The prosecutor in the “Rust” case against Alec Baldwin said she quit the case moments before the judge dismissed it because she was unaware until Friday that there was live ammunition relevant to the case that had not been turned over to the defense.
“Something went horribly wrong here,” prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson said, interviewed by NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo on Friday night. “My ethical obligations were that I advocate for dismissal.”
Baldwin’s trial for manslaughter in the accidental shooting death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was dismissed Friday after it emerged that police and prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence of live bullets from the defense team.
Johnson said she learned for the first time during defense testimony on Thursday that there were live bullets that had not been turned over to the defense. She had previously been prepared to prosecute Baldwin, because she believed there had been “some recklessness” with guns on the set.
She said that Baldwin engaged in “horseplay” on the set, pointing a gun at a person on set to shoot blanks, adding that should not have happened. Nonetheless, that did not explain the presence of live ammunition, normally prohibited by strict production rules.
On Friday morning, Johnson saw the live bullets when they were brought into court for the judge to examine — “three rounds that looked very similar to live rounds found on the set of ‘Rust,’” Johnson said. She was shocked.
“Those three rounds do become potentially exculpatory,” she said, underlining that they should have been provided to the defense.
Over the lunch break post-testimony, she said, Johnson argued to the prosecution team to drop the case. Her argument was rejected by the lead prosecutor, Kari Morrissey. Morrissey had already argued in court that she and the prosecutors had made a determination that the bullets didn’t match the live round that killed Hutchins and therefore had “no evidentiary value.”
Johnson disagreed, choosing to resign from the prosecution. Shortly after, the judge dismissed the case: “The state’s discovery violation has injected a needless incurable delay into the jury trial. Dismissal with prejudice is warranted to ensure the integrity of the judicial system and the efficient administration of justice,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said.
The central mystery to the case remains, which is: how did live bullets get on to the set?
In defense testimony on Thursday, it emerged that investigators had been provided in March with several live bullets by Troy Teske, a retired Arizona police officer. Teske told them they matched the bullet that killed Hutchins. Teske was a longtime friend of the father of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was sentenced to 18 months for involuntary manslaughter.
That mystery remains unsolved, but with the judge dismissing the case with prejudice, Baldwin cannot be retried. However, he could still face the dismissal being appealed.
Sharon Waxman contributed to this story.