Actor Alec Baldwin got up and left the Santa Fe District courtroom without warning during a special motions hearing Thursday, even surprising his lawyer as the prosecution argued to introduce additional evidence behind closed doors before moving forward with trial.
In what became an order on Thursday, Baldwin appeared to urge his wife and children to travel from Los Angeles to the Santa Fe area for a “good time” quickly after he shot Halyna Hutchins and Joel Souza by accident onto a cinema set.
At the time, Baldwin, 66, did not realize that Hutchins had died — though he was informed when called his wife Hilaria from a New Mexico sheriff’s office on October 21 to tell her about what happened with Souza.
“He’s speaking to his wife, and he has her on FaceTime so we can actually hear her. We can hear her responses. And then he’s speaking to another person,” prosecutor Kari Morrissey told the judge during a hearing outside the earshot of jurors.
“And he is explaining that he wants that person to try to convince his wife to still come to New Mexico because they can’t get their money back for the plane tickets, and they’d like to go ahead and have a good time.”
At first, Hilaria and their kids intended on visiting Baldwin the day after the tragedy. Baldwin told the family to come ahead with their trip rather than cancel it due to concern for another shooting.
Morrissey argued the statement should be allowed after defense attorney Alex Spiro elicited testimony from Santa Fe Sheriff’s Deputy Nicholas Lefleur about Baldwin’s state of mind. He asked Spiro if Baldwin looked distressed when he approached the second deputy, to which the other responded in the affirmative.
Prosecutors successfully argued in court that Baldwin’s post-collision talks with Hilaria, recorded on footage inside a police interview room where he was left alone for several hours following the accident, should be introduced at his trial.
Baldwin later told Detective Alexandria Hancock, “You live a very, very difficult but ultimately very narrow life.”
Baldwin has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the First Judicial District Court.
After hours of withering cross-examination by Spiro, Poppell admitted that she had not performed a thorough search for live ammunition at the warehouse where the film’s prop supplier operates after testifying otherwise on direct examination.
Defense lawyers have countered that investigators focused on Baldwin rather than finding out who placed the live rounds in question and how they ended up at the set, a mystery that may never be resolved.
“At the search being conducted to find the source of the lethal round, law enforcement is doing the very same thing that you’re complaining about the armorer doing on the set, right?” Spiro asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed — who was charged with the same crime as Baldwin for loading a live round into the revolver that killed Hutchins— previously told investigators she checks to make sure the bullets are dummies “most of the time.”
