Has the last word not yet been spoken in the trial against Alec Baldwin? The prosecutor has asked the judge to rethink his decision.
The prosecution in the “Rust” case has apparently asked the judge to reconsider her decision. In July, Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the manslaughter charges against actor Alec Baldwin (66). to reopen the case.
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey, who is handling the “Rust” case, argued, according to the report, that the defense successfully “confused” the judge during the trial about the relevance of the withheld evidence. Morrissey asked the judge to reconsider the verdict and ask the defense more questions about how it learned about the evidence, according to Variety.
“A tactical decision”
Baldwin was charged with manslaughter after camerawoman Halyna Hutchins (1979-2021) was fatally shot by a bullet from a revolver he was holding on the set of the western “Rust” in October 2021. The judge ended the case on July 12, making serious allegations against the prosecution. She said the prosecution withheld from Baldwin’s lawyers a set of bullets that was handed over to investigators two and a half years after the incident in March of this year and that may be linked to the camerawoman’s death. The fatal bullet is said to have been among them.
Now Morrissey argued that the fact that the motion to dismiss was made during the trial was “a tactical decision” to “take advantage of the state’s limited resources.”
Prosecutors argue that the defense may have known about the bullets long before the dramatic revelation in court, so Baldwin’s legal team was not really surprised or hampered by the failure to turn over the evidence.
Morrissey demanded that Baldwin’s defense disclose “all information about when and how” it learned of the bullets “so that a complete record can be prepared for the likely possibility of review by a higher court.” Morrissey also reiterated her opinion that the bullets were not relevant to Baldwin’s defense and were not exculpatory, and that there was therefore no obligation to disclose them.
The gunsmith in charge on the “Rust” film set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed (born 1997), was sentenced to 18 months in prison in April for negligent homicide.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
