Judge rules that Alec Baldwin’s criminal trial will take place on ｜ BANG Showbiz English

A judge has ordered Alec Baldwin’s criminal trial to begin next month.

On Friday (06/28/24), Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer upheld the manslaughter charge against the 66-year-old actor for the third time in five weeks, despite his lawyers seeking to have the case dismissed after arguing that “due process” was violated because the gun she used to fatally shoot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in October 2021 was destroyed when government agents tested it, meaning the defense could not conduct its own testing process.

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

She wrote: “The court finds and concludes that defendant has failed to prove that the State acted in bad faith by destroying certain internal components of the firearm during accidental discharge testing.

“In other words, the evidence before the Court does not establish that the State or its agents knew that the unaltered firearm had exculpatory value at the time of the accidental discharge investigation and yet destroyed it, thereby demonstrating that the evidence could have exonerated the accused.”

But the judge noted that prosecutors must “fully disclose the destructive nature of the firearms testing, the resulting losses, and its significance and meaning to the jury.”

She added: “The state must examine the appropriate witnesses to obtain this disclosure. In addition, the accused has the right to cross-examine the state’s witnesses to further achieve this remedy.”

Alec was holding the gun when he fired, insisting he did not pull the trigger and did not know why it contained live ammunition, prompting prosecutors to order a forensic examination of the weapon.

The “Boss Baby” star’s lawyers wrote in their motion: “Government agents knew the firearms would not survive their clumsy ‘tests’ intact. They made that clear in their emails.

“But under pressure from prosecutors eager to prove a celebrity’s guilt, they nonetheless erred by failing to preserve the gun’s original condition through photos, video or otherwise; by conducting destructive testing without informing Baldwin or his lawyer; and without any realistic prospect that bludgeoning the gun would reveal whether Baldwin had pulled the trigger on the day of the accident.

“Destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence violates the principle of due process.”

However, prosecutors insisted that no due process was violated and investigators had “thoroughly documented” the condition of the weapons before the tests.