A judge on Friday rejected Alec Baldwin’s latest attempt to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case, allowing the actor’s trial over the fatal shooting of a “Rust” cinematographer to proceed in less than two weeks.
Baldwin’s attorneys had asked a New Mexico judge to throw out the case after the firearm that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the “Rust” movie set in 2021 was damaged during forensic testing at an FBI lab.
The gun was central evidence to the case, John Bash, an attorney representing Baldwin, said during a motion hearing Monday. The government’s “outrageous” destruction of the firearm violated Baldwin’s rights and deprived Baldwin’s attorneys of the chance to examine the gun in its original state and bring a proper defense, Bash said.
“We can never use our own expert to examine the original state of that firearm,” Bash said. “It’s not fair that a criminal defendant doesn’t get that opportunity.”
Prosecutors said the “gun was unfortunately damaged” during FBI testing but that the damage “does not deprive” Baldwin of a fair trial.
In a written ruling Friday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said among other reasons for denying the motion based on this argument, that Baldwin and his team offered “no evidence, beyond speculation and conjecture,” that the unaltered gun could have exonerated him.
“Evidence of a modification does not render an unaltered firearm potentially useful evidence without explanation as to how additional testing with the modification present might have exonerated Defendant,” the judge wrote, concluding that the gun did not meet “the relatively low standard of potentially useful evidence” and that she did not find the state “acted in bad faith in altering the firearm.”
However, the judge did rule that the prosecution “must fully disclose the destructive nature of firearm testing, the resulting loss and its relevance and import to the jury.”
The ruling paves the way for jury selection in the case to begin in July.
Baldwin faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
His team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a previous attempt to get the case thrown out, Baldwin’s defense team had argued that prosecutors failed to present critical evidence during a grand jury proceeding.
Hutchins was killed on the “Rust” movie set on Oct. 21, 2021, when the .45-caliber Colt prop revolver that Baldwin was holding discharged a live round of ammunition, fatally striking her. The bullet also injured director Joel Souza. Baldwin has maintained in interviews that the gun went off without him pulling the trigger.
In March, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the movie’s armorer, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the cinematographer’s death.
This week, Gutierrez-Reed filed a motion to be released from prison as she seeks a new trial, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.
Lawyers for Gutierrez-Reed in the filing argued that state prosecutors hid information about the damaged firearm, including while an expert was on the stand in her trial.
They claim that reports of “unexplained toolmarks on critical surfaces of the trigger and sear” were most likely not “the result of the damage incurred during the FBI’s impact testing” and “do not appear to be original manufacturing marks or use and abuse toolmarks based on [their] irregular orientation,” the motion states, adding that this information was not disclosed to Gutierrez-Reed. That lack of disclosure resulted in the state suppressing “exculpatory material in violation of the U.S. and New Mexico Constitutions," Gutierrez-Reed's lawyers argued.
"This conduct is beneath what the Court should expect from a duly appointed officer of the State tasked with doing justice," lawyers wrote in the motion. "It is certainly beneath what Ms. Gutierrez-Reed deserved."
The lawyers said these discoveries "have made clear that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is the victim of government misconduct that deprived her of a fair and constitutionally compliant trial."
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey, when asked for a comment on the allegations, said they will file a response with the court and that will be their only response.
