Alec Baldwin’s trial was overturned due to suppression of evidence

In a dramatic turn, the manslaughter trial of Alec Baldwin for the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchinsdirector of photography for the 2021 film Rust, was dismissed on Friday due to ”suppression of evidence”.

Breaking down in tears at the defense table, the multiple Emmy Award-winning actor was in the courtroom when the New Mexico judge, Mary MarloweSommer announced his decision on the defense motion to dismiss based on hidden evidence that Baldwin’s lawyer presented on Thursday night, related to ammunition brought to the police by a former police officer.

“The State’s willful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate,” Sommer said. “If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, “It certainly comes close enough to bad faith to show signs of flagrant harm”.

“The discovery of a State violation injected an unnecessary and incurable delay into the trial,” he said, adding that “his motion to dismiss the case with prejudice is granted.”

Sommer’s decision on Friday, at the end of an evidentiary hearing on a defense motion to dismiss bullets turned over to Santa Fe police in recent weeks by former Arizona police officer Troy Teske, could also mean the release of the armory who worked on the set of the film, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed from New Mexico State Prison.

With the constant chorus of local police errors, blatant professional incompetence, prosecutorial blunders and other situations taking center stage in this matter since that terrible day nearly three years ago, The dismissal of the case was both shocking and not so unexpected.

Suppression of evidence

The argument of suppression of evidence arose on Thursday when Alex SpiroBaldwin’s lawyer questioned the forensic expert Marissa Poppell on the late receipt of a set of bullets that was not submitted for defense review.

The criminalist confirmed that she had received the ammunition from a former police officer who said that they were related to the case. Under instructions, These bullets were not analyzed or categorized as evidence. Poppell is contradicted on several occasions, what raised doubts on the veracity of his testimony and the handling of the same.

The detective in charge of the case, Alexandria Hancock, confirmed in court on Friday that prosecutor Kari Morrissey was present at the meeting in which the Investigators decided that the bullets were not relevant evidenceso they would be archived in parallel.

Morrissey immediately offered to testify under oath.in an apparent attempt to regain credibility, leading to a dramatic new twist in the case that saw Baldwin’s defense question the prosecutor in the case.

The prosecutor defended the decision to dismiss the new evidence by stating that the bullets were different from those found at the crime scene, and that they were in a different state during filming.

But Spiro poked holes in his court testimony about the evidence in question, then asked: “The truth is that you don’t like Mr. Baldwin, do you?” “That’s completely false,” Morrissey replied, going so far as to say that he liked his films and political ideas.

Annulment with prejudice should be the end point of the process for Baldwin, according to Professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond: “On the criminal side, I think this is over. “Prosecutors could try to come back with an extraordinary appeal. But I don’t think any appeals court would agree with the prosecution,” he explained.

How Halyna Hutchins died

Hutchins, a rising star according to industry insiders, was 42 when she died. The cinematographer was born in Ukraine and grew up on a Soviet military base in the Arctic Circle. She was married and had one son.

She was fatally wounded during a rehearsal for “Rust” in a small chapel that is part of Bonanza Creek Ranch, about 30 kilometers from Santa Fe, on a sunny afternoon in October 2021.

Baldwin was rehearsing a scene in which his character, an outlaw who, cornered in a church by two officers, draws his Colt, when tragedy knocked at the door.

The actor claims he was told the revolver was “cold,” which in movie slang means out of ammunition and safe to use. Real bullets are banned on film sets. The tragedy halted filming of “Rust”but the film was completed last year in Montana with Hutchins’ widower as producer.