentence, in the assumption she would be a witness in Baldwin’s trial as soon as today.
Just three days into what was supposed to be a nearly two-week trial, Erlinda Johnson, one of the special prosecutors in the case, resigned. The sudden move came because Johnson, who only joined the case a couple of months ago, didn’t agree with there being a public hearing on the move by Baldwin’s Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to see the matter tossed to the legal curb.
“I could see it was not at all similar to the live rounds on the set of Rust so I made the decision not to collect the rounds since they had never left Arizona,” Morrissey told the court on the record, as she and police officials had stated before of the ammunition brought in by Teske.
A close friend of Thell Reed, the iconic Hollywood gun coach and father of Gutierrez-Reed, Teske was never called as a witness in the armorer’s trial this spring and the defendant’s own lawyer Jason Bowles said he didn’t want them, according to Morrissey. Not long afterwards, Teske took the ammunition to the police – something the defense claims it was just informed of despite requiring all the evidence in the case.
Over the months since Baldwin was recharged earlier this year, the defense had quibbled over and over about evidence, discovery and tactics with what has sometimes seen like a battle of locals versus city slickers. In that context, New York City-based defense lawyer Alex Spiro today accused Morrissey of not liking Baldwin personally. Almost spitting out the words, Spiro claimed Morrissey has called Baldwin “an arrogant prick” and a “c*cksucker” in the past.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Morrissey replied, insisting that she likes a number of Baldwin’s movies, SNL appearances and “his politics.” The special prosecutor also tried to state on the record that she offered Baldwin, a longtime Democrat, a plea deal early this year.
Before Morrissey could get far down that route, she was shut down by both Spiro and Sommer. “I never said to witnesses that I would teach him a lesson,” Morrissey added to further claims by Spiro. “Absolutely not.”
There was talk about a new possible plea deal today, sources tell me, but that never came together. On the other hand, with a TLC reality show in the works likely to pay some of those sizable legal bills and a couple of documentaries on the Rust calamity in production, Baldwin’s freedom from criminal prosecution could see the well-respected actor back on the big and small screen in scripted roles as a big draw for the first time in years.
A career resurrection that might begin with Rust itself.
As the march towards this trial and that of Gutierrez-Reed moved slowly forward, the one time Jensen Ackles co-starring film was brought back last year without the young armorer or the Supernatural actor. Rust 2.0 completed production in Montana in early 2023 with Souza was as director, and Baldwin as star and producer. The now-finished Rust hasn’t secured a buyer nor distributor. Some sources have said that was always the plan until Baldwin’s legal woes were over. Others have told Deadline that the film has been actively shopped at film markets to no success. That might change in short order now that Baldwin’s criminal trial is old news.
Having left the courtroom and likely Santa Fe in a hurry Friday after Sommer’s ruling, Baldwin hasn’t quite left his Rust legal troubles in the dust. The actor is up against several civil cases in California and New Mexico courts related to the film he conjured up with Souza and the terrible shooting on the movie’s set.
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