Prosecutor seeks to reinstate charges against Alec Baldwin

 September 5, 2024

The prosecutor in Alec Baldwin's "Rust" case is fighting to bring the charges back after they were dramatically dismissed by the judge this summer. 

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey asked the judge to reconsider her July ruling, arguing that there was no harm done to Baldwin's rights when live ammunition was withheld by "mistake."

Update in Baldwin case

The long, winding legal saga began almost three years ago when Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his Western movie.

Baldwin insisted he had no idea live ammunition was inside the gun and that he did not pull the trigger. The movie's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after a conviction for involuntary manslaughter.

Baldwin previously had the charges in the case dropped and then reinstated before his brief trial began.

In a dramatic mid-trial ruling, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer threw the charges out over prosecutors' failure to disclose live ammunition rounds.

The judge ended the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled once prosecutors exhaust their appeal options.

Morrissey urged the judge Friday to reconsider, arguing the bullets were not relevant to establishing Baldwin's culpability. The prosecutor argued that Baldwin's team distracted the judge with a "smokescreen" argument.

“This is a smoke screen created by the defense and was intended to sway and confuse the court ... and it was successful,” Morrissey wrote.

Did judge get played?

The live rounds were filed under a different case number in what Morrissey called an honest mistake.

"Human beings make mistakes — it does not mean they are lying or that they intentionally buried evidence as claimed by the defense," she wrote.

"Nothing about the details of how the live rounds were introduced to the set is relevant or material to the charges against Mr. Baldwin,” Morrissey wrote, adding, "there was no cover-up because there was nothing to cover up.”

The live bullets had been given to police by Troy Teske, a friend of Gutierrez-Reed's stepfather Thell Reed, who is a prominent armorer.

Morrissey asked for "all information regarding when and how" the defense became aware of the bullets, arguing Baldwin's lawyers knew about them before the trial but waited to ambush prosecutors. The motion to dismiss was "all a ruse," she said.

Gutierrez-Reed is trying to have her conviction thrown out over the alleged misconduct.

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