CNN
The judge overseeing the manslaughter trial of actor Alec Baldwin halted testimony Friday and sent the jury home for the day as she considered a new motion by the actor’s legal team to have the case thrown out based on allegations prosecutors did not properly turn over evidence.
In court a day earlier, a crime scene technician testified that a man had delivered some ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March after the conviction of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed. The man, Troy Teske, a retired police officer and friend of the armorer’s father, told investigators he believed the ammunition could be associated with the “Rust” incident, crime scene technician Marissa Poppell testified.
However, the technician testified the items were catalogued separately from Baldwin’s case and were not included in the “Rust” case inventory or tested to see if they matched the lethal round.
Baldwin’s team argued prosecutors did not properly disclose this evidence to the defense and asked for the case to be dismissed.
In response, prosecutor Kari Morrissey said investigators determined the ammunition was not a match to those found on the “Rust” set and had no evidentiary value to the case. “This is a wild goose chase,” Morrissey argued.
In a “very unusual” development, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer asked for Poppell to be called back to the stand to discuss the rounds outside the presence of the jury.
The witness, judge, and attorneys all donned blue gloves and gathered around a table in the center of the courtroom, where the envelope holding the rounds was unsealed and examined by the judge to determine whether it matches the rounds recovered from the film set. The courtroom was silent and thick with tension as the judge compared the rounds.
The judge has ordered additional witnesses to testify before she renders a ruling on Baldwin’s motion to dismiss the case.
