Hidden Evidence Leads to Shocking Dismissal of Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Shooting Trial

With all the theatrics of an Oscar-winning movie script, the involuntary manslaughter trial of Alec Baldwin crashed to an unexpected halt on Friday when a judge dismissed the case with great prejudice, ending a legal drama that followed the 66-year-old actor like a shadow on his acting career and complicated the future of replica weapon use on movie sets.

But how precisely could the prosecution’s case unravel and, more importantly, how could it do so in a haste? NBC News was present every minute of the abbreviated trial and tallied the event’s milestones.

Baldwin’s team accused the prosecution of tampering with evidence concerning this arresting detail.

Baldwin was charged with the manslaughter in the shooting dead of Halyna Hutchins, a 42-year-old cinematographer in the set of the movie production known as Rust in early 2021. Baldwin was holding the revolver during the shooting and was charged in the case; while he entered a plea of not guilty he thought that the weapon he had been using had actual bullets, but were blank cartridges.

The particular fact that finally contributed to the prosecution’s case collapse occurred on the second day or Thursday of the trial. Alex Spiro, Baldwin’s lead lawyer, presented Poppell a picture of brass Nickerson said was taken from the scene and asked her if a “good Samaritan” brought ammunition to the authorities sometime in the early part of this year.

Poppell testified that she made a deposition wherein she declared that the sheriff’s office was provided with Colt . 45 rounds provided by Troy Teske, ex-police officer and friend of Thell Reed, the stepfather for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer on the film “Rust.” Moreover, by that testimony, Teske delivered the rounds on what was testified to be the day of Gutierrez-Reed conviction for manslaughter regarding Hutchins death. Well, she was later on was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison.

Scholars Spiro and Baldwin’s other attorneys worked this into an argument that prosecutors had suppressed evidence of the point of ammunition which may have reached the fatal shooting. Defense lawyers moved to justify discharge of the case on various grounds and among them was that they should be the ones to decide on the importance of the bullets that Teske had brought.

Yagnoc and Lee mentioned that the prosecutors in the “Rust” case argued that the disputed ammo was not concealed from the defense or related to the case.

However, movie actress and television Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer who was able to spend considerable amount of time Friday listening to witnesses and considering a motion to dismiss agreed with Baldwin’s legal counsel.

Reference to this evidence was made only at the trial and its availability late in the process has deprived the process of the effective employment of evidence to such an extent as to has skewed the basic fairness of the trial process in Somerset County, Sommer said from the bench on Friday afternoon. It can hardly be considered bad faith, but if this conduct does not qualify for bad faith, it is sufficiently close in terms of its characteristics to look like it has been scorched by the fire.

“It’s impossible to comfort me now, stated she This is something that the court cannot reverse.” “The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy. ” Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice, which means that the case cannot proceed any further and cannot be re filed.

Baldwin cried and buried his face in his hands when Sommer declared what she had thought of him. He could have been given a one year and six months imprisonment if he had been convicted.

Lead prosecutor Karri Morrissey explained to journalists after the dismissal that she appreciates the decision of the court, but at the same time, stressed, there is no evidence that any of them has anything to do with the incident involving Hutchins.

“In fact, there is no reason to link the evidence, which we presented in court today to the set of ‘Rust,’ she said. “Marzulli stated proudly that it never left the state of Arizona. ”

But before the trial of “Rust” was disrupted, there were other key events which were filled with dramatic action.

In the game of politics and law, Baldwin with his team got a legal precedence at the initial stage of the match.
Sommer decided that Baldwin’s involvement as a co-producer of “Rust” is NO proper subject matter for the involuntary manslaughter trial one day prior to the trial’s formal start.
To Sommer, a blow was delivered to one of the planks of the prosecutor’s strategy. They were going to say Baldwin had a duty to be more careful on set since he was also co-producer of the movie — a fact which applied on Oct. 21, 2021, when Hutchins was shot at the Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe County while rehearsing a scene inside a church.

Sommer also told the presiding judge in a Monday pretrial hearing of the restraining order: “I’m having real difficulty with the state’s position that they want to show that as a producer he didn’t follow guidelines and therefore as an actor Mr. Baldwin did all of these things wrong that resulted in the death of Ms. Hutchins because as a producer he allowed these things to happen.”

“I’m denying available evidence of his status as a producer,” she said.

In both opening statements any description of Baldwin was painted in black and white.
Baldwin has played everything from the villain to the hero, during his forty-four years in the business. During the initial arguments on Wednesday, the legal representatives of both parties in the “Rust” shooting scenario introduced the actor to the jury in practically polarizing ways.

The defense’s closing argument was delivered on Wednesday when Spiro said the fatal shooting of Hutchins was ‘an unspeakable tragedy’ but his client ‘committed no crime’.

“He was an actor, acting,” Spiro said.

Spiro claimed that it was impossible for Baldwin to be charged with involuntary manslaughter because prop firearms have no bullets, nearly all the time. He informed them that actors generally fire prop BARs out of real life guns and that his client did just the same like other actors do.

“I do not need to tell all of you any more on this, because you all know how gunfights look like in the movies.” Baldwin acted in the movie “Rust” as a criminal named Harland Rust. The shooting incident occurred after the movie “Rust” was shot but before its premier.

Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said in her opening statement: Baldwin hid safety features and handled the gun that killed Hutchins, who was a “vibrant” 42-year-old rising star, recklessly In her concluding remarks, she said that Baldwin “did his own thing.”

“The evidence will show that someone who played make believe with a real gun and violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety is the defendant, Alexander Baldwin,” prosecution attorney Ocampo Johnson said. In the adversity, Ocampo Johnson prematurely resigned from the case on Friday before the dismissal of the case.

The first to testify Wednesday was Nicholas Lefueur who was the first police officer on the scene of the Bonanza Creek Ranch shooting. The jury was played footage from a body cam mounted on Lefleur, a former Sante Fe County sheriff’s deputy.

The video demonstrated that several professionals tried to rush in to aid Hutchins on the set of church interior after the gunshot was fired in the midst of mayhem shortly. Later in the recorded video, a medic is seen questioning Hutchins whether she is able to open her eyes after she was taken on a stretcher out of the church and then into the ambulance.