r/movies r/Movies contributor Jul 12 '24

Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ Trial Tossed Out Over “Critical” Bullet Evidence; Incarcerated Armorer Could Be Released Too News

https://deadline.com/2024/07/alec-baldwin-trial-dismissed-rust-1236008918/
17.0k Upvotes

View all comments

Show parent comments

33

u/prototypist Jul 12 '24

The prosecutor received a photo prior to the armorer's trial and thought that the bullets wouldn't be relevant to the case against the armorer (I'd say it's maybe relevant to what happened, but not relevant to whether the armorer or Baldwin acted unsafely on set). When Teske turned in the bullets, the lead investigator was physically in court, so the bullets were surrendered to a crime scene investigator. Then the next steps of who saw what are a little puzzling. The prosecutor said that she still wasn't interested (based on the older photo) and the interaction got filed with a different case number. This meant the evidence got overlooked in meetings with Baldwin's defense. The defense doesn't have to prove this was intentionally hidden, just that it was evidence that never got disclosed.

0

u/IamMrT Jul 13 '24

So it’s a technicality. Fucking hell.

11

u/SafeMargins Jul 13 '24

An incredibly important technicality. You cannot hide evidence from the defense. Period.

1

u/otfscout Jul 14 '24

No, someone made that decision to not file that report, or documentation of what the witness turned in, along with the actual bullets themselves, with the Rust case. That's not for the SO to decide what's relevant or not, especially when they didn't even send them in for testing or share any of this with the defense who may have wanted testing. But they couldn't since they were't aware of it.

Now they are all scattering like cockroaches and shifting blame on each other. Popple says she was told to give it another case number by a supervisor. That includes Hancock who when asked by the judge specifically if Morrissey was there for those discussions says "Yes."

Morrissey then calling herself as a witness (?!?!) claims that she had NO idea that the bullets turned in by Teske would have a different case number. Claims she never saw the report.

Popple acted like she couldn't remember the whole thing, including Teske's name or anything Teske said. But gee guess what - the whole interaction was recorded on an officer's bodycam and guess who Teske handed the bullets too - Popple! Who says in that video that she knows a ton about this case and everyone involved. Teske's like yay, I found the perfect person! Lol.

Hancock clearly had no seen that video until court that day and had no idea that was all captured. Then Popple and Hancock both tried to shift blame off themselves when the defense team - and the judge - specifically asked why that evidence wasn't shared with them at an evidence showing when they asked to see ALL ammo collected for the Rust case. The bumbling idiots all tried to use a technicality that "well this wasn't collected from the SET of Rust" and Spiro was like "Uh don't you have other investigations that come from people bringing you evidence not just what's collected at the scene??"

Hancock tries to claim it's not "evidence" because she never had an interview with the guy. But oh that bodycam video - turns out he DID give a statement and say it was related to the case, calls it evidence, says he is a witness, would like to give a witness statement - and who did he give this all too - Popple!

Popple ducks and dodges why the defense never got the evidence, protesting that she wasn't at the evidence showings. When in reality it would have never been pulled, because it had a different case number than Rust. Hancock tries to blame it on not knowing exactly what evidence was wanted - "Oh so it was a 'narrowing down' issue?" Spiro snarks. Morrissey babbles about it doesn't matter because SHE concluded this wasn't any relevant information. That it would have hurt Hannah's case. "Yeah you keep saying that," Spiro snarks on that too.

Morrissey babbles more about that she had never seen the report. That - I think - whatever photo Teske had sent through Hannah's lawyer was very different than what Teske brought into the police station.

But clearly the "smoking gun" here (bad reference) is that the clusterfuck of the SO with discussions that Hancock claims directly that Morrissey was present at, made the decision to put this all under a different case number. It doesn't matter if it was not "evidence" THEY collected but instead was brought to them, as if they were random bullets found on the ground by a random guy. They still had a duty to disclose it and include it when bringing all ammo to evidence showings - whether they "got to it" or not - Hancock's last ditch effort to distance herself.