{"id":20288,"date":"2024-06-07T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/alec-baldwin-again-tries-to-dismiss-rust-indictment-claiming-destruction-of-evidence\/"},"modified":"2024-06-07T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T04:00:08","slug":"alec-baldwin-again-tries-to-dismiss-rust-indictment-claiming-destruction-of-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/alec-baldwin-again-tries-to-dismiss-rust-indictment-claiming-destruction-of-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Alec Baldwin Again Tries To Dismiss \u2018Rust\u2019 Indictment Claiming Destruction Of Evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Although the “30 Rock” actor insists that he did not pull the trigger on the firearm, Hutchins was fatally shot and director Joel Souza was injured on the set of the Western film. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed<\/strong><\/span> was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to the state maximum of 18 months behind bars as a result of the shooting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In July 2024, Alec Baldwin will also face a jury in New Mexico, despite his lawyer’s attempts to dismiss the “Rust” indictment against him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Alec Baldwin\u2019s Legal Team Claims \u2018Rust\u2019 Evidence Was Destroyed<\/h2>\n
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According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Baldwin\u2019s defense team submitted a 25-page filing arguing that the State destroyed key evidence ahead of the trial. His lawyers wasted no time with their accusation, opening the document with a preliminary statement that states, \u201cThere is no dispute that the State knowingly destroyed the most important piece of evidence in the case without taking even the most basic steps to document its original condition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDefendant Alec Baldwin now has no ability to examine or test the gun in its original state to disprove the government\u2019s theory that he pulled the trigger on the day of the accident,\u201d the statement continues, noting that \u201cAlec Baldwin repeatedly told investigators that he had not pulled the trigger and the gun just \u2018went off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It Remains Under Debate If The \u2018Rust\u2019 Gun Was Modified<\/h2>\n
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There has been some debate in previous filings over whether or not the gun was modified. The question also came home during the trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, which took place earlier this year. In this filing, Baldwin\u2019s lawyers state that \u201cthe firearm shows telltale signs of preexisting modifications, such as smoothing and tool marks on the hammer and ear.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Prosecutors previously attributed those alterations to FBI testing, which Baldwin\u2019s lawyers claim is implausible. \u201cIt is clear that the internal components of the firearm designed to prevent accidental discharges had likely been modified before the accident,\u201d the filing states. \u201cBut because of the State\u2019s needless destruction of the firearm, the defense can never examine and test the gun to determine whether those modifications corroborate Baldwin\u2019s statements that he did not pull the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Was It \u2018Unnecessary\u2019 To Test The \u2018Rust\u2019 Gun Ahead Of The Trial?<\/h2>\n
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Although the State wanted to see if the gun would indeed fire without the trigger being pulled to corroborate Baldwin\u2019s claim, Baldwin\u2019s lawyers note that \u201cThe State\u2019s own experts have admitted that the FBI testing \u2013 basically, hitting the gun with a mallet \u2013 was inappropriate, unnecessary, and untethered to the circumstances of the case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They also accuse the FBI of not performing the correct tests on the weapon and note that detectives who were working on the case \u201cdid not provide the FBI with details about the facts and circumstances of the case that might have informed their testing decisions.\u201d They go on to say that it is not clear if the FBI \u201cpreserved every piece of the broken gun in its testing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Alec Baldwin\u2019s Lawyers Argue That There Is No Record Of FBI Testing<\/h2>\n
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The actor\u2019s legal team also has an issue with the way that the evidence was collection. \u201cThe State\u2019s arguments obscure that neither its own experts nor the FBI examiner knows the condition of the firearm on October 21, 2021,\u201d they state, explaining that there are no pictures of the internal components of the firearm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They also say that the FBI did not take pictures or video-record their testing \u201cbecause prosecutors and state investigators never asked for those basic steps to preserve this critical piece of evidence.\u201d As such, Baldwin\u2019s legal team claims that \u201cno witness can testify about the firearm\u2019s original condition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Testing Of The Firearm Was Done Six Months After The Shooting<\/h2>\n
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Baldwin\u2019s legal team also argued that the FBI conducted testing six months after the October 2021 shooting of Halyna Hutchins. Detective Hancock requested the testing in order to \u201cdisprove\u201d Baldwin\u2019s statement that he had not pulled the trigger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe State fails to address that Detective Hancock, once informed that the proposed testing she sought could destroy the firearm, authorized the testing without providing any notice to Baldwin or others identified at the time as \u2018persons of interests,\u2019\u201d the filing states.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Baldwin\u2019s legal team insists that this case is a due process violation for the destruction of evidence and seeks that the charges against the actor be dropped. However, it remains to be seen if that will happen with only a month left until the trial date. A hearing was already held last month to try to get the charges dropped but Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, who oversaw the armorer\u2019s trial as well, felt that the case against Baldwin could proceed to trial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although the “30 Rock” actor insists that he did not pull the trigger on the firearm, Hutchins was fatally shot and director Joel Souza was injured on the set of the Western film. Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to the state maximum of 18 months behind bars as a result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.celebinsights.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}