Judge dismisses Alec Baldwin's manslaughter charge in Rust trial

Santa Fe Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter case, leaving the actor weeping in relief during the trial, as well as his family who were in the courtroom for support.

Making the ruling to dismiss the case on Friday, July 12, the judge said:

"There is no way for the court to right this wrong... The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy."

The case dismissal came after Baldwin's lawyer, Luke Nikas, asked for the case to be dropped even before the jury was brought inside the courtroom on the third day of the trial on Friday. The cause was related to Thursday's hearing when one of his attorneys accused the prosecutor of burying the evidence.

Nikas argued that the prosecutor failed to provide the evidence that would have cleared up how the live ammunition that killed Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was brought into the set. To this, trial Judge Mary Marlow Sommer said:

"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."

Baldwin's case was dismissed "with prejudice," which means it can't be brought up against the actor again.

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Alec Baldwin's attorneys argued that prosecutors buried "critical" evidence

Alec Baldwin could have spent at least 18 months in jail if the jurors found him guilty of the involuntary manslaughter charge during the trial, which was scheduled to continue until July 19, 2024.

The actor's lawyers filed a case against the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office to obtain live ammunition as evidence for the Rust 2021 incident. Nikas stated that Troy Teske, a family friend of the father of Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, gave the ammunition to authorities because he believed it was related to the case.

However, Nikas further stated that the evidence wasn't recorded in the official case file and the existence of it wasn't revealed to them, either. At one point, Nikas said:

"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."

Further making the argument to have the judge throw out the case, he mentioned:

"This critical evidence is the case that was never disclosed to us... We were entitled to it. This case should be dismissed, Your Honor."

Prosecutor Kari Morrisey, who took over the case after her co-prosecutor Erlinda Johnson resigned, testified under oath. She asserted that the evidence handed over was not related to the Rust case and was not hidden from Alec Baldwin's attorneys.

In the wake of the case dismissal, Alec Baldwin had remained insistent that he never pulled the trigger before the gun went off and a live bullet fatally killed the Rust cinematographer and injured Rust director Joel Souza.