Photo: The Canadian Press
From left, Alex Spiro and Heather LeBlanc, attorneys for actor Alec Baldwin, look over paperwork during Baldwin’s trial for involuntary manslaughter for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during filming of the Western movie “Rust,” Friday, July 12, 2024, at Santa Fe County District Court in Santa Fe, N.M. (Ramsay de Give/Pool Photo via AP)
Alec Baldwin ’s involuntary manslaughter trial was put on hold Friday while the judge considers a defense motion to dismiss the case over disputed ammunition.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sent the jury home for the day after a hearing on the issue raised more questions and called for further testimony outside the presence of jurors.
The defense filed its motion over what it says is ammunition evidence the prosecution hid from them that may be related to the shooting death of cinematographer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed on the set of the film “Rust” in 2021.
The issue came up Thursday during defense questioning of sheriff’s crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. Baldwin lawyer Alex Spiro suggested with his questions that Poppell and other authorities had been overly cozy with the film’s firearms supplier Seth Kenney and had insufficiently investigated whether he was responsible for the fatal ammunition reaching the set.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey established in her questioning that the source of the ammunition was Troy Teske, a friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father with motivations to redirect the blame, and despite similarities the bullets were not the same size as the live rounds found on the “Rust” set, including the one that killed Hutchins.
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