Law&Crime Sidebar - BREAKING: Why Judge Threw Out Alec Baldwin’s Manslaughter Case Mid-Trial

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

A New Mexico judge officially dismissed Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charge with prejudice on Friday. The famed actor burst into tears when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer announced her decision. The prosecution withheld critical evidence that helped shed light on how live ammunition made it on the set of Baldwin’s movie “Rust” before the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down why the judge tossed the case mid-trial.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted. We're going to break it down in this emergency sidebar episode right now with Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aaronberg. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. All right. So we have an emergency sidebar right now because it was only minutes ago. The judge in Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial out in New Mexico dismissed his case with prejudice because of a discovery violation. The prosecution did not turn over a significant piece of evidence to the defense.

We're going to break it down. Remember, he was facing involuntary manslaughter charge for the shooting of Helena Hutchins, that cinematographer on the Russ set back in October 2021. The allegation was that he pulled the trigger. He was acting negligently. He was acting recklessly on that movie set. And there was some serious evidence against him. Now, of course, there was defense arguments that he didn't pull the trigger, that he was an actor

on the film. It wasn't his responsibility. All of that is put to the side because this case has now been dismissed with prejudice. I want to bring in Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Arrenberg on this. Dave, thanks so much for jumping on on this emergency podcast. Shocking development. What do you make of it? Shocking.

Because to get a case dismissed with prejudice, meaning you can't refile it. And what does that mean? Yeah. That means that you can't refile it. He can't be charged again. Nope, he's done. He gets to walk free. And to get that dismissed, you have to show some misconduct.

And the judge apparently said there was misconduct here. This came out during cross-examination yesterday of a crime scene technician that apparently a witness came forward during the course of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's trial, but then went to the sheriff's office after her trial, that he had ammunition that he says was relevant to the case, ammunition that he says, could be matched up to the ammo, the actual ammo that killed Helena Hutchins. And the allegation put forward by the defense was it was buried by law enforcement and was buried by the prosecution. because it was put in a separate file. It wasn't even listed as part of the Rust case evidence. And the defense said, this is totally unfair that this wasn't disclosed to us. And yesterday during cross-examination of this crime scene technician, they asked her about this. And today, the prosecutor, Carrie Morrissey, decided to take the stand and talk about her involvement in this ammunition.

But you know what's so interesting about it, Dave? It's not even, I would say, a significant issue in Alec Baldwin, legal case, right? Because he wasn't charged with bringing live ammo to the set or loading the weapon? We don't even know who brought the live ammo. Now, the state is suggesting it was Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who messed up and accidentally brought live ammo. Alec Baldwin was not charged with intentionally trying to kill anyone. He wasn't charged for knowingly having live ammo. He was charged with being careless with the gun. You shouldn't point a gun that you even believe is not loaded.

pulled the trigger. And that's why the prosecution said, well, this other stuff is not relevant. That's why we didn't report it to the defense. And the defense and the judge said that it's not up to prosecutors to decide what is relevant and what is not. And then when they found that that law enforcement had this information, had this ammunition, and deliberately put a different case number on it, that's where I think this thing went off the rails. So you believe the prosecutor, made a serious mistake here. They should have turned this over to the defense. I don't know when the defense, by the way,

found out about this information because if they found out about a while ago, shouldn't they have brought this up before trial? Yeah, I mean, it was mentioned during cross-examination, but it's not clear whether that's when they learned about it or that's where they decided this is something to be pursued. Remember, the defense came back, and they said, well, this pertains to our defense.

This is relevant because we would have argued differently in the opening that this was intent. intentional sabotage that the guy who runs this PDQ firm, which is who supplies the ammunition, thought that the set is so chaos. To the Russ set. Yeah. To the Russ set, right. They supply ammunition to Russ and other sets and that he, the villain. And I forget the guy's name offhand, but he was the set. Seth Kenny. Seth Kenny, that's right. Good. Jesse, I can always count on you, man. Seth Kenny. And his villain origination story here is that he headed out for Hannah Gutier, as we did some unqualified armor and he had it out for the people on the rust set because they were chaotic and

he was going to show them look he was able to get live ammunition on the set not thinking it would kill someone but to prove a point and he is the reason why thus all occurred another intervening cause and that's why alec Baldwin was sort of an innocent victim himself here right and the judge said you know probably thought well that sort of reached that whole defense but maybe they could have mentioned that defense and they didn't like the way the judge didn't like the way the prosecutor dealt with this and and what so a it wasn't up to prosecutors to determine whether something was relevant or exculpatory they had a duty to give this over this evidence over to the defense and I could tell during the questioning by the judge of the lead investigator in this case she was angry

she was upset about how this evidence was handled and so much so that when she dismissed the case in her order she said this was too significant it was too material to the case there's no remedy that can correct it other than dismissing the case. But why dismiss it with prejudice? So A, why did she dismiss it with prejudice? And that means that Alec Baldwin cannot be charged any longer in connection with this shooting? Correct. You know, the reason why they dismissed with prejudice is because the judge, I think,

believed that the prosecutor was in with the law enforcement officials in hiding this information. apparently this was not a mistake this was something where they knew they had something that could be relevant and they intentionally withheld it from the defense and i think the key bit of information here is that law enforcement assigned it a different case number why would you assign it a different case number because the ammunition it was discovered matched the ammunition on the set of rust and that's something i still don't understand jesse maybe as we learn more we'll figure out why the prosecution agreed with the law enforcement officials to assign it a different case number where it could not be found, where this looked like it was something nefarious.

The other thing is this. I think the judge punished the prosecutor because a prosecutor here is a special prosecutor, someone who was assigned to the case by the current DA from the outside. And it was someone who's an experienced criminal defense lawyer, someone who knows better. So this isn't like some rookie DA, some rookie assistant DA who screwed up. And by the way, this case was plagued with issues from the very beginning, how Alec Baldwin was charged. He was first hit with a criminal enhancement charge. That was thrown out. The charges were dropped. The charges were refiled. Prosecutors left the case. Did you know that we found out today that are Linda Johnson, who delivered the opening statements in this case a few days ago,

resigned? She resigned because she had a problem apparently with this hearing, this motion to dismiss hearing being held in a public forum. What did you make of that? Yeah, I saw that she resigned. And perhaps that was another consciousness of guilt and the judge, one of the reasons why the judge aside just, hey, let's end this thing. I don't know. And I think we'll know more as the days progress. You know, we're doing this video right after the verdict here, right after the dismissal. And it's all very shocking. And I think there's going to be more ramifications because this is not supposed to happen.

If there was a problem, it should have been just dismissed without prejudice, redo it. But here, the judge is punishing the prosecutors. And to be clear, I think it also was because during cross-examination of Carrie Morrissey, the prosecutor, Alex Spiro pointed to a series of communications where she was calling Alec Baldwin very derogatory names. And you can't have a prosecutor show that kind of bias, right? You could say, look, we're prosecuting case against them. We think the evidence is strong against them. But if you're alleging that all they're going to do is hide evidence and bury evidence and do whatever they need, need to prosecute Alec Baldwin and you're calling

him names. I think that's what also led the judge to dismiss this case with prejudice that this entire prosecution is tainted. It's a fair point. Now, were both prosecutors calling him names or was it just the head prosecutor? I think it was just Carrie Morrissey. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, she knows better. She's experienced. She did a great job with the Hannah Gutierrez-Reed case. And this reminds me of Detective Proctor in the Karen Reed case. Whenever you start spout off about people's looks or that they're privileged it is a bad look you can't really do that when you're on our side now if you're on the defense side they do that stuff all the time and we have

to sit and take it grin and bear it but when you're on the side of justice your goal is not supposed to be to get a conviction in every case it's not supposed to ring someone up it's supposed to do justice you're supposed to be blind about the who you'll have in front of you and treat everyone the same well then look like that here well i'm so glad you said that and that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on because as a prosecutor, when you see people who engage in wrongdoing in your level and a prosecutorial level, that is really problematic. And clearly that's what the judge saw here. What happens now to Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's trial, her case? Is that overturned now? No, it shouldn't be affected. Now, that evidence could have

been admitted into Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's case. You can anticipate a motion to come. But Henry Gutier is still in incarceration, still behind bars, and she's got several more months to go in her sentence. So it does give her a ray of hope that perhaps that verdict will be revisited, but it has no immediate impact. It's not like this happens and now she goes through. Right. But I think she has a stronger argument because the issue of who brought the ammunition to the set, where it came from, was more significant for her trial than it was for Baldwin's. The allegation was she brought the live rounds, that she looked. the gun with the live rounds.

If it could be shown that, wait a minute, this came from Seth Kenny or came from another source, A, not only do I think the evidence is more relevant, if this was an issue where it wasn't brought to the defense attention or they didn't have an opportunity to further this out, I think there's a chance her conviction could be overturned. You know, it's a fair point. By the time they get to that, Cholivari, have had at least a good part of her sentence,

already served, but I do think that that's going to be in motion, probably you'll see ASAP by her lawyers. You don't think that would, you don't think that conviction would be overturned like a month? Yeah, I mean, I could keep in mind. The ammunition we're talking about here was not the ammunition that was used in the case. This was not in the shooting of Helena Hutchins. Do we know? Do we know? We don't know for sure. Well, that's, remember the reason why the prosecutors did not even bring it up thought it was irrelevant was that it was not used. And And if it was the ones used, then, yeah, then case closed. So, you know, I don't think it's necessarily, I mean, yeah, they could have an analysis and an investigation.

But it's not automatic that this is going to overturn Hannah Gutierrez-Reed's case. But, yeah, I mean, it does help the defense to try it. We'll see. Dave Aaronberg, thank you so much for coming on to this emergency sidebar. And everybody out there, thank you so much for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify. YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber.

I'll speak to you next time.