Swimming pool via Court TV
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, a gunmaker in the film “Rust,” was found guilty in March by a New Mexico court.
CNN
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The dramatic dismissal of actor Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case over suppressed evidence could mean that convicted gunmaker for the film “Rust” Hannah Gutierrez Reed will be released from a New Mexico state prison, legal experts say. participation.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March and sentenced to 18 months in prison for fatally shooting camerawoman Halyna Hutchins, who was killed by a sharp object fired from a prop gun Baldwin was holding on the set of the 2021 western. She is appealing her conviction.
But the Baldwin case imploded Friday – just two days after the trial began – with the sudden and shocking twists and turns into a blood-curdling legal thriller.
A judge ruled that prosecutors had failed to properly turn over evidence to the defense. The ruling was in response to a motion to dismiss filed by the actor’s attorneys, who argued that the state had failed to tell them that a man had provided investigators with a batch of untested ammunition that was allegedly related to the case.
“Given the egregious misconduct that led to the dismissal of Alec Baldwin’s case, it is abundantly clear that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s case should also be dismissed,” New York attorney Duncan Levin said via email.
“The State’s willful withholding of crucial evidence has compromised the integrity of the entire legal process. Justice demands that Hannah’s wrongful conviction be immediately quashed so that the justice system does not perpetuate this grave injustice.”
Immediately after the shocking end of the trial, Gutierrez Reed’s attorney said he planned to file a motion for her release.
“I expect Hannah Gutierrez Reed will use the same argument to overturn her conviction,” Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN. “I think this case was not won by Alec Baldwin as much as it was won by the prosecution. … This evidence is more exonerating and exonerates Gutierrez Reed even more than Baldwin.”
The evidence in question first came to light Thursday. A crime scene technician testified that a man had dropped off a box of ammunition at the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office after Gutierrez Reed’s conviction. Troy Teske, a retired police officer and friend of the gunsmith’s father, told investigators he believed the ammunition could be connected to the “Rust” case, according to testimony from crime scene technician Marissa Poppell.
But Poppell told the jury that the bullets were catalogued separately from Baldwin’s suitcase and were not included in the inventory of the “Rust” suitcase, nor had they been tested to see if they matched the fatal bullet.
Baldwin’s defense team argued that prosecutors concealed this evidence.
His attorneys alleged in a motion that the state had “unilaterally” withheld evidence that could have been favorable at his trial — a violation of the Brady Rule, named after the 1963 Brady v. Maryland case. The rule requires prosecutors to “disclose to the defense material, exculpatory information in the government’s possession,” according to Cornell Law School.
On Friday, the case collapsed: the judge dismissed the jury early, presided over a chaotic hearing that lasted hours in which the lead prosecutor went from questioning witnesses to taking the witness stand himself, and watched a co-special prosecutor abruptly resign.. Ultimately, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice — meaning it cannot be refiled. She called the withholding of evidence “willful and deliberate.”
“The jury has been sworn, there has been jeopardy, and this revelation at trial is so late that it undermines the defendant’s preparation for trial,” Marlowe Sommer said. “There is no way for the court to right this wrong.”
The “30 Rock” and “Hunt for Red October” star — who had pleaded not guilty and could have faced up to 18 months in prison — wept as the verdict was announced. He later embraced his wife, Hilaria, as court was adjourned for the day.
On October 21, 2021, Baldwin was on the film set practicing a “cross draw” — pulling a gun from a holster on the opposite side of his body from his drawing hand — with a prop gun when it fired a live round, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Jason Bowles, Gutierrez Reed’s attorney, told CNN Friday that he will pursue his client’s freedom.
“The judge found that there was willful misconduct and we’ve had the same errors in Hannah’s case by the state. We will be filing a motion to dismiss Hannah’s case,” Bowles said.
Sommer was also a judge in the trial against the gunsmith.
Her ruling on not disclosing the ammunition should carry significant weight in the Gutierrez Reed case, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said.
“I think you’ll see a motion from her attorney stating that she did not have this information when she went before the judge,” Jackson said.
“It was clear that it was under the control of the Public Prosecution Service. It is clear that it was brought to the attention of the Public Prosecution Service. And the Public Prosecution Service cannot unilaterally decide whether something is relevant or important in the case. It is shared and then assessed and analyzed.”
Rahmani, referring to Gutierrez Reed, said: “I fully expect the district court or the court of appeals to overturn that conviction. It’s not just going to be Alec Baldwin who’s a free man. Hannah Gutierrez Reed is going to walk free as well. And it’s truly a tragedy for the victims in this case.”
CNN’s John Campbell, Cheri Mossberg, Julia Vargas Jones, Jack Hannah and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.