The judge dismissed Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial after his attorney argued misconduct by state investigators.
In an astonishing set of developments, Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial has been dismissed after his lawyer successfully argued misconduct by state investigators probing the fatal shooting of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer granted Baldwin's attorney Alex Spiro's motion to dismiss the case with prejudice -- meaning Baldwin can't be tried again -- on Friday in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after Spiro argued that state investigators failed to properly disclose evidence in the case.
"The late discovery of this evidence has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings," Sommer said. "There is no way for the court to right this wrong. The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy."
After Sommer granted the motion to dismiss, Baldwin, 66, could be seen sobbing following a trial that barely lasted three days. He had been facing a single charge of involuntary manslaughter and faced up to 18 months in prison if convicted.
The stunning set of events kicked off when testimony came to a screeching halt Friday after Baldwin's legal team accused prosecutors of failing to properly turn over evidence in the case. Specifically, Baldwin's legal team alleged that the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office took possession of live rounds of ammo as evidence but failed to record them in the official case file. The defense also alleged prosecutors failed to reveal that this ammo even existed.
On Thursday, a sheriff's crime scene technician testified that a retired police officer and friend of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's father told investigators he believed the ammo could be associated with the the fatal shooting. The crime scene technician then testified that the ammo was not included in the case inventory or tested to determine if they matched the lethal round that killed Hutchins.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey scoffed at Spiro's notion, arguing that the ammo in question had "no evidentiary value" to Baldwin's case because the ammo was not a match -- either in size or composition -- to those that were on the set of Rust.
Sommer, after sending the jury home for the day, called the crime scene technician back on the stand to discuss the ammo in question, as the crime scene tech, judge and lawyers from both sides meticulously studied the ammo and compared it to the ammo found on the set.
The drama was complicated by the fact that special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson resigned from the case reportedly due to the turmoil over the evidence.
"Something went wrong in this case. They lost Erlinda Johnson today the other special prosecutor, who had just joined the case. That's a question of what happened to have Erlinda hit the eject button and get out of this plane before it crashed," said legal expert John Day in an interview outside the courthouse with Law & Crime. "A lot of questions that still need to be answered. At the end of the day, the defense team did a remarkable job in defending [Baldwin] and raising all these questions. You had a judge who was ticked off at the way the special prosecutor handled the case, and the judge decided the only remedy here is to shut this down with no possibility of re-filing.
Day added that Baldwin will sleep well tonight while the people of New Mexico "are out a lot of money" due to the taxpayer dollars allocated to fight this high-profile case, which he called "a disaster."
Once outside the courthouse, Morrissey said she disagreed with but respects the judge's decision.
"I'm disappointed because I believe that the importance of the evidence was misconstrued by the defense attorneys," she said outside the courthouse. "We did everything humanly possible to bring justice to Halyna and to her family and we're proud of the work that we did."
The case comes to a dramatic conclusion just days after Spiro insisted in his opening statement that the prop gun that fired and killed Hutchins "was double checked" and "verified" that it was a cold gun. Spiro also said Baldwin was never made aware that there was a live round in the revolver.
"It had been checked and double checked by those responsible for ensuring the gun was safe," Spiro said Wednesday. "He did not tamper with it, he did not load it himself. He did not leave it unattended."
He added that "no actor in history" has "intercepted a live bullet from a prop gun" and that "no one could have imagined or expected an actor to do that," which was in response to the special prosecutor claiming in her opening statement that Baldwin "violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety" on the set of Rust.
The case also concludes nearly three months after Reed, the film's armorer, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for her role in Hutchins' death.
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