Carrie Morrissey, The lead special prosecutor in the recently dismissed manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin wants a second chance. The lawyer on Wednesday petitioned Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer to reconsider her decision to drop the case, alleging that defense lawyers misled her, The New York Times reported. diverse.
“This is a smokescreen created by the defense and intended to influence and confuse the court … and it has succeeded,” Morrissey wrote, according to Reuters. Associated Press.
In July, Sommer concluded the trial in which Baldwin was charged with a felony for firing the shot that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the film's set. rust When Baldwin's defense argued that Morrissey's team withheld evidence from them during the discovery process. The evidence in question was bullets that the sheriff's department had obtained months earlier.
Morrissey believed the bullets were irrelevant to Baldwin’s defense and did not need to be shared with his attorneys. But the judge disagreed. “There’s no way for the court to correct that mistake,” Sommer said in the Santa Fe courtroom.[The defense’s] “The motion to dismiss is granted with prejudice.”
Morrissey now claims the government has the right to appeal Sommer's decision. diverse She says she is asking the judge to investigate how the defense team learned about the hidden evidence. She believes the defense team, which is nine to two, knew about the bullets long before they filed the motion to dismiss and that they were alerted to the bullets by attorneys for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the production gunsmith who was convicted of manslaughter in April and is serving an 18-month sentence. (On Wednesday, Gutierrez-Reed pleaded guilty to bringing a loaded gun to a bar before she was booked into jail.) rust (accident vs parole.)
But there is another complication facing the prosecutor: Judge Sommer dismissed the case “on the grounds of prejudice.” That means the case cannot be refiled.
Morrissey alleged that “the fact that this motion was raised at trial was a tactical decision by the defense to take advantage of the state’s limited resources.” She alleged that Baldwin’s attorneys “were anxiously awaiting the motion to dismiss at trial when it would have been a tactical advantage.”
Morrissey wants a higher court to review the proceedings. Morrissey's team has alleged that Baldwin was pointing a loaded gun at Hutchins when the shot went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin claims he pulled the hammer but not the trigger, according to The Sun. Associated PressHe said he was not aware of any live ammunition on the set.
