Alec Baldwin trial day 3: Jury dismissed as court discusses motion to dismiss case over ammo evidence

(SANTA FE COUNTY, N.M.) — Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter trial took a surprising turn on Friday as the jury was dismissed for the day while the court discusses a motion filed by the defense claiming live ammunition that came into the hands of local law enforcement related to the investigation into the deadly on-set “Rust” shooting was “concealed” from them.

In an expedited motion filed late Thursday, the defense argued the case should be dismissed over the handling of the ammunition evidence. During court on Friday, the state argued the evidence has no exculpatory value and is not relevant to Baldwin’s case.

The matter was initially raised during court on Thursday, the second day of the actor’s involuntary manslaughter trial over the death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot by Baldwin on the Santa Fe set of the Western in October 2021 when his revolver fired a live round.

Defense alleges evidence was buried

Defense attorney Alex Spiro asked state’s witness Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office who collected evidence in the case, about a “good Samaritan” who handed over ammunition to the sheriff’s office in March — during “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez’s trial — that had reportedly ended up with Seth Kenney, who supplied the film with firearms, blanks and dummy rounds.

Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death, with prosecutors arguing the armorer was the source of the live bullet that killed her and saying she failed to follow safety protocols meant to protect the crew while handling the firearms.

Poppell testified that her lieutenant instructed her to create a report documenting that the individual came and gave them the ammunition and she filed it under a case number different from the “Rust” case.

“You buried it,” Spiro said.

“No,” Poppell responded. “There is a supplemental report on it, and that was placed into evidence.”

Spiro went on to ask, “Isn’t it the case that law enforcement likely has the matching rounds to the ammunition that killed Ms. Hutchins?”

“I do not know,” Poppell said.

“And you do not know because you made a doc report about this and did not put it with the rest of the ‘Rust’ evidence, correct?” Spiro asked.

“Those rounds were not placed with the rest of the ‘Rust’ evidence, correct,” Poppell said.

“Nor were they sent to the FBI for testing with the ‘Rust’ evidence, were they?” Spiro asked.

“No, they were not,” Poppell said.

During redirect on Thursday, prosecutor Kari Morrissey had Poppell confirm that Baldwin has not been charged with involuntary manslaughter for bringing live rounds onto the movie set or for loading a live round into the gun.

“Has a person already been tried and convicted for those things?” Morrissey asked.

“Yes,” Poppell said, referring to Gutierrez.

Morrissey asked Poppell if she was aware that the “good Samaritan” who provided the ammunition in question in the motion was Troy Teske, a “close friend” of Gutierrez’s father, famed Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, to which Poppell said she was not.

“Are you aware that Troy Teske had his own motivations for wanting to place blame on Seth Kenney to help Hannah Gutierrez?” Morrissey asked.

“No, I had no knowledge of that,” Poppell said.

Poppell testified that Kenney provided the sheriff’s office with his own live rounds, which were tested and found not to match the live ammunition found on set. Live ammunition found at Kenney’s prop house was also not found to be a match, she said.

Poppell testified that Gutierrez was determined to be the source of the live rounds, based on photographic evidence from the set.

Gutierrez’s attorney, Jason Bowles, said it was “beyond shocking” that the live rounds provided to the sheriff’s office by Teske weren’t tested.

“They were hiding the ball until called out on it in trial. If you want to get to the truth, you run down all leads,” he said in a statement.

Trial pivots to motion hearing

During Friday’s motion hearing, Morrissey said the state initially had been provided a photograph of the ammunition by Teske, a retired officer who lives in Arizona, and determined based on the photograph that it was not a match to the live ammunition found on the set and they were “not going to continue going down this rabbit hole.”

“There is absolutely nothing about the ammunition that Troy Teske had that has any evidentiary value in the Gutierrez case. It has no evidentiary value in the Baldwin case,” Morrissey said.

Defense attorney Luke Nikas charged that the evidence was “concealed” by being placed under a different case number and said it was “critical” evidence that was required to be disclosed.

“Miss Morrissey does not get to determine what has evidentiary value and what doesn’t,” he said.

While on the stand during Friday’s motion hearing, Poppell disputed that the ammunition was hidden and said it wasn’t evidence that Kenney provided the live ammunition to the set of “Rust.”

“If you buried it, how did the defense attorneys know to cross-examine you on it yesterday?” Morrissey asked Poppell.

“I do not know,” she replied.

Kenney testified during Friday’s hearing that he initially alerted investigators to the live ammunition from Teske during an interview in November 2021, days after the shooting. He said he believed that might have been the source of the live ammunition on the set but later determined it couldn’t have been based on differences in the powder and projectiles.

Asked by Morrissey whether he believed Reed and Thell wanted to blame him for the introduction of the live rounds on the “Rust” set, he responded, “To varying degrees, yes.”

“It seemed palpable that they were trying to point the finger at me,” he said.

Kenney testified he was certain he didn’t provide any live rounds to the film.

“There was never a question in my mind that I provided the live ammunition to ‘Rust,'” he said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.