Alec Baldwin was visibly emotional in court as a Santa Fe judge dismissed his involuntary manslaughter case on Friday following a dramatic and often surreal hearing centered around the handling of several bullets.
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| Alec Baldwin listens during his hearing in Santa Fe County District Court, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Santa Fe, N.M. ROSS D. FRANKLIN, POOL/AP IMAGES |
"The late discovery of this evidence has compromised the fundamental fairness of the proceedings," Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer declared, dismissing the case with prejudice, effectively preventing Baldwin from facing a retrial. "There is no way to correct this injustice. Dismissal is the only appropriate remedy."
At the outset of the extraordinary session, Judge Sommer donned blue surgical gloves to open an evidence bag containing the ammunition, which Baldwin's legal team asserted had been withheld by the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office and prosecutors. By day's end, one of the trial's two special prosecutors, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, had resigned, and special prosecutor Kari Morrissey had taken the witness stand.
Opening statements began Wednesday in what was anticipated to be a two-week trial to determine Alec Baldwin's potential criminal responsibility for involuntary manslaughter in the tragic death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Following the trial, Baldwin and his legal team departed the courthouse without addressing the assembled press. Prosecutor Kari Morrissey, however, paused to speak to the cameras. "I respect the court's decision," Morrissey stated, "but there is no evidence linking any of that ammunition to the incident involving Ms. Hutchins."
In a surprising motion filed by Baldwin on Friday morning to dismiss the case, his attorneys alleged that prosecutors and the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office had withheld crucial evidence that came to light in March, after the conclusion of the trial for Rust's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
According to Baldwin's filing, retired Arizona police officer Troy Teske handed over a collection of live ammunition to the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office on March 6. Crime scene technician Marissa Poppell accepted the bullets, including Starline brass casings with nickel primers, matching the live round that tragically killed Hutchins. This information, the filing claims, was never disclosed to the defense nor presented during the defense's evidence review on April 16.
By 10:15 am, Judge Sommer had dismissed the jury for the weekend, apologizing for the fluid nature of trials. Ultimately, the jurors would not return to the courtroom.
During the trial, Baldwin's attorney Alex Spiro initially mentioned the evidence on Thursday, describing Troy Teske at that time simply as a "good Samaritan." Prosecutor Kari Morrissey later disclosed that Teske, a retired Arizona police officer and friend of veteran Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, was indeed the "good Samaritan" in question. When reached by phone on Friday, Teske declined to comment on the trial's developments, stating, "This trial is heading in a direction where I can't make any comments. I don't want to interfere."
The fatal shooting occurred inside a rustic New Mexico church set around 1:40 p.m. on October 21, 2021. Alec Baldwin, rehearsing a cross-draw maneuver with an old-fashioned revolver handed to him by assistant director David Halls, inadvertently discharged the weapon. Halls had declared the gun "cold," an industry term indicating it contained no live ammunition (Halls testified that armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed directly handed the gun to Baldwin).
The bullet struck cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, fatally injuring her, and also injured director Joel Souza. Following the incident, five live rounds mixed with dummy rounds were discovered on set. The circumstances surrounding their presence remain unclear.
The path leading to charges against the actor was convoluted and lengthy. Initially charged in January 2023, prosecutors asserted that Alec Baldwin should have assumed the gun he handled was loaded with live rounds, citing the basic rule of gun safety to never point a firearm at anyone not intended as a target. These charges were dropped three months later when New Mexico authorities launched a fresh investigation into the possibility that the gun could have been altered to discharge without a trigger pull.
Subsequently, charges were refiled in 2024 following a forensic expert's report contradicting Baldwin's version of events, where he maintained he did not pull the trigger. Matthew Hutchins, widower of Halyna Hutchins, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Baldwin and other Rust producers in 2022, settled the case later that year. Recently, he reopened his lawsuit against the producers due to non-payment of settlement funds.
In response to Baldwin's case being dismissed on Friday, Hutchins's attorney Brian Panish issued a statement expressing respect for the court's decision and reaffirming their intent to present all evidence to a jury. Panish emphasized their commitment to holding Baldwin accountable for what they described as the tragic and unnecessary death of Halyna Hutchins.
