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A juror from Alec Baldwin’s dismissed involuntary manslaughter trial believes prosecutors went after the actor because he’s a celebrity.
“I feel like they needed to pin [the death] on somebody,” Martina Marquez, 36, of New Mexico, and juror No. 1 from the trial, told People magazine.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case against Baldwin on July 12 after the defense team claimed that prosecutors withheld evidence. Baldwin could be seen crying in the courtroom after she announced the decision. He was facing an 18-month prison sentence if convicted.
The charges were brought against the 66-year-old after a prop gun he was holding on the set of Rust in 2021 went off. A live bullet hit cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, killing her, and injuring director Joel Souza.
Baldwin has previously said he did not pull the trigger or know why the gun contained live ammunition. The movie’s armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is currently serving 18 months in prison after she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for accidentally loading the gun with live ammo.
Marquez said she had her doubts about the trial from the start. “It didn’t make sense,” she told the magazine. Marquez says she came to her verdict based on the number of people on set the day of the incident.
“We all watch TV and we watch movies. You’re not supposed to really touch evidence and move it from place to place. So that made me iffy about the situation because it could have been in so many people’s hands by the time the lieutenant actually confiscated it.”
Additionally, body camera footage from Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Timoteo Benavidez, which was played in court, showed that the weapon was handed to him by Gutierrez-Reed.
“The indictment charge seemed a bit harsh,” Marquez said. “Just starting from the lapel cam videos, it didn’t make sense how they could point fingers directly toward him as a whole.”
In Marquez’s opinion, Gutierrez-Reed was liable for what happened.
“It didn’t need to go this far. And it did seem pointless,” she said of the three-day trial, adding that she believes other jurors felt the same.
The New York Times recently interviewed two other jurors who felt similarly about the case.
The day before the judge dismissed the case, testimony from crime scene technician Marissa Poppell found that a friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father, Troy Teske, turned over ammunition to police that he believed could be connected to the case.
The defense team stated that they were not made aware of the evidence. This stopped their ability to determine if the evidence was relevant to the case.
“This is critical evidence in the case that was never disclosed to us… We were entitled to it,” Baldwin’s attorney Luke Nikas said. “This case should be dismissed, Your Honor.”
She agreed. “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.”
