SANTA FE, NM — A movie gunsmith has asked a judge to throw out her manslaughter conviction or call for a new trial in the shooting death of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin, alleging suppression of evidence and misconduct by the prosecutor.
In a court filing filed Tuesday, gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s defense attorney argued that her case should be reconsidered because prosecutors failed to share evidence that could have been vindication.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer last week sent Baldwin’s trial to a sudden and surprising end based on police and prosecutorial misconduct over withholding defense evidence in the 2021 shooting director of photography Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film “Rust”.
“This court declared on July 12 that the integrity of the judicial system required the court to dismiss Mr. Baldwin’s case with prejudice,” defense attorney Jason Bowles said in the new court filing. The Reed case, with this proven litany of serious discovery abuses?
Kari Morrissey — lead prosecutor in the Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed cases — said her written response would be presented to the court next week, declining further comment.
The evidence that closed the case at Baldwin’s trial was ammunition that was brought to the sheriff’s office in March by a man who said it might be related to Hutchins’ murder. Prosecutors said they considered the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers claimed they “buried” it and filed a motion to dismiss the case.
Gutierrez-Reed was convicted by a jury in March in a trial overseen by Judge Marlowe Sommer, who later given a maximum sentence of 18 months. Gutierrez-Reed already has an appeal pending in higher court over his manslaughter conviction.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited, and failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.
She was acquitted at trial on charges of having tampered with evidence in the “Rust” investigation. She also pleaded not guilty to a separate criminal charge that she allegedly carried a gun into a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where firearms are prohibited.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer of “Rust,” was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a film set outside Santa Fe in October 2021, when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
