The Hollywood actor was tried for manslaughter after the director of photography was killed on the set of the film Rust.
A U.S. judge dismissed the wrongful death case against Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin after finding the state withheld evidence about how live bullets ended up on a movie set where a director of photography was shot to death.
The trial that began three days ago came to a dramatic end Friday after Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case based on misconduct by police and prosecutors over the defense’s withholding of evidence in the 2021 shooting of director of photography Halyna Hutchins on set. from the film Rust.
“The late discovery of this evidence during the trial impeded the effective use of the evidence in such a way that it impacted the fundamental fairness of the process,” said Marlowe Sommer in court in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so close to bad faith that it shows signs of burning.”
The judge said the case cannot be dismissed again. This ends the criminal culpability of Baldwin, 66, after a nearly three-year saga that began when a revolver he pointed at Hutchins during rehearsal went off, killing her and injuring director Joel Souza.
Breaking into tears, the multiple Emmy award-winning actor hugged his wife Hilaria Baldwin as other family members cried in the public gallery.
Baldwin’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told the court that the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office took possession of the live ammunition in March as evidence but did not list it in the investigation file or reveal its existence to defense attorneys.
“The real reason you didn’t fabricate this evidence is because it could have compromised law enforcement’s case,” Spiro told Corporal Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, the lead investigator.
District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said in a statement that her goal from the beginning was to “seek justice for Halyna Hutchins.”
“We are disappointed that the case did not reach the jury.”
The state’s top prosecutor, Kari Morrissey, also said she did not “intend to mislead the court” after defending herself on the witness stand.
“My understanding of what was left at the sheriff’s office is on the computer screen and looks nothing like the live bullets from the set of Rust,” she said.
Hutchins died in Hollywood’s first filming in nearly 30 years when Baldwin was instructed to point a revolver at her as she readied a camera during filming southwest of Santa Fe. The gun fired a .45-caliber round inadvertently loaded by the film’s gunsmith. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.
Baldwin and other producers still face civil lawsuits from Hutchins’ parents, sister and other crew members.
Hutchins’ widower and young son agreed to settle the lawsuit about a year after the shooting, with the widower becoming executive producer of the then-unfinished film.
Prosecutors obtained a conviction in Hutchins’ death, with Gutierrez-Reed sentenced to 18 months in prison for manslaughter.
However, Gutierrez-Reed and her attorney, Jason Bowles, said they will file a motion to dismiss the case based on Baldwin’s verdict.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
