Incarcerated ‘Rust’ Armorer Requests Dismissal Of Charges Or New Trial After Alec Baldwin Manslaughter Case Tossed Out

Attorneys for “Rust” movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed – convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 on-set fatal shooting of a cinematographer – have filed a motion for a new trial or to have her case thrown out after the related case against actor Alec Baldwin was dismissed in dramatic fashion last week.

The attorneys filed the motion Tuesday in Santa Fe First Judicial District Court, citing “egregious prosecutorial misconduct” and multiple allegations of “severe and ongoing discovery violations by the state.”

Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys ask the court to order her prison release and to remove Kari Morrissey as the case’s special prosecutor “for the misconduct that has been found, and the violations committed in Ms. Gutierrez Reed’s case.”

On Friday, the involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin – who authorities said held the prop gun that fired the shot that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021 – was dismissed after 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’s case could result in Gutierrez Reed being freed from the New Mexico state prison, where she’s serving an 18-month sentence following her March conviction.

In Tuesday’s filing, Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys argue that her case should be thrown out or retried in part because of judge’s determination of withheld evidence in Baldwin’s 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’s case.

The shooting, and defense attorneys’ allegations

The shooting happened October 21, 2021. Baldwin was on the set at a ranch outside Santa Fe practicing a “cross draw” with a prop gun – pulling it from a holster on the opposite side of his body from his draw hand – when it fired a live round, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.

As the armorer, Gutierrez Reed was responsible for firearm safety and storage. At her trial, prosecutors argued she repeatedly violated safety protocol and acted without caution in performing her duties, ultimately leading to Hutchins’ death. Gutierrez Reed’s defense attorney argued she has been scapegoated for the safety failures of film set management and other crew members.

The evidence that imploded Baldwin’s 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’s Office in March right after Gutierrez Reed’s conviction. The man, Troy Teske, a retired police officer and friend of the armorer’s father, told investigators he obtained the ammunition from prop supplier Seth Kenney, and believed the ammunition could be associated with the “Rust” incident, the technician testified.

However, the technician testified the items 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 attorneys, in a filing last week asking for the case to be dismissed, claimed that this could point to “an external source of the live ammunition (prop supplier Seth Kenney)” on set. The Baldwin team’s filing alleged prosecutors didn’t disclose the evidence because it “would be favorable to Baldwin,” last week’s filing shows.

Baldwin was unaware of the risk live ammunition had been brought to the “Rust” 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. “Evidence that the live rounds came from Kenney is therefore favorable to Baldwin, which is why the state buried it,” last week’s document states.