Judge dismisses Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ case, blaming prosecutor conduct

Alec Baldwin’s “Rust” shooting trial was dismissed Friday, after a judge ruled that prosecutors improperly withheld potential evidence from the defense team. The ruling was a shocking end to the Emmy Award-winning actor’s years-long effort to clear his name after a prop gun discharged in his hand on a film set in 2021, releasing a live bullet that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded the film’s director.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said in her ruling that prosecutors had failed to properly inform defense lawyers of live ammunition in their possession, which may have been connected to the shooting. “The state’s woeful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate,” she said.

The actor had been on trial for involuntary manslaughter since Tuesday, as prosecutors argued that his reckless handling of a prop gun on the set of the low-budget western made him responsible for the fatal shooting.

The dismissal essentially ends the threat of criminal punishment for Baldwin, one of America’s best known actors, whose career was derailed by the shooting. He’s lauded for his Emmy-winning impressions of Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” and his role as Jack Donaghy in “30 Rock.”

Baldwin – who had for much of the proceedings maintained an unfazed and calm demeanor – put his face in his hands when he heard the judge’s decision, then embraced his attorneys and wife. He later left court without taking questions from the dozens of reporters the case had drawn to New Mexico.

Baldwin’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case late Thursday, alleging that prosecutors hid evidence that could have helped determine the source of the live round found in Baldwin’s revolver, on a film set where only blanks were supposed to be used.

The potential evidence in question was a collection of rounds in the possession of Troy Teske, a friend of the “Rust” armorer’s stepfather, Thell Reed. Teske gave the live rounds to personnel at the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office earlier this year, after armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s involuntary manslaughter trial concluded with her conviction. The defense claimed that knowledge of the rounds had not been shared with them, despite their request to examine all ballistic evidence.

“The State is attempting to establish a link between Baldwin and the source of the live ammunition. The only way it can do that is by demonstrating that the live rounds were brought to the set by the movie’s armorer, given the State’s assertion that Baldwin should have been aware of her youth and inexperience and therefore the possibility that she brought live rounds to the set,” the defense team wrote in its motion. “The State not only failed to disclose the evidence – it affirmatively hid it under a file number that is unaffiliated with the Rust case.”

When the concerns were brought up in court Friday, the judge donned a pair of blue gloves, cut open the manila packet containing the ammunition and asked for a crime-scene technician to identify each of the rounds. As Sommer questioned the technician, it was revealed that at least one of the bullets was similar to a dummy round found on the “Rust” set.

After the judge sent the jury home Friday to look into the matter, special prosecutor Kari Morrissey called herself as a witness in an unusual move, testifying that the ammunition in question did not match live ammunition collected from the “Rust” set, and had never been brought to New Mexico – let alone the film set – before the shooting.

The defense was aware of the ammunition in question, Morrissey argued, but the rounds weren’t formally presented to the defense team as evidence because they did not appear to match the rounds that were found on the set of the western. “This has no evidentiary value whatsoever,” she said.

But Sommer thought otherwise, and the judge excoriated the prosecution in her ruling.

“If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching prejudice,” she said in her ruling. She said that Baldwin’s defense team should have been made aware of the ammunition earlier, and it was now too late for them to incorporate it into their defense. Therefore, not even the declaration of a mistrial could remedy the situation; the case had to be dismissed with prejudice – meaning Baldwin cannot be retried.

As Sommer began laying down her reasoning for dismissing the trial, Baldwin’s sister, Beth Keuchler, began sobbing in the stands.

The dismissal marks the prosecutorial team’s second major misstep in Baldwin’s case. He was initially charged, along with Gutierrez-Reed, of two counts of involuntary manslaughter in January 2023 – more than a year after the shooting. But about three months later, the charges against the actor were dropped after “new facts were revealed that demand further investigation and forensic analysis,” prosecutors said at the time, noting that the charges could be refiled.

In January, a grand jury indicted Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter once again, leading to the trial that was tossed out Friday.

The case stemmed from an incident that occurred when some cast and crew of “Rust” were rehearsing at Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe, N.M., on Oct. 21, 2021. When Baldwin’s revolver went off, it released a live round that hit Hutchins in the chest and director Joel Souza in the shoulder. Hutchins was airlifted from the scene and pronounced dead at a hospital in Albuquerque, while Souza was expected to make a full recovery.

Baldwin, who is also a producer on the still-unreleased film, has denied pulling the gun’s trigger. Though he is now out of criminal jeopardy, he still faces civil litigation related to the shooting.

Baldwin told CNN in 2022 that the “Rust” fallout “has taken years off” his life.

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William Triplett in New Mexico contributed to this report.