Alec Baldwin trial on hold as judge considers defence request to dismiss case

Sante Fe: Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico was put on hold on Friday while the judge considers a defence motion to dismiss the case over disputed ammunition evidence.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home for the day and told them to return on Monday after a hearing on the issue raised more questions and prompted her to call for further testimony outside the presence of jurors.

The defence argued that prosecutors hid evidence from them about the ammunition that may be related to the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021.

“We don’t know if it’s a live ammunition match or not,” Baldwin’s attorney Luke Nikas told the judge. “But we do know that the state had it, and it’s disclosable.”

The prosecution has said that the ammunition was not connected to the case and was not hidden.

The issue came up on Thursday on the second day of the trial during defence questioning of sheriff’s crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. Baldwin lawyer Alex Spiro suggested with his questions that Poppell and other authorities had been too cozy with the film’s firearms supplier Seth Kenney and had insufficiently investigated whether he was responsible for the live bullets reaching the set.

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey established in her questioning that the source of the ammunition was Troy Teske, a friend of the father of the film’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who has already been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in Hutchins’ death. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison and is appealing her conviction.

Morrissey said the bullets were not the same size or chemical composition as the live rounds found on the “Rust” set, including the one that killed Hutchins.

“This is a wild goose chase that has no evidentiary value whatsoever,” Morrissey told the judge on Friday. “This is just a man trying to protect his daughter.”

AP