SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The criminal case against Alec Baldwin was about dealing with bullets from the beginning. And dealing with bullets ended it.
When camerawoman Halyna Hutchins was shot to death nearly three years ago on the set of the movie “Rust” in New Mexico, a question that has puzzled authorities but never been definitively answered: How could live, lethal bullets have gotten mixed in with the blanks traditionally used in movie scenes and the inert dummy bullets that play the role of bullets on screen, and then into the revolver that Baldwin, in character, pointed at Hutchins?
Evidence Baldwin’s lawyers found as part of a possible statement — ammunition turned over by a man who walked into the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office in March — brought the actor’s involuntary manslaughter trial to an abrupt end Friday, when a judge ruled that prosecutors wrongly failed to share that evidence.
One of the two special prosecutors assigned to the case, who resigned just hours before the dismissal, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the judge’s decision was correct.
“If you step back and you think, ‘Okay, could the defense have used this in preparing a defense?’ And the answer is possibly yes. … Then the appropriate remedy should be dismissal,” Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said, adding that it was unfortunate that the jury “never heard the facts and made a decision.”
With the trial just ending, it’s hard to say whether Baldwin’s elite and expensive team of lawyers could have shed light on the live ammunition issue, or whether it would have merely clouded the case.
But the resignation closed one of the last opportunities to address the bullet issue.
“I feel like this whole thing has run its course, and we’ll never know,” said John Day, a New Mexico attorney who followed the case but is not involved. “You can’t redo a bad investigation. Once it’s done, this is how you do it. There’s really nothing else that can be done.”
The other special prosecutor, Kari Morrissey, and other authorities said they are almost certain who brought the live ammunition to the set, and if not, how it ended up in Baldwin’s revolver: Hannah Gutierrez-Reedthe film’s gunmaker, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in March and received the 18-month prison sentence that Baldwin could have received if convicted.
Photos found on Gutierrez-Reed’s cellphone show her with the box from which the bullets came, a forensic expert testified this week.
And during the hearing that led to the case’s dismissal on Friday, Seth Kenney, who provided the firearms and some blanks and dummy bullets to the set of “Rust,” testified that Gutierrez-Reed had called and texted him shortly before “Rust” about firing live ammunition from the guns that would be used as props in the Nicolas Cage film “The Old Way,” which she was working on in Montana.
“I said ‘absolutely not’ and ‘it’s a big mistake,'” Kenney said from the witness stand. “I even said ‘it always ends in tears.'”
Baldwin’s attorneys tried to suggest that authorities had underinvestigated Kenney and had too intimate a relationship with him, and that they had ignored his possible responsibility for the live ammunition because Gutierrez-Reed could be directly linked to Baldwin. The defense was unable to provide the full version of this theory because the trial ended so quickly.
According to the police and the Public Prosecution Service, there is no evidence that Kenney is responsible. On Friday, he testified that he was absolutely certain that he was not the source.
Gutierrez-Reed is appealing her sentence while she serves her sentence. Her attorney says he plans to file another motion to dismiss after the Baldwin ruling.
When the verdict came, Baldwin wept in the courtroom and hugged his attorneys and his wife.
On Saturday he made his first public statements when he thanked his supporters.
“There are too many people who have supported me to just thank them now,” Baldwin said in a short Instagram post who accompanied a photo of him sitting in the courtroom. “To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness to my family.”
Several civil lawsuits against Baldwin and the producers of “Rust” could still shed light on the bullet issue.
A lawsuit from Hutchins’ husband and son that had been settled has been revived. And lawsuits from the cameraman’s parents, sister and crew members are still going to trial.
The attorneys in those cases don’t have the investigative power of the police, but they could have an advantage that the prosecution didn’t. The resolution of the criminal case could pave the way for Baldwin to testify in a civil suit if he can no longer argue that it exposes him to criminal liability.
“I’m still here. We have a very strong legal team,” Gloria Allred, an attorney representing Hutchins’ parents and “Rust” script supervisor Mamie Mitchell. “I’ve been doing this for 48 years, since I’ve been a lawyer, and I’ve never let the dismissal of a criminal case or a conviction in the criminal case that was later overturned on appeal deter me.”
Allred said she doesn’t know how long it will take for a civil lawsuit to be filed. But “no matter how long it takes to persevere, we want to win accountability and justice for the untimely tragedy of losing this beautiful, talented camerawoman,” she said.
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Dalton reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Brian contributed from Albuquerque, N.M.
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For more coverage of the involuntary manslaughter trial of Alec Baldwin, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/alec-baldwin