Alec Baldwin cried in court on Friday as his involuntary manslaughter case was dropped.
The trial over the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust was in its third day on Friday when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer threw out the case. She dismissed the charge with prejudice, which means that prosecutors cannot refile the same claim against Baldwin.
Earlier in the day, Baldwin’s lawyer, Luke Nikas, had asked for the case to be dropped over a claim that the prosecution hid evidence about ammunition.
“We’re talking about a prosecution that didn’t preserve those bullets, that didn’t collect them at all. That didn’t turn them over. This is critical evidence in the case that was never disclosed to us,” Nikas said. “We were entitled to it.”
One of the prosecutors, Erlinda Johnson, resigned from the case earlier in the day. The other prosecutor, Kari T. Morrissey, called herself to testify under oath about why she didn’t consider the ammunition evidence. The judge threw out the case soon after.
“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,” Judge Sommer said.
Earlier this year, Rust armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
