Judge drops charges against Alec Baldwin in Rust case, citing 'wilful' withholding of evidence

A New Mexico judge dismissed involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin on Friday, agreeing with Baldwin's lawyers that prosecutors and police withheld evidence on the source of the live round that killed Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021.

Three days after Baldwin's trial began, New Mexico district court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled after hearing evidence on the defence request in a case that has been plagued by prosecutorial missteps since charges were first filed 18 months ago.

Breaking down in tears at the defence table, the Emmy-award winning actor turned to hug his crying wife Hilaria Baldwin as other family members wept in the public gallery.

Baldwin faced an unprecedented criminal prosecution as an actor for an on-set shooting and his lawyers said prosecutors dragged him through a "cesspool of improprieties." Baldwin and his family left court without speaking to reporters.

"The state's withholding of the evidence was wilful and deliberate," Sommer said in delivering her decision. "Dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice."

The actor's lawyer Alex Spiro told the court that the Santa Fe sheriff's office took possession of live rounds in March as evidence in the case but failed to list them in the Rust investigation file or disclose their existence to defence lawyers.

"The prosecution felt it had to cheat to get the result it wanted," said legal analyst Duncan Levin, a New York defense attorney. "This is the worst of our system on display."

Erlinda Johnson, one of the state prosecutors, resigned from the case earlier on Friday.

"I did not intend to mislead the court," lead state prosecutor Kari Morrissey told the court after calling herself to the stand. "My understanding of what was dropped off at the sheriff's office is on this computer screen and it looks absolutely nothing like the live rounds from the set of Rust."

Hutchins died in Hollywood's first on-set shooting in nearly 30 years when Baldwin was directed to point a revolver at her as she set up a camera shot during filming southwest of Santa Fe. The weapon fired a .45 calibre round inadvertently loaded by the movie's armourer Hannah Gutierrez.

The Colt .45 rounds at the centre of the dismissal were handed into the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office on March 6 by Troy Teske, a friend of Thell Reed, the stepfather of Rust armourer Hannah Gutierrez, on the same day Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for Hutchins's death.

A Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office technician, Marissa Poppel, testified on Thursday that the rounds did not match those collected on the set of Rust which were sent for FBI testing.

But when defence lawyers inspected them in court on Friday they found some had brass casings with the "Starline Brass" logo and silver, nickel primers, just like the six live rounds found on the set of Rust. Others looked like inert dummy rounds taken into evidence on the set.

"That turned out to be completely false, didn't it?" Spiro asked the lead investigator on the case Corporal Alexandria Hancock in cross examination on Friday regarding Poppel's testimony.