A judge in New Mexico dismissed the case against Alec Baldwin on Friday after finding that the state had withheld evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds got onto a film set where the cinematographer was fatally shot.
The dismissal was with prejudice, meaning that the manslaughter prosecution of Mr. Baldwin is over. Mr. Baldwin had faced up to 18 months in prison if he had been convicted.
The ammunition examined in court on Friday came from a man named Troy Teske, a friend of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s (the film's armorer) stepfather, Thell Reed, who is a well-known Hollywood armorer.
He first surfaced in the trial on Thursday, as Mr. Baldwin’s defense team questioned a crime scene technician. It emerged that Mr. Teske, a retired police officer, had gone to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office around the time of Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s trial and handed over some ammunition that he believed was related to the case.
The crime scene technician, Marissa Poppell, testified that she had spoken to Mr. Teske and saved the ammunition, but that she put it under a different case number than the “Rust” case.
Ms. Morrissey said in court that, after viewing a photo provided by Mr. Teske, she had determined that the ammunition was not relevant to the “Rust” investigation because it did not look similar to the live rounds that were collected on the movie set. “This has no evidentiary value whatsoever,” she said in court. And under questioning from Ms. Morrissey on Thursday, Ms. Poppell said the rounds that Mr. Teske had brought to the sheriff’s office looked dissimilar to the live rounds found on the “Rust” set.
But when the judge asked to see the ammunition, and it was brought into court, it became clear that at least one round did resemble the ammunition collected on the set.
Gato1980 on July 12nd, 2024 at 23:55 UTC »
From a NYT article:
GoochLick69 on July 13rd, 2024 at 01:48 UTC »
Withholding evidence from the defense wasn’t the best strategy to take
Odd_Bid_ on July 13rd, 2024 at 06:29 UTC »
The STATE withheld evidence? Wtf kind of justice system is that!