A previously unexamined envelope of ammunition was the difference between Alec Baldwin walking free, as he did last night, and a potential 18-month prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter.
But where did the bullets come from, and how did they lead to the extraordinary unravelling of one of America’s highest profile felony trials in decades?
Baldwin, 66, had faced the charge of involuntary manslaughter after accidentally shooting dead the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021 on a New Mexico set for the movie Rust.
The actor, who was playing the part of the eponymous Harland Rust, pointed a revolver intended to be used as a prop at Hutchins and, allegedly, pulled the trigger. Instead of the industry standard blank rounds, the handgun contained live ammunition.
Speaking on Saturday for the first time since the case was dismissed, Baldwin said there were “too many people who have supported me” to thank immediately. “To all of you, you will never know how much I appreciate your kindness toward my family.”
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The film’s armourer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was convicted in March on the same charges and sentenced to the maximum 18 months in prison.
Throughout the most recent trial, which was held at a court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the lawyers for the defence had complained several times that prosecutors were not sharing all the evidence they held against Baldwin, including missing forensic reports, redacted emails and videos buried on servers.
At some point, they learned that a retired police officer named Troy Teske had found a number of Colt 45-calibre bullets he believed to be related to the case, dropping them off at the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. As with previous evidence, prosecutors did not tell Baldwin’s defence lawyers.
“They should have given over this information, but they didn’t,” said Anne Bremner, a high profile American attorney and television legal commentator who previously worked as a legal adviser to supporters of Amanda Knox in the Meredith Kercher murder trial.
“In essence, they took some information about live rounds and decided it wasn’t relevant to this case,” she told Times Radio. “And the fact is that they gave [the rounds] a different case number so the defence could never know what it was.”
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The key to using this information came through patience. Previously, when the defence learned that important evidence had been withheld they lodged a complaint before the day’s trial had begun. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer rejected petitions to dismiss the trial and ordered delays to give the attorneys time to analyse the new facts.
This time, Baldwin’s lawyers waited. On Thursday afternoon Alex Spiro, the defence lead, had cross-examined the crime scene technician Marissa Poppell for several hours. Towards the end of the questioning, the lawyer asked Poppell about a “Good Samaritan” who had dropped off the bullets at the sheriff’s office.
Poppell denied it was her responsibility to tell the defence about the rounds. Spiro accused her: “You buried it.”
“They made their own decision that it wasn’t relevant,” Bremner explained. “But according to the judge, it was, potentially.”
By then, the courtroom had erupted. The judge demanded to see the ammunition and, wearing blue rubber gloves, cut open the evidence package, displaying the bullets on a table.
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Kari Morrissey, the lead prosecutor, claimed the bullets in question did not match the ones found at the Rust set, and were therefore not relevant. But the judge, rifling through the ammunition, found three Starline Brass rounds with silver primers — an apparent match for the round that killed Hutchins.
In a bizarre twist, Morrissey then called herself to the stand to set out her account. Under cross examination from Spiro, a Harvard Law School graduate who previously represented Elon Musk and Jay-Z, she crumbled, forced to deny having a personal animus against Baldwin.
At 7.52pm local time on Thursday, the defence filed a motion to dismiss the case. On Friday, the judge, visibly furious, delivered a dismissal ruling.
“If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching,” she said. “There is no way for the court to right this wrong. The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy.”
In delivering her ruling, the judge ensured that Baldwin would now go free — and could not face trial again in this case.
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“It’s called double jeopardy in the US and it basically means you can’t be tried two times for the same offence, no matter what, no matter if you’re guilty and you look to be guilty after the first dismissal,” Bremner told Times Radio. “That means it can never be tried again.”
Baldwin and his family broke down in tears when the judge made her decision. Gasps were heard inside the courtroom, and the actor shared a tearful embrace with his wife, Hilaria. He left the courtroom and declined to speak to the waiting press before climbing into an SUV, turning his back on a case that marred his reputation for more than two years.
It remains unclear whether the bullets, had they been examined in open court, would have made any difference in establishing Baldwin’s guilt or otherwise. But the failure to disclose this potentially relevant evidence was what eventually led to the celebrity walking free.
