‘Rust’ armourer wants new trial after Alec Baldwin’s dismissal
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armourer on the film Rust, is asking a judge to overturn her previous conviction of manslaughter. Gutierrez-Reed claims that she was subject to the same trial misconduct that saw Alec Baldwin’s own trial dismissed last week.
In March, Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter surrounding the death of Rust cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins. In a document filed on July 16th, Gutierrez- Reed’s attorney, Jason Bowles, claimed there was important evidence that should have been shared before his client’s trial which he believes would have altered the case.
Bowles wants Gutierrez-Reed to be released from prison and the trial’s prosecutor, Kari Morrissey, to be removed from the case following misconduct. However, Morrisey has been supported by District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies. Gutierrez-Reed is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, the same charge that Baldwin faced.
Following the dismissal of Baldwin’s manslaughter case, Bowles wrote, “How can it be any different with Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s case, with this proven litany of serious discovery abuses?” Bowles argued in his motion. “The intentional withholding of crucial evidence… by the State has compromised the integrity of the entire judicial process.”
The evidence surrounding Baldwin’s dismissal surrounded claims put forward by a retired police officer, who had turned in a number of bullets matching the rounds that killed Hutchins. However, this fact was not shared with Baldwin’s defence team, leading to the discontinuation of the trial.
Now, Bowles is suggesting that similar misconduct occurred in Gutierrez-Reed’s trial. According to the attorney, a month after the trial closed, Kari Morrissey handed over an interview with weapons supplier and key witness Seth Kenney, an interview which had previously been undisclosed.
Bowles believes that he would have been able to use the interview to question the validity of Kenney’s witness statement, considering his positive comments about Gutierrez Reed in the interview and then his conflicting comments about her during the trial.
In addition, Bowles said that he wasn’t made privy to other important information, including a report from a firearms expert that suggested that Baldwin’s gun had “unexplained toolmarks” on it, something that he believes would have contributed to a very different trial.
“The repeated discovery failures are certainly beneath what Ms. Gutierrez-Reed deserved,” Bowles stated. “And for her, the impact has been devastating. She now sits in state prison, serving an 18-month sentence based on what we now know was a proceeding that was rendered unfair and unconstitutional by the State’s conduct. This Court should not countenance the State’s deplorable behavior.”
This is a developing story.
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