Alec Baldwin broke down in tears and hugged his wife as his involuntary manslaughter case was sensationally dismissed.
The judge at the court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said that there had been errors by the prosecution in the handling of evidence, which she said ‘impacted the fundamental fairness of the case.’
The extraordinary decision came after a day-long hearing without the jury present over bullets that should have been in evidence.
Baldwin’s lawyers claimed they were ‘concealed’ from them and ‘buried’ in another case file.
The issue had upended the trial for Baldwin, 66, who pleaded not guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Alec Baldwin broke down in tears ang hugged his wife Hilaria as his involuntary manslaughter case was sensationally dismissed
The actor, 66, grew emotional as he heard that the case against him was being thrown out
The actor was accused of negligence for accidentally firing a live round into the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, on the set of the movie Rust in October 2021 and killing her.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, the armorer on the set of Rust, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year.
She was later jailed for 18 months, a sentence Baldwin had faced if found guilty.
During the ill-tempered and chaotic hearing on Friday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer asked for the bullets to be brought into court where – in unusual scenes – she put on gloves and inspected them herself.
Baldwin’s lawyer Luke Nikas told the court that the bullets were brought to police in Santa Fe in March this year by former police officer Troy Teske, who claimed they were the same kind that were used to shoot Hutchins.
Baldwin holds hands with his wife Hilaria as he exits the courthouse on Friday, moments after his manslaughter case was dismissed by a judge
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died after being hit by a bullet from the prop gun that Baldwin was handling on the Rust film set in October 2021
The film set’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed poses for mugshot after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter
Baldwin’s attorney Nikas claimed that prosecutors ‘buried’ the bullets as evidence by giving it a different case number to the main Rust investigation.
As a result, when Baldwin’s lawyers went to the police to view all the Rust ammunition in April, they were not shown it, a breach of evidentiary rules.
Moments before the ruling from the judge, the court heard that one of the two special prosecutors, Erlina Johnson, had quit the case
In her ruling Judge Mary Marlow Sommer said that dismissal with prejudice was a ‘very extreme sanction’, but the threshold had been met.
She said that the ‘suppressed evidence’ had ‘impacted the fundamental fairness of the case’, and that prosecutors were ‘highly culpable’ for the errors and had ‘unilaterally withheld’ the details about the ammunition.
The judge said that the ‘willful withholding of information was intentional and deliberate’, which was ‘so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching prejudice’ and there was ‘no way for the court to right this wrong’.
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey countered that they had interviewed Teske last year and were skeptical of him because he is close friends with Thell Reed, the father of Gutierrez-Reed.
Morrissey said they concluded Teskey was sending them on a ‘wild goose chase’ to point the blame at somebody other than Gutierrez-Reed.
She said: ‘It’s a man (Thell Reed) trying to protect his daughter and providing information that doesn’t even match the evidence that was found at the scene’.
Photos taken by detectives with Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office show the aftermath of the incident in October 2021
The case was sensationally thrown out on Friday due to a disagreement over bullets admitted into evidence
The actor’s wife Hilaria, pictured on Thursday, was a mainstay by his side during the trial
In November last year Teske offered to send them the ammunition but he was in Arizona so Morrissey asked him to send a photo.
They didn’t look like the live rounds taken from the set of Rust so Morrissey didn’t ask for the bullets to be collected by a local police force, the court heard.
But Judge Marlowe Sommer expressed frustration during the hearing and pressed Cpl. Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office about why the bullets were not put with the Rust file.
Cpl Hancock said that the decision was made after discussion with prosecutors
At one point Morrissey herself gave evidence in bizarre scenes where nobody had requested her to do so.
She insisted the ammunition from Teske were not similar to those found on the set of Rust, which is why she didn’t want them analyzed further.
Baldwin, seen here outside the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s offices on the day of the shooting, was had the charges against him brought twice
Baldwin’s attorneys successfully had the case thrown out as the judge agreed that the mishandled evidence ‘impacted the fundamental fairness of the case’
Friday’s hearing grew contentious after the judge dismissed the case, as Baldwin’s lawyer Alex Spiro pressed special prosecutor Kari Morrissey on her prejudice towards Baldwin.
She rejected this idea and said she actually ‘appreciated Mr Baldwin’s movies’, adding: ‘I appreciated the acting he did on Saturday Night Live and really appreciate his politics’.
Spiro asked if Morrissey had called Baldwin a ‘c***sucker’ and she said she didn’t recall saying that, and said she didn’t recall branding the actor an ‘arrogant p***’ to a witness.
Spiro said: ‘You said you would teach him a lesson?’
Morrissey responded: ‘I never said I would teach him a lesson… I made every effort to resolve this case in a very favorable way for him’.
