Alec Baldwin weeps in court when judge announces involuntary manslaughter case dismissed mid-trial - By Morgan Lee and Andrew Dalton, Associated Press
A New Mexico judge on Friday brought a sudden and stunning end to the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin, dismissing it in the middle of the actor's trial and saying it cannot be filed again.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice based on the misconduct of police and prosecutors over the withholding of evidence from the defense in the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust."
Baldwin cried, hugged his two attorneys, gestured to the front of the court, then turned to hug his crying wife Hilaria, holding the embrace for 12 seconds. He climbed into an SUV outside the Santa Fe courthouse without speaking to media.
Baldwin, 66, could have gotten 18 months in prison if convicted.
"The late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings," Marlowe Sommer said. "If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith it certainly comes so near to bad faith to show signs of scorching."
Sommer put a pause on the trial earlier Friday while she considered the defense motion to dismiss the case over the evidence.
The defense argued that prosecutors hid evidence from them about the ammunition that may be related to the shooting on the set of the Western "Rust" in 2021. The defense said they should have had the ability to determine its importance.
The prosecution said that the ammunition was not connected to the case and was not hidden.
The issue emerged Thursday on the second day of the actor's trial during defense questioning of sheriff's crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. Baldwin lawyer Alex Spiro asked whether a "good Samaritan" had come into the sheriff's office with the ammunition earlier this year after the trial of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film's armorer, for her role in Hutchins' death. She was sentenced to 18 months in prison on an involuntary manslaughter conviction, which she is now appealing.
Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
Public not allowed in meetings of state advisory council on missing and murdered Indigenous people — Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth
This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth.
An advisory council Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham established last year to help address a crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people is meeting behind closed doors. That’s a problem, according to the head of a government transparency group.
The governor announced the advisory council in November, a little over a month after New Mexico In Depth reported that her administration had quietly dissolved a state task force working on the issue, a move affected families and other advocates protested. The task force held regular public meetings until it was shuttered.
The seven-member council has met once so far, in March, to organize itself. Asked this week whether it has scheduled another meeting, Indian Affairs Department spokesman Aaron Lopez did not answer. Instead, he wrote in an email that advisory councils aren’t subject to the state Open Meetings Act.
That means they’re not legally required to have public meetings.
But they could. A review by New Mexico In Depth of other state advisory councils show a number have and continue to meet publicly, including at least one Lujan Grisham created.
The council’s “decision to not hold public meetings is related to the sensitive nature of the topics discussed and the need for privacy in handling certain cases,” Lopez wrote in an email Friday.
Asked whether the council will share the location and time of its meetings, Lopez wrote it’s not required to.
Melanie Majors, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said the public should be able to hear directly what members discuss, partly because those discussions could inform policy.
“If it’s public money that’s being used, it’s for a public agency, then the public should be involved, no ifs, ands, or buts,” said Majors, who later wrote in an email that “it is basically a question of accountability and being transparent.”
A news release last fall said the council would bring together tribal and state leaders, law enforcement, advocates and affected families to “support” the state’s efforts to carry forward recommendations made by the now-defunct task force.
Lopez wrote over email that the council “will keep the public informed and provide any necessary updates” at meetings hosted by the Indian Affairs Department in part to share developments in the state’s response to the crisis.
The next public meeting is scheduled for 10 am Monday. It will be held in Santa Fe in the second floor conference room of 1220 S. Saint Francis Drive and streamed via Zoom.
A notice was posted on departmental social media accounts Thursday morning, with an agenda that doesn’t include a public comment period. New Mexico In Depth could not find a notice on the agency website.
“Generally, community meetings are promoted through local media, social media, community bulletin boards, and direct outreach by” the department, Lopez wrote.
Last year, the department faced criticism for hosting an event for families with missing loved ones on short notice. The agency announced the date and location of Missing in New Mexico Day, which the state is required by law to hold annually, less than a week in advance.
Josett Monette, who now leads the agency, said at the time that officials wanted to “get the notice out as soon as possible” in the future.
Pojoaque Pueblo Gov. Jenelle Roybal and Picuris Pueblo Gov. Craig Quanchello are co-chairs of the advisory council.
Members include:
First Lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren, Office of the Navajo Nation President and Vice President
Major Nathan Barton, Pojoaque Police Department
Chief Daryl Noon, Navajo Nation Police Department
Dawn M. Begay, CABQ Native American Affairs
Tiffany Jiron, Executive Director Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women
Lead detective in Alec Baldwin case to testify, convicted armorer may be called in 'Rust' trial - By Morgan Lee and Andrew Dalton, Associated Press
The lead detective in the shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust" is likely to be on the stand for most of Friday at Alec Baldwin 's involuntary manslaughter trial in New Mexico, as prosecutors try to cast the movie star as a reckless cavalier with a gun in his hand and the defense seeks to portray him as a working actor just doing his job.
Cpl. Alexandria Hancock of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office didn't become the chief investigator until two weeks after the October 2021 shooting, but she conducted the first interviews of Baldwin, "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and assistant director David Halls, the three people criminally charged in the case.
Hancock was on the stand briefly at the end of the day Thursday and will continue her direct examination by the prosecution Friday before undergoing what's likely to be a long cross-examination by the defense as they look to poke holes in an investigation they have suggested unfairly focused on Baldwin.
Before Hancock took the stand, Italian gunmaker Alessandro Pietta testified Thursday about quality control in the manufacturing process for the gun eventually acquired by an Albuquerque-based gun and ammunition supplier to "Rust" and handled by Baldwin in the fatal shooting. It was shipped in 2017, and Pietta last examined the gun in 2018 through a sales and distribution company.
The provenance of the gun, and its use for several years in trade shows, is under the microscope as defense attorneys raise concerns that the gun might have been modified or might otherwise discharge under some circumstances without a trigger pull.
Baldwin has claimed the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that it was loaded with a live round, he said he pulled back the hammer — not the trigger — and it fired.
Both Pietta and a sales distributor who handled the gun as recently as September 2021 testified that the revolver was in good working order and had not been modified.
Pietta testified that the hammer on the gun will only drop with a trigger pull.
"If you want to release the hammer you have to pull the trigger," he told the courtroom.
But Pietta also noted that standard practice is to only load the gun -- a remake of a 19th century revolver -- with five rounds, and not six, to ensure the firing pin does not rest on a live round. Gun experts including an FBI forensic expert acknowledge that the revolver can discharge if pressure is applied to the hammer while resting on a live round.
Before Hancock returns to the stand, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer will consider striking testimony from Thursday about a "good Samaritan" who walked into a sheriff's station with what he told authorities was the supply of ammunition that the bullet that killed Hutchins came from, after the conviction early this year of Gutierrez-Reed for involuntary manslaughter.
The issue came up during defense questioning of sheriff's crime scene technician Marissa Poppell. Baldwin lawyer Alex Spiro suggested with his questions that Poppell and other authorities had been overly cozy with the film's firearms supplier Seth Kenney and had insufficiently investigated whether he was responsible for the fatal ammunition reaching the set.
Spiro asked Poppell whether the "good Samaritan" had brought the ammunition into the sheriff's department, and she said he had and she had written a report on it, denying that she had "buried it" to keep it from the defense.
Spiro asked whether the man "told you you all had been duped by Seth Kenney." Poppell said she had no recollection of that.
The prosecution reacted with contempt for the suggestion that the man's claims were legitimate.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey established in her questioning that the source of the ammunition was Troy Teske, a friend of Gutierrez-Reed's father with motivations to redirect the blame, and despite similarities the bullets were not the same size as the live rounds found on the "Rust" set, including the one that killed Hutchins.
Morrissey sought to further defend Kenney's role in her questioning of Hancock.
"Did you ever discover any evidence throughout your entire investigation that Seth Kenney supplied live rounds to the set of 'Rust?'" Morrissey asked. Hancock said no.
Kenney has not been charged with any wrongdoing. An email sent to his attorney seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Gutierrez-Reed's attorney said they have been informed prosecutors will try to call her to testify.
The lawyer, Jason Bowles, told The Associated Press in an email that Gutierrez-Reed will assert her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination if she is called because she has an appeal of her conviction pending.
The judge declined to grant a pretrial request from prosecutors to give Gutierrez-Reed immunity for her testimony.
She is serving an 18-month sentence, the same penalty Baldwin faces if he's convicted.
No lawmaker has signed up to sponsor NM Gov’s panhandling bill - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
With less than a week until a special legislative session focused on public safety, no lawmaker has yet signed up to sponsor a bill pushed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham related to pedestrian safety and panhandling.
Lawmakers will gather in Santa Fe on July 18 to address a handful of proposals related to public safety and criminal justice, including bills related to civil confinement, criminal competency and pedestrian safety.
A draft version of the governor’s proposal would make it illegal to linger on medians less than 3 feet wide in roads where the speed limit is 30 mph or greater. The bill would make it a misdemeanor to “access, use, occupy, congregate or assemble” on those medians, with some exceptions, including for people crossing the street or using public transit.
Lawmakers have referred to the bill as “the median safety bill” and “the panhandling bill,” noting that many of those affected would be people who stand in medians asking for donations from passing drivers.
The governor’s office called its draft bill the “Unsafe Use of Highways and Medians Act” and cited the high rates of pedestrian deaths in the state in its preamble. Her office has also stressed that the bill does not target panhandlers in particular, but instead aims to reduce pedestrian deaths across the board.
The governor called for a special session after many related bills did not pass in the 30-day session this January, including one related to panhandling introduced by Sen. Leo Jaramillo (D-Española) that died in committee. Ahead of the session, she released draft bills she is hoping lawmakers will introduce and is working to find sponsors for them.
According to spokespersons for House and Senate Democrats, none of their members has agreed to carry the governor’s bill, as of Thursday afternoon.
Also, some lawmakers, speaking at an interim committee meeting last month, seemed skeptical that the bill would withstand legal scrutiny. The joint Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee met June 27 and 28 and listened to a legal presentation on the case law behind similar ordinances to the draft proposal. They also discussed the way federal courts have interpreted – and sometimes struck down – similar legislation.
Rep. Christine Chandler (D-Los Alamos), chair of the committee, told Source New Mexico that it’s possible “people are not rushing to volunteer” to shepherd the proposal through the Legislature.
“I haven’t been through many special sessions, but I am surprised that there has not been a sponsor identified yet,” Chandler said of the governor’s pedestrian safety bill.
Jodi McGinnis Porter, spokesperson for the governor, said Thursday afternoon that no sponsor had yet been identified for the bill but that it was “still under discussion.”
In defense of the bill, Porter cited New Mexico’s repeated designation as the country’s most dangerous for pedestrians, including pedestrian fatalities.
Chandler, who also chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said that lawmakers are far from reaching a consensus on multiple pieces of legislation as the clock ticks toward the session.
Lujan Grisham’s preferred legislation, as written, would likely be referred to judiciary committees in both chambers. They’d need to clear that hurdle before going to the full chambers for approval and eventual passage.
She couldn’t predict whether any legislation would pass, she said.
“We’re still at a place where it’s gonna be a heavy lift in getting these bills over the finish line, including the median safety bill,” she said.
WHERE’S THE DATA?
At the committee meeting in late July, lawmakers publicly questioned whether they had enough information to determine whether the governor’s draft bill on pedestrian safety was well-suited to reduce pedestrian deaths without unnecessarily restricting Constitutional rights, including the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that panhandling amounts to protected speech. And courts have regularly upheld medians as traditional spaces where speech is protected and allowed, including protests, covering news, panhandling and personal conversations, according to Simon Suzuki, a staff attorney with the Legislative Counsel Service.
He was invited to give an independent, expert analysis of what types of median safety laws could be upheld in court.
Over the years in New Mexico and across the country, cities have passed local ordinances restricting loitering on medians, Suzuki said. That happened in 2017 in Albuquerque, for example.
Often, those cities are sued for violating First Amendment rights, where judges require cities to demonstrate that they arrived at their panhandling ordinances by considering local conditions and crafting a policy narrowly tailored to protect pedestrians while also ensuring it doesn’t overly curb free speech rights.
To justify their ordinances, cities often need to present data showing how many people were struck by cars on medians and describe how the ordinance they enacted is targeted to preventing those collisions and reducing deaths.
In the Albuquerque case, a court struck down the ordinance, and the city later amended its ordinance to apply only to a handful specific medians that they described as particularly unsafe for panhandlers or other pedestrians.
The cases Suzuki cited all related to local ordinances, not statewide statutes.
At the committee meeting June 27, Rep. Andrea Reeb (R-Clovis) asked Suzuki whether a statewide ban would be harder to justify, given that it could be harder to tailor it to local conditions and therefore withstand a lawsuit and judicial scrutiny. Other lawmakers said they shared her concern.
Suzuki agreed that any judge would likely pose the question to a state official defending a statewide ban.
“What is narrowly tailored for one community is not going to be narrowly tailored for another community,” he said, based on his view of the case law.
Chandler, in the interview Thursday with Source NM, said she agrees the state has a problem with pedestrian safety.
But she will be looking for data that will help settle the question as to how the governor’s proposed law could apply to the whole state but also be narrowly tailored such that it would avoid or win a lawsuit. She’s raised the issue with the governor’s office, she said.
“It’s a constitutional issue, a First Amendment issue, wherein there’s heightened scrutiny,” she said.
She’s also not convinced the state has a problem specifically with panhandlers being struck by cars; instead, she said, the data she’s seen related to pedestrian collisions is of people being struck while crossing.
“My understanding is that data relates to people crossing the streets, in crossing both sidewalks and jaywalking, and that’s a different situation than standing in the median,” Chandler said.
Porter, the governor’s spokesperson, did not address in questions from Source NM whether the office intends to compile or present data to demonstrate to lawmakers how the bill was crafted to balance public safety without impinging on free speech rights for New Mexicans across the state. Instead, she cited the statistics about New Mexico’s high rate of pedestrian fatalities.
However, she did say the bill was “narrowly-tailored,” noting that it only limits loitering on medians fewer than 36 inches wide in areas with speeds at 30 mph or above.
And she noted that it applies to all manner of speech on medians, not targeting panhandlers or protesters or any particular group for punishment.
“For example, it does not allow vendors to sell newspapers” or distribute political flyers, she said. “It applies evenly, across-the-board to everyone.”
Keller attended video call with Biden, mayors about campaign - Elizabeth McCall, City Desk ABQ
This story was originally published by City Desk ABQ
Mayor Tim Keller was one of the 200 Democratic mayors who met with President Joe Biden over a video call Tuesday, City Desk ABQ confirmed.
Following his poor debate performance, Biden joined a call with the Democratic Mayors Association to discuss his vision for a second term and how they can support his campaign.
The New York Times described the call as a “somewhat scripted pep rally, with Mr. Biden speaking for about 20 minutes and then taking questions from mayors selected by the moderator.” The mayors who asked questions were from Madison, Wis, San Antonio, Texas and Kansas City, Mo.
The mayor’s spokesperson, Staci Drangmeister did not answer questions about Keller’s impression of the meeting, but she did confirm he attended.
“President Biden and the mayors are aligned on the importance of increasing affordable housing, fighting urban climate change, and improving public safety for all of our families,” Drangmeister told City Desk ABQ.
Following the call, the Democratic Mayors Association endorsed Mr. Biden for re-election.
A number of Democratic politicians across the country have weighed in on whether Biden should stay in the race.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) said while he loves Biden and thinks he is the “most accomplished president in my lifetime” and a “genuinely wonderful human being,” the senior senator cares most about the preservation of democracy.
“President Biden needs to continue to demonstrate that his debate performance was just a bad night, and that he has a clear path to defeating Donald Trump. Our democracy hangs in the balance,” Heinrich said in a statement.
Nevada Supreme Court is asked to step into Washoe County fray over certification of recount results - By Gabe Stern and Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press
Two top officials in Nevada are asking the state Supreme Court to step into a fray over a vote earlier this week by Washoe County commissioners not to certify recount results in two local races.
Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a petition with the court Wednesday, seeking confirmation of the commissioners' legal obligations when it comes to canvassing and certifying election results.
They also want the court to require the full commission to certify the recounts from last month's primary no later than Aug. 22, when the statewide canvass must be complete to ensure the contents of general election ballots are finalized in accordance with Nevada law.
The certification flap has potential implications for how the November elections could play out in one of the nation's most important swing counties.
Aguilar in a statement acknowledged that the circumstances in Nevada's second most populous county could set "a dangerous precedent."
"It is unacceptable that any public officer would undermine the confidence of their voters," he said.
The three Republican members on the five-member Washoe County board voted Tuesday to reject the results of recounts in one race for a commission seat and another for a local school board seat. The move instantly spurred questions about what would happen next.
Aguilar and Ford followed the next day with a nearly 60-page petition. While not an emergency request, they noted in the filing that the court should act swiftly as "the legal and broader policy impacts of Respondents' decision not to canvas election results are severe."
It wasn't immediately clear Thursday how soon the court would take up the petition.
It's also possible the commission could vote again at its next meeting July 16, with a vote to certify heading off the pending request before the Supreme Court.
Once seen as a mundane and ministerial task, election certification has become a pressure point since the 2020 election. During the midterms two years later, a scenario similar to what is unfolding in Washoe County played out in New Mexico after that state's primary, when a rural county delayed certification of the results and relented only after the secretary of state appealed to the state's supreme court.
According to the petition, Nevada law makes canvassing election results — including recount results — by a certain date a mandatory legal duty for the county commission. It also states that commissioners have no discretion to refuse or otherwise fail to perform this duty.
Two of the Republican Washoe County commissioners — Jeanne Herman and Mike Clark — have consistently voted against certifying results and are supported by the wider movement within the county that promotes election conspiracy theories. Republican Clara Andriola, who that movement has targeted in the primaries, joined them in voting against certification of the recounts, one of which involved the primary race she won.
On Tuesday, Andriola referenced several "hiccups" by the elections department along with public comments that alleged irregularities in voting systems. She had said more investigation was needed.
However, the next morning she asked commission Chair Alexis Hill in an email if they could redo the vote on whether to certify the results from the two recounts.
Andriola declined to comment on how she will vote.
Hill on Wednesday commended Andriola for asking that commissioners vote again, saying she too has made bad votes and has asked for reconsideration. "None of us are perfect," she said.
Barring an order from the Supreme Court, officials in the county — which includes Reno and surrounding areas — have said they do not know what concrete steps lie ahead in approving the results after last Tuesday's vote.
Any commissioner on the prevailing side of the vote can request a reconsideration, which the commission chair can approve or reject. According to county statute, this can only happen at the meeting where the vote took place or the next commission meeting.
Hill expects a vote at the commission's next meeting July 16.