A New Mexico court dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin in connection to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a movie set in 2021. Agreeing with the defence argument, the court ruled the state had wrongly concealed information about how live rounds of ammunition ended up on the Rust movie set where the unfortunate incident occurred, reported The Guardian.
Hutchins died after a gun, Baldwin was holding during rehearsals of the shoot, fired.
The verdict comes just days after the trial began in the case earlier this week.
A witness in the case had confirmed in the court that the prosecutor, Kari Morrissey, had involvement in the decision to file the evidence in an entirely different case file separate from the other Rust materials.
“The state’s willful withholding of information was intentional and deliberate,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled in favour of Alec Baldwin.
Baldwin was seen weeping and hugging his wife as the judge gave the verdict. He left the court premises without making any media statement.
The actors’ solicitors had appealed to the court to dismiss the case on the grounds that the prosecution was unable to provide them with the batch of ammunition for review.
Luke Nikas, the attorney for the Rust trials, had said, “This is over and over and over again; this is not the first time. This is not the second time. It’s not the third time. It’s time for this case to be dismissed,” as quoted by Rolling Stone.
The attorney claimed in the late-night move to dismiss that the prosecution was attempting to withhold information that may have strengthened Baldwin’s case.
Baldwin filed a not-guilty plea, claiming he never pulled the trigger. The actor added he was not in charge of gun safety on the set and that he had no reason to believe his fake pistol would have included live ammunition.
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