Baldwin hearing to pick back up Monday after audio issues

Jun. 21—A daylong pretrial motion hearing in the criminal case against actor and producer Alec Baldwin adjourned Friday without a ruling on some of the motions after an expert witness testifying virtually repeatedly said he could not hear the questions being posed by Baldwin's lawyer.

State District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said she would reconvene the virtual hearing — which had already gone on for about eight hours — on Monday. She told special prosecutor Kari Morrissey to ensure that when the hearing recommences that prosecution firearm expert Lucien Haag will be prepared to participate fully in the proceeding.

"This cannot happen again, or I will entertain confrontation issues," the judge said, after Alex Spiro, one of Baldwin's multiple defense attorneys, objected to continuing the hearing under the circumstances.

Baldwin is slated to stand trial next month on an involuntary manslaughter charge in connection with the 2021 on-set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed by a bullet that came from a gun Baldwin was using during a walk-through of a scene in his movie Rust, which was being filmed south of Santa Fe.

Baldwin has pleaded not guilty, saying he didn't pull the trigger and the gun simply discharged.

A jury convicted former Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed of the same fourth-degree felony charge in March, after prosecutors argued she inadvertently introduced live ammunition onto the set and loaded a real bullet instead of a dummy round into the revolver used by Baldwin. She's currently serving an 18-month prison sentence, the maximum allowed under the charge.

Rust assistant director David Halls was also charged in the case and pleaded no contest to one count of negligent use of a deadly weapon as part of a deal with prosecutors that called for him to serve six months probation. Halls testified at Gutierrez-Reed's trial he didn't properly check every round in the gun prior to the incident.

Haag had been testifying in connection with a defense motion asking the court to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin based on the state's "destruction of evidence." The motion is based on the argument the revolver Baldwin held during the scene was damaged during FBI testing authorized by the state prior to Gutierrez-Reed's trial.

FBI firearms expert Bryce Ziegler initially said the gun could not fire without the trigger being pulled, though he has qualified the opinion, saying it might have been possible for the weapon to discharge without a trigger pull under certain limited circumstances if it were fully loaded and the hammer was resting on the primer of a bullet, something the gun's manual warns against.

The judge did rule on several other pretrial motions during Friday's hearing, including denying Baldwin's motion asking the court to dismiss the case based on his argument the state has failed to state a criminal defense against him because the charge requires the state to prove he knew his actions posed a substantial risk of harm.

One of the actor's lawyers argued Baldwin had no reason to think the revolver he'd been told was loaded with dummies was potentially deadly.

"They told jurors in [Gutierrez-Reed's] trial the prospect of live ammunition on that set was 'incomprehensible,' " said defense attorney John Bash. "You can't square that with saying that he had a subjective awareness that what he was doing could kill somebody."

Morrissey argued there is circumstantial evidence — including that Baldwin knew he had a "bad" armorer — that will show he knew there were risks associated with the use of the gun on set.

The hearing began Friday morning with Baldwin's local counsel Heather LeBlanc accusing special prosecutors of manipulating the court system, making false statements and withholding discovery as she argued for a defense motion seeking to prevent the state from calling some of the same witnesses it had tried to prevent the defense from calling.

LeBlanc told the court Friday the state's about-face is forcing the defense to scramble to prepare for the testimony of witnesses Baldwin's team had already strategically decided to exclude, just two weeks before jury selection is scheduled to take place on July 9. She accused the state of "calculated sandbagging," an allegation the state had previously leveled against the defense.

Special prosecutor Erlinda Ocampo Johnson called the argument "disingenuous," given the witnesses in question are the defense's witnesses and it's common for the state to add any defense witnesses to its list.

Sommer denied the motion, saying the defense hadn't shown how they would be prejudiced by the state adding witnesses.

LeBlanc said Baldwin plans to call about 25 witnesses; the state has listed about 50.

The judge also denied a prosecution motion asking the court to grant opposed use immunity to Gutierrez-Reed and order her to testify for the prosecution during Baldwin's trial.

Morrissey argued Gutierrez-Reed refused to answer most of the state's questions during a pretrial interview, improperly citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination even when the questions were not asking for information that would incriminate her. Morrissey said that since Baldwin's defense wants to introduce statements the armorer previously made which would be favorable to his case at trial, the state should have the opportunity to elicit testimony that could implicate Baldwin.

In a written motion, Morrissey said Gutierrez-Reed would be asked to testify that Baldwin was "inattentive" during a firearms training session and agreed to participate in additional training the following day but failed to do so.

The armorer would also testify Baldwin would become upset and have emotional fits, that he was not supposed to be cocking the gun or pulling the trigger during the rehearsal in which the gun went off and that he frequently rushed her when she was loading weapons, Morrissey wrote.

Gutierrez-Reed's attorney Jason Bowles countered his client has appealed her conviction and is still facing a pending case accusing her of illegally carrying a gun in a bar, which justifies her caution in answering questions in open court, something she didn't do even in her own trial.

In denying the motion, the judge said prosecutors would have to accept that Gutierrez-Reed doesn't wish to testify, anticipate that she's likely to invoke her Fifth Amendment right even if subpoenaed and plan accordingly.

Sommer had originally been scheduled to consider the state's request for clarification of an order prohibiting the district attorney from serving as co-counsel on the case but didn't, having already filed a written ruling on the issue Tuesday.

The judge previously ruled First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies could appoint a special prosecutor or handle the case herself but not do both. Special prosecutors had asked for clarity on the scope of the ruling, indicating they wanted to add a third person to the team, a District Attorney's Office employee — whom the office has as yet declined to identify — who would be on unpaid leave from the prosecutor's office will working on the case.

Sommer said in her order she had already found the District Attorney's Office had good cause to appoint a special prosecutor due to not having the "resources" to handle the prosecution in-house. Appointing an assistant district attorney from the District Attorney's Office now, "would undermine the basis on which the Court found good cause," she wrote.