A New Mexico judge on Monday upheld the involuntary manslaughter conviction of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed for her role in the 2021 on-set death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
New Mexico First Judicial Circuit Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer rejected her attorneys’ claim that evidence allegedly mishandled and withheld by a special prosecutor could have affected the outcome of her case.
Gutierrez-Reed had appealed based on the same “suppressed evidence” that got Alec Baldwin’s case tossed in July. She had asked for her conviction to be dismissed or to be granted a new trial, claiming evidence prosecutors had failed to share could have cleared her.
Marlowe Sommer disagreed, saying in a written order that Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers had not proven the trial would have gone differently if they had had access to the evidence. In July, the judge halted Baldwin’s trial after it came to light police and prosecutors had failed to disclose a firearms expert’s report about the functionality of the gun the actor had pointed at Hutchins during an Oct. 21, 2021 rehearsal.
In addition, ammunition was handed over to authorities that allegedly came from the film set, but the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office had filed it separately and did not alert Baldwin’s defense team as to its existence, deciding on their own that it was not relevant.
Marlowe Sommer said it did not have the same impact on fairness in Gutierrez-Reed’s case.
“Defendant has been convicted of a felony involving a firearm and resulting in the death of Ms. Halyna Hutchins,” Marlowe Sommer wrote in Monday’s order, according to the Los Angeles Times. Gutierrez-Reed, she wrote, acted recklessly in a manner that “allowed a fatal gunshot to occur.”
Gutierrez-Reed’s appeal of her overall conviction is pending before a higher court. She is seven months into the 18-month prison sentence she received after being found guilty in March.
With News Wire Services
