Actor Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charges upheld, criminal trial to go ahead next month

A judge has ordered that Hollywood star Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial will still go ahead next month. Photo / Getty Images

Over the last five weeks, Alec Baldwin has fought for his involuntary manslaughter charges to be dropped. Now, for a third time, the actor has been told the trial will proceed.

Alec Baldwin’s criminal trial will go ahead next month, a judge has ruled.

The 66-year-old actor’s involuntary manslaughter charge was upheld for the third time in five weeks by Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer on Friday, June 28 despite his lawyers seeking to have the case thrown out after arguing “due process” had been violated because the gun which fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in October 2021 had been destroyed when government agents tested it, meaning the defence couldn’t carry out their own testing process.

The judge heard testimony and arguments on the motion on June 21 and 24 before making her ruling.

She wrote: “The court finds and concludes that defendant fails to establish that the state acted in bad faith when destroying certain internal components of the firearm in the course of the accidental discharge testing.

“In other words, the evidence before the court does not demonstrate that the state or its agents knew that the unaltered firearm possessed exculpatory value at the time of accidental discharge testing, and nonetheless destroyed it, thereby indicating that the evidence may have exonerated the defendant.”

But the judge noted prosecutors must “fully disclose the destructive nature of the firearm testing, the resulting loss, and its relevance and import to the jury.”

She added: “The state must examine appropriate witnesses to achieve this disclosure. In addition, defendant remains entitled to cross-examination of the state’s witnesses, to further accomplish this remedy.”

Baldwin was holding the gun when it discharged but has insisted he didn’t pull the trigger and didn’t know why it contained live ammunition, prompting prosecutors to order forensic testing on the weapon.

The Boss Baby star’s lawyers wrote in their motion: “Government agents knew that the firearm would not survive their clumsy ‘tests’ intact. They said so explicitly in emails.

A still from a video clip featuring Alec Baldwin shown during the involuntary manslaughter trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed on February 29 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo / Getty Images

“But at the insistence of prosecutors eager to prove a celebrity’s guilt, they nevertheless blundered ahead without preserving the original state of the firearm through photographs, video or other means; without informing Baldwin or his counsel they were conducting destructive testing; and without any realistic prospect that bludgeoning the gun would reveal whether Baldwin had pulled the trigger on the day of the accident.

“The destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence violates due process.”

But the prosecution insisted due process hadn’t been violated and investigators had “carefully documented” the gun’s condition before testing.