What dismissal of Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’ case could mean for convicted film armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed
(CNN) — The dramatic dismissal of the involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin over withheld evidence could mean the release of convicted “Rust” movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed from a New Mexico state prison, legal experts say.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison in March for the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed by a live round fired from a prop gun that Baldwin held on the set of the western film in 2021. She’s appealing her conviction.
But the Baldwin case imploded on Friday – just two days after the trial began – with the sudden and shocking twists and turns of a nail-biting legal thriller.
A judge ruled prosecutors did not properly turn over evidence to the defense. The ruling was in response to a motion to dismiss by the actor’s attorneys, who argued the state did not share with them that a man had delivered to investigators a batch of unexamined ammunition purportedly connected 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 must also be dismissed,” New York defense lawyer Duncan Levin said via email.
“The intentional withholding of crucial evidence by the state has compromised the integrity of the entire judicial process. Justice demands that Hannah’s wrongful conviction be overturned immediately, ensuring that the legal system does not perpetuate this grave injustice.”
Immediately after the trial’s stunning end, Gutierrez Reed’s attorney said he planned to file a motion for her release.
“I fully expect Hannah Gutierrez Reed to make the same argument for her conviction to be overturned,” Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN. “I think this case wasn’t won by Alec Baldwin as much as it was lost by the prosecution. … This evidence is more exculpatory and exonerates Gutierrez Reed even more than Baldwin.”
The evidence in question first came to light on Thursday. A crime scene technician testified that a man had delivered a box of ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office after Gutierrez Reed’s conviction. Troy Teske, a retired cop and friend of the armorer’s father, told investigators he believed the ammunition could be associated with the “Rust” case, according to testimony by crime scene tech Marissa Poppell.
But, Poppell told the jury, the bullets were catalogued separately from Baldwin’s case and were not included in the “Rust” case inventory or tested to see if they matched the lethal round.
Baldwin’s defense team argued prosecutors buried this evidence.
His attorneys claimed in a motion the state “unilaterally withheld” evidence that could be favorable at his trial – a violation of the Brady rule, named after the 1963 Brady v. Maryland case. The rule requires prosecutors “to disclose material, exculpatory information in the government’s possession to the defense,” according to Cornell Law School.
On Friday, the case crumbled: The judge sent the jury home early, presided over a chaotic hours-long hearing in which the lead prosecutor went from grilling witnesses to taking the stand herself and saw a co-special prosecutor abruptly resign. Finally, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case with prejudice – meaning it cannot be brought again. She called the withholding of evidence “intentional and deliberate.”
“The jury has been sworn, jeopardy has attached, and this disclosure during the course of 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 – cried as the decision was announced. He later hugged his wife Hilaria as court was excused for the day.
On October 21, 2021, Baldwin was on the movie set practicing a “cross draw” – pulling a gun from a holster on the opposite side of his body from his draw hand – with a prop gun when it fired a live round, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.
Jason Bowles, Gutierrez Reed’s attorney, told CNN Friday that he will seek freedom for his client.
“The judge found intentional misconduct and we also have had the same failures in Hannah’s case by the state. We will be moving for dismissal of Hannah’s case,” Bowles said.
Sommer was also the judge in the armorer’s trial.
Her ruling regarding the failure to disclose the ammunition should carry significant weight in the Gutierrez Reed case, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said.
“I think what you’re going to see is a motion from her attorney giving the indication that when she was on trial, she did not have this information,” Jackson said.
“Clearly, it was in the prosecution’s control. Clearly, it was brought to the prosecutor’s attention. And prosecutors don’t get to make a unilateral decision as to whether something’s relevant or important in the case. It’s shared and then assessed and analyzed.”
Rahmani, referring to Gutierrez Reed, said: “I fully expect either the trial court or the appellate court to overturn that conviction. It won’t just be Alec Baldwin who’s a free man. Hannah Gutierrez Reed will go free as well. And it’s really a tragedy to the victims in this case.”
CNN’s John Campbell. Cheri Mossberg, Julia Vargas Jones, Jack Hannah and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.
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