Inside the courtroom as case dismissed against Alec Baldwin in fatal shooting of cinematographer

Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A nearly three-year legal saga for Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer ended Friday without a verdict but with tears of relief for the actor and a small coterie of family who had settled into a somber daily routine on wooden benches inside a windowless New Mexico courtroom at trial.

In the morning, 16 jurors had filed into the courtroom for a third day of scrawling notes and listening with steepled hands to testimony in the involuntary manslaughter trial against Baldwin in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, only to be released for the day as the trial took an unscheduled detour.

“Have a great weekend,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said.

Outside the jury’s view, the criminal case against Baldwin was teetering as defense attorneys for Baldwin accused local investigators and prosecutors of concealing evidence that might shed light on the unconfirmed origin of live ammunition on the set of “Rust.”

It was Baldwin’s fifth day in court. He arrived each morning in a black SUV with his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, to a phalanx of outdoor media cameras. Inside the courtroom Monday, at the start, an energetic Baldwin whispered to an attorney, scrawled on a legal pad and passed post-it notes to his legal team.

The defense won an early victory as the judge ruled Baldwin could not be held criminally liable for his role as co-producer on “Rust.” The case would focus on Baldwin’s handling of a gun as lead actor.

Come Tuesday, the defendant’s younger brother, Stephen Baldwin, arrived in the back of the courtroom for jury selection. He would return each day, all day. Among a pool of 70 potential jurors, all but three were familiar with the “Rust” shooting case. By day’s end, a jury of five men and 11 women were seated for trial.

For opening statements Wednesday, the courtroom was packed to capacity, with half of the gallery reserved for news media, from local network TV to the Times of London, and a few designated photographers. Attorneys and the public filled the other half, some friends and relatives of Baldwin along with local curiosity seekers and traveling amateur trial afficionados.

Seated in court, Baldwin trained his eyes downward on a notepad, away from the jury as prosecutors gave opening statements and overhead video monitors showed the aftermath of the fatal shooting at a movie set ranch.

Prosecutors said Baldwin violated the cardinal rules of firearm safety in pointing a real gun toward Hutchins while playing make-believe. Defense attorneys argued Baldwin was just doing his job as an actor, reasonably relying on other professionals to ensure gun safety, though with tragic consequences.

Baldwin’s older sister, Elizabeth Keuchler, shed tears in court as the statements unfolded. She greeted her brother with an embrace across a courtroom banister and would sit close behind him thereafter.

A prominent critic of Baldwin also took her seat in the front of the court gallery: victims’ rights attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the sister and parents of Hutchins in a civil trial seeking damages.

Baldwin’s every expression at trial registered on a video feed of the trial transmitted by CourtTV and The Associated Press. There was a restrained and attentive gaze during a first full day of witness testimony Thursday from the A-list actor with a decades-long career in films and television, from “The Hunt for Red October” to “30 Rock” and as a fixture on “Saturday Night Live.”

Baldwin darted from the courtroom once, but otherwise paced slowly and deliberately through the courtroom and the courthouse, where impromptu interviews and photographs were prohibited.

On Friday afternoon, Baldwin’s outward demeanor changed little, but tension was building in the courtroom, where Marlowe Sommer weighed a motion to dismiss the case and probed revelations that investigators failed to disclose the receipt of ammunition in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’ death.

Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers alleged they “buried” it.

During an afternoon break, Baldwin took deep, measured breaths as he walked painstakingly from the courtroom. The air whistled slightly as he breathed out with lips pursed. Hilaria Baldwin took his arm and rubbed his back as they paced the hallway.

Back inside, the audience chuckled as defense attorney Alex Spiro sparred with the ammunition supplier for “Rust,” Seth Kenney, who had forged a cooperative relationship with investigators in the aftermath of the shooting.

But the courtroom fell silent amid the clatter of laptop keyboards as the judge questioned a sheriff’s detective about the decision to place the ammunition in an evidence file, separate from the “Rust” shooting case, and whether lead prosecutor Kari Morrissey knew about that.

“When you say that there were discussions and the decision was made by all of you to put that ammo in a separate file, was Ms. Morrissey part of that discussion?” Marlowe Sommer said.

“Yes,” the detective responded.

The case was collapsing. The courtroom gasped as Morrissey acknowledged her co-prosecutor had just resigned.

Tears welled in Baldwin’s eyes, followed by sobbing, as the judge outlined her decision: “The sanction of dismissal is warranted in this case.”