Attorneys for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed requested a new trial on Tuesday, days after a judge dismissed the involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin.
The trials stemmed from the 2021 shooting on the Santa Fe, New Mexico, movie set of "Rust," in which Baldwin was accused of firing a live round that fatally struck the film’s director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, and injured director/writer Joel Souza. Baldwin's defense asserted that safety on set rested with professionals like armorer Gutierrez-Reed and assistant director David Halls, who had been entrusted with ensuring the firearms were safe and properly managed.
In a cross-complaint filed by Baldwin's defense, they argued that neither Baldwin nor others present were aware that live ammunition had been loaded into the gun, believing it to be safe for use.
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In the filing by attorney Jason Bowles, it alleges that prosecutors engaged in extreme misconduct by suppressing evidence. One example was an email from Special Prosecutor Kari Morrissey telling Bowles that she was not going to have a round tested because it was considered "irrelevant." The defense alleges that these tests could have led to a different outcome.
“Justice demands that Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s conviction be overturned immediately, ensuring that the legal system does not perpetuate this core affront to our system that has been watched all over the world,” the filing says.
Last week, the judge dismissed the case against Baldwin after finding the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense. Bowles noted that the same prosecutors who tried Baldwin also worked on the case against Gutierrez-Reed.
"The State withheld bombshell exculpatory evidence that it had a constitutional obligation to disclose and that would have resulted in a fundamentally different trial and likely a different outcome," the filing said.
RELATED STORY | Judge dismisses involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin
Bowles spoke to Scripps News' sister network Court TV hours before filing the motion.
"As you saw, the judge very thoughtfully considered the evidence and the situation that developed at trial and found serious misconduct on the part of the prosecution and the discovery violation and how they treated certain evidence, putting it into a separate file and not giving it to the defense," Bowles said.
In April, Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter.
