A judge on Friday rejected Alec Baldwin’s latest attempt to dismiss his manslaughter case, allowing the actor’s trial in the shooting death of the film’s “Rust” cinematographer to continue in less than two weeks.
Alec Baldwin’s defense attorneys had asked Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to dismiss the case against the actor before his trial begins in July.
Baldwin’s legal team had requested that if the trial goes forward, the judge should at least bar an expert from presenting an analysis of the gun using spare parts for the prosecution. They said investigators may have destroyed potentially exculpatory evidence while testing whether the gun could be accidentally fired without pulling the trigger.
During a rehearsal on the film set on October 21, 2021, Baldwin was pointing the gun at Halyna Hutchins when it went off, killing her and injuring the director, Joel Souza, who survived.
Baldwin pleaded not guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison.
Police investigators initially sent the revolver to the FBI for routine testing, but when an analyst heard Baldwin say in an interview with ABC TV that he never pulled the trigger but the gun went off, the agency told local authorities they could perform an accidental discharge test, although this could damage the device.
A team of investigators told the FBI to go ahead and tested the revolver by hitting it from various angles with a leather mallet. One of those impacts fractured the firing and safety mechanisms of the weapon.
“They understood that this was potentially exculpatory evidence and they destroyed it anyway,” Baldwin’s attorney, John Bash, said during a virtual court hearing Monday. “It is outrageous and requires it to be dismissed,” he added.
Prosecutors said it was “unfortunate” that the gun broke, but it was not destroyed and the parts are still available. They say Baldwin’s attorneys still have the ability to defend their client and challenge the evidence against him.
Baldwin’s attorneys say authorities moved ahead with destructive testing of the gun without bothering to first disassemble it and photograph the parts, thereby eliminating their most critical evidence in the case. Noting damage to the top notch of the revolver’s hammer, they urged the judge to bar a jury from seeing an analysis of the reconstructed weapon.
Hours of testimony about the gun and forensic evidence during preliminary hearings provided a glimpse into what Baldwin’s trial could look like. Baldwin’s lawyers questioned the lead detective, an FBI firearms forensics investigator and the prosecution’s independent weapons expert, Lucien Haag, at length.
Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson told the court Monday that the defense has plenty of weapons evidence to work with at trial.
He added that all available evidence, from witness statements to video footage of Baldwin firing the revolver, shows that the gun was in good working order on the day of the shooting and that police had no reason to believe that its operation internal could provide evidence that exonerates the actor.
Prosecutors plan to present evidence they say indicates the firearm “could not have been fired without pulling the trigger” and was functioning properly before the shooting.
Gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty in March of involuntary manslaughter for her role in the shooting and was sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
Since the 2021 shooting, filming on “Rust” has resumed but has been moved to Montana under a deal with Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, who made him an executive producer. The full film has yet to be released.
){kind=link}