Judge rejects Alec Baldwin’s decision to drop case due to defective gun

The judge rejected Alec Baldwin’s argument that his case should be dismissed because the FBI destroyed his .45 Colt revolver during testing.

The ruling clears Baldwin to stand trial July 9 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Baldwin is accused of negligently aiming a gun at Hutchins while preparing to shoot.

He denied pulling the trigger, although the state intends to show that the gun could only have fired if the trigger was pulled.

Baldwin’s lawyers argued that the gun could have malfunctioned due to pre-existing damage, but FBI tests prevented the defense from examining the gun in its original condition, making it impossible to say for sure.

The defense moved to dismiss the case, citing Supreme Court precedent that requires investigators to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence.

In her ruling Friday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said the defense had failed to show that the undamaged gun would be exculpatory. The judge also ruled that the defense theories about the weapons were largely speculative and unsupported by substantial evidence.

As an alternative, the defense asked that prosecutors not be allowed to argue that Baldwin pulled the trigger. Marlowe Sommer also denied this, but said both sides could fully investigate how the gun was damaged during court testimony.

Marlowe Sommer has denied two previous motions to dismiss the case. Baldwin’s attorneys have also filed a fourth motion to dismiss, arguing that special prosecutor Kari Morrissey withheld relevant material from the defense until the day before trial, including a firearms report that the defense says shows pre-existing damage to the weapon.

Morrissey responded that the failure to turn over the report was an “inadvertent oversight,” that the report was not really helpful to the defense and that the case was a “misleading lead.”

“The defendant’s absurdity has no end,” she wrote.