{"id":28070,"date":"2024-07-17T06:37:58","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28070"},"modified":"2024-07-17T06:37:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:37:58","slug":"attorneys-for-rust-armorer-file-for-dismissal-of-her-case-or-new-trial-after-collapse-of-alec-baldwin-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/07\/17\/attorneys-for-rust-armorer-file-for-dismissal-of-her-case-or-new-trial-after-collapse-of-alec-baldwin-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorneys for \u2018Rust\u2019 armorer file for dismissal of her case or new trial after collapse of Alec Baldwin case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for \u201cRust\u201d movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed \u2013\u00a0convicted<\/a>\u00a0of involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 on-set fatal shooting of a cinematographer \u2013 have filed a motion for a new trial or to have her case thrown out after the related case against actor Alec Baldwin was\u00a0dismissed in dramatic fashion<\/a>\u00a0last week.<\/p>\n

The attorneys filed the motion Tuesday in Santa Fe First Judicial District Court, citing \u201cegregious prosecutorial misconduct\u201d and multiple\u00a0allegations of \u201csevere and ongoing discovery violations by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys ask the court to order her prison release and to remove Kari Morrissey as the case\u2019s special prosecutor \u201cfor the misconduct that has been found, and the violations committed in Ms. Gutierrez Reed\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, the involuntary manslaughter\u00a0case against Baldwin \u2013 who authorities said held the prop gun that fired the shot that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 \u2013\u00a0was dismissed<\/a>\u00a0after the judge overseeing the case ruled prosecutors did not properly turn over evidence to the defense. Legal experts had said the collapse of the actor\u2019s case could result in\u00a0Gutierrez Reed being freed<\/a>\u00a0from the New Mexico state prison, where she\u2019s serving an 18-month sentence following her\u00a0March conviction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s filing, Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys argue that her case should be thrown out or retried in part because of judge\u2019s determination of withheld evidence in Baldwin\u2019s case; what they assert was Morrissey lying in court about the evidence on Friday; and what they say were other instances of suppressed evidence in the armorer\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

CNN has sought comment from Morrissey.<\/p>\n

The shooting, and defense attorneys\u2019 allegations<\/h2>\n

The shooting happened\u00a0October 21, 2021<\/a>. Baldwin was on the set at a ranch outside Santa Fe practicing a \u201ccross draw\u201d with a prop gun \u2013 pulling it from a holster on the opposite side of his body from his draw hand \u2013 when it fired a live round, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.<\/p>\n

As the armorer, Gutierrez Reed was responsible for firearm safety and storage. At her\u00a0trial, prosecutors argued she repeatedly violated safety protocol and acted without caution in performing her duties, ultimately leading to Hutchins\u2019 death. Gutierrez Reed\u2019s defense attorney argued she has been scapegoated for the safety failures of film set management and other crew members.<\/p>\n

The evidence that imploded Baldwin\u2019s trial came to light last week, when a crime scene technician testified that a man had delivered a box of ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriff\u2019s Office in March right after\u00a0Gutierrez Reed\u2019s conviction<\/a>. The man, Troy Teske, a retired police officer and friend of the armorer\u2019s father, told investigators he\u00a0obtained the ammunition from prop supplier Seth Kenney,<\/a>\u00a0and believed the ammunition could be associated with the \u201cRust\u201d incident, the technician testified.<\/p>\n

However, the technician testified the items were catalogued separately from Baldwin\u2019s case and were not included in the \u201cRust\u201d case inventory or tested to see if they matched the lethal round.<\/p>\n

Baldwin\u2019s attorneys, in a filing last week asking for the case to be dismissed, claimed that this could point to \u201can external source of the live ammunition (prop supplier\u00a0Seth Kenney<\/a>)\u201d on set. The Baldwin team\u2019s filing alleged prosecutors didn\u2019t disclose the evidence because it \u201cwould be favorable to Baldwin,\u201d\u00a0last week\u2019s filing shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Baldwin was unaware of the risk live ammunition had been brought to the \u201cRust\u201d set, and for prosecutors to establish a link between Baldwin and the live ammunition source, they would have to show Gutierrez Reed, the armorer, had brought the rounds to set, according to the motion filed last week. \u201cEvidence that the live rounds came from Kenney is therefore favorable to Baldwin, which is why the state buried it,\u201d last week\u2019s document states.<\/p>\n

During a chaotic, hourslong hearing Friday, investigators testified they and Morrissey determined the ammo was not relevant to the \u201cRust\u201d case and so did not turn it over to the defense. Morrissey also testified, saying investigators had determined the ammunition was not a match to those found on the \u201cRust\u201d set and had no evidentiary value. The lead investigator, however, testified the rounds looked \u201csimilar\u201d to the dummy rounds on the film\u2019s set.<\/p>\n

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled prosecutors did not properly turn over evidence to the defense. She dismissed Baldwin\u2019s case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s filing, Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys said prosecutors \u2013 and even Gutierrez Reed\u2019s defense team itself \u2013 was aware of the ammunition Teske had before he gave it to the sheriff\u2019s office in March. Her attorneys wrote an email to Morrissey in January saying it was \u201cimportant to compare the powder of the Teske rounds to the powder in the powder in the live rounds found on the Rust set,\u201d Tuesday\u2019s filing reads.<\/p>\n

Morrissey wrote back that she didn\u2019t plan to retrieve or test the rounds, because she found them visually dissimilar and not relevant, Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys said in Tuesday\u2019s filing.<\/p>\n

But on Friday during Baldwin\u2019s trial, Morrissey claimed that Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys did not want rounds that Teske had because they incriminated their client, Tuesday\u2019s filing reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is an absolute falsehood. \u2026 Far from distancing (themselves) from the Teske rounds, defense counsel recognized their potential exculpatory value had the state tested them,\u201d the court filing said.<\/p>\n

Teske had turned the rounds over to the sheriff\u2019s office in March, hoping that it would test the rounds \u201cwhile Gutierrez Reed pursued her appeal,\u201d Tuesday\u2019s filing says.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, the state placed them in a separate case file and attempted to hide them,\u201d Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys wrote in Tuesday\u2019s filing.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s court filing, the attorneys claimed an interview with Kenney, the prop supplier, was suppressed \u2013 and that the attorneys would have used his statements in cross examination in Gutierrez Reed\u2019s trial had they known about them. In that interview, Kenney spoke about her experience and had not heard allegations that she was unsafe, among other things, the attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n

A report conducted by state firearms experts was likewise not made available to Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys, and the state revealed it to Baldwin\u2019s defense team only after Gutierrez Reed was convicted, Tuesday\u2019s filing says. The report said the gun used on the \u201cRust\u201d set had \u201cunexplained toolmarks on critical surfaces of the trigger and sear,\u201d Tuesday\u2019s filing says.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys previously made that argument in a separate court filing, which\u00a0Reuters reported on<\/a>\u00a0last month, asking that a court release her from prison. The firearms experts\u2019 finding is evidence that the gun could have accidentally fired and could have led to her not being found guilty in the case, Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorney Jason Bowles\u00a0said last month<\/a>, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez Reed\u2019s defense team \u201chas also become aware of another possible 900 or so pages of material\u201d related to state\u2019s witnesses that was disclosed to Baldwin\u2019s attorneys shortly before his trial, but not to Gutierrez Reed\u2019s attorneys, Tuesday\u2019s filing reads.<\/p>\n

Her lawyers were \u201cstill reviewing these at the time of the filing of this motion,\u201d the filing reads.<\/p>\n

The state violated Gutierrez Reed\u2019s due process rights because it failed to disclose evidence, her attorneys wrote in Tuesday\u2019s filing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis court stated on July 12 that the integrity of the judicial system demanded that the court dismiss Mr. Baldwin\u2019s case with prejudice,\u201d the filing said. \u201cHow can it be any different with Ms. Gutierrez Reed\u2019s case, with this proven litany of serious discovery abuses?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intentional withholding of crucial evidence \u2026\u00a0<\/em>by the state has compromised the integrity of the entire judicial process,\u201d the filing continued.<\/p>\n

Gutierrez Reed\u00a0previously filed an\u00a0appeal of\u00a0her conviction<\/a>\u00a0in May.<\/p>\n

Source: cnn.com<\/a> CNN\u2019s Dalia Faheid contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attorneys for \u201cRust\u201d movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed \u2013\u00a0convicted\u00a0of involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 on-set fatal shooting of a cinematographer \u2013 have filed a motion for a new trial or to have her case thrown […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[8142,9531,190,8224],"class_list":{"0":"post-28070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-alec-baldwin","10":"tag-hannah-gutierrez-reed","11":"tag-new-mexico","12":"tag-rust","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28071,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28070\/revisions\/28071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}