A New Mexico judge dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin in the middle of the actor’s trial and saying it cannot be re-filed. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer tossed the case based on misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of evidence from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust.” Baldwin cried, hugged his attorneys and his crying wife, Hilaria, mother of seven of his eight children. “The late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings,” Marlowe Sommer said, reports the Associated Press. “If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith it certainly comes so near to bad faith to show signs of scorching.”
The case-ending evidence, disclosed in testimony Thursday, was ammunition that was brought into the sheriff’s office by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’ killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers alleged they “buried” it and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The judge’s decision ends the criminal culpability of the 66-year-old Baldwin after a nearly three-year saga that began when a revolver he was pointing at Hutchins during a rehearsal went off, killing her and wounding a producer. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, was convicted in the Hutchins case and was sentenced to 18 months in prison on an involuntary manslaughter conviction. She is appealing, and her attorney will file a motion to dismiss the case on the same basis as Baldwin’s.