The involuntary manslaughter charges brought against actor Alec Baldwin were dismissed Friday by the judge over his case due to the prosecution’s failure to properly turn over evidence to the defense, according to CNN.
As previously reported by Deseret News, the incident which Baldwin is being charged for occurred in 2021 on the set of the western film “Rust,” where Baldwin was handling a prop gun that fired a live round, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
Baldwin’s defense argued that he was not responsible for the incident, and that the blame lay with the film’s armorer and the first assistant director, who were in charge of gun safety.
“This was an unspeakable tragedy, but Alec Baldwin committed no crime. He was an actor, acting, playing the role of Harlan Rust,” Baldwin’s attorney, Alex Spiro, said, per CNN. “These ‘cardinal rules’ are not cardinal rules on a movie set.”
Baldwin faced two charges: “negligent use of a firearm” and acting “without due caution or circumspection.”
“He pointed the gun at another human being, cocked the hammer and pulled that trigger, in reckless disregard for Ms. Hutchins’ safety,” prosecutor Erlinda Johnson said, per CNN.
The accident was caused by a live round being mixed in with the prop rounds, although it remains unclear how this happened.
According to NBC News, Baldwin pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming he was unaware there were live rounds in the gun and had been directed to point it in Hutchins’ direction.
On Friday, Baldwin’s lawyers argued that state investigators did not inform the defense team that they had live rounds of ammunition connected to the case, prompting them to move for dismissal.
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey countered that the ammunition was determined not to match the live rounds retrieved from the “Rust” set and was therefore irrelevant to the case, describing the dispute as a “wild goose chase that has no evidentiary value whatsoever.”
1st Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled in favor of the defense after several hours of arguments.
“There is no way for the court to right this wrong,” said Sommer, per NBC News. “The sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy.”