“Lust” arms manufacturer Hannah Gutierrez Reed is seeking to have her manslaughter conviction overturned after Alec Baldwin was acquitted of the same charge last week on the grounds that prosecutors had destroyed evidence.
Baldwin’s trial was abruptly dismissed on Friday, just three days after he was charged with manslaughter for his role in the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halina Hutchins on the set of a Western movie.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer in Santa Fe, New Mexico, dismissed the charges against the 66-year-old “30 Rock” star and said a new case could not be brought after Baldwin’s lawyers presented evidence that a live bullet involved in Hutchins’ death had been “concealed” by prosecutors.
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Now Gutierrez-Reed, 27, has filed an emergency motion with Marlowe Sommer seeking a new trial or to overturn her conviction on the same grounds the judge used to dismiss Baldwin’s case: that it amounts to “gross prosecutorial misconduct,” her attorney, Jason Bowles, wrote in court papers Tuesday.
The arms dealer, who has already appealed against his conviction and 18-month sentence for Hutchins’ death, is also calling for his immediate release from prison.
“On July 12, the Court stated that the integrity of our justice system requires that Mr. Baldwin’s lawsuit be dismissed,” Bowles said. “Why should Mr. Gutierrez Reed’s lawsuit be any different?”
Jurors in Baldwin’s trial were sent home early Friday so the judge could hear from several witnesses, including prosecutor Kari Morrissey herself, as Baldwin’s side sought to prove that prosecutors “contained” evidence that should have been shared with both defendants before the trial.
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Via Reuters
Instead, Baldwin’s attorney, Alex Spiro, argued that a mysterious “good Samaritan” brought the bullet that killed Hutchins to the sheriff’s office after Gutierrez-Reed had already been sentenced in the case.
But prosecutors argued the good Samaritan was a friend of Gutierrez-Reed’s father and the bullets did not match those found at the scene.
Bowles alleges in the newspaper that Morrissey lied on the witness stand on Friday and “made false statements” to jurors about the ammunition and why it was introduced late in the trial.
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“The state’s deliberate suppression of critical evidence has undermined the integrity of the entire judicial process,” Bowles wrote. “We demand that the justice system immediately overturn Hannah Gutierrez Reed’s conviction and ensure that our justice system does not perpetuate this fundamental affront to our nation’s institution that has been watched around the world.”
In both trials, prosecutors alleged that Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed ignored gun safety regulations and failed to properly test the ammunition used by Baldwin to kill Hutchins and wound director Joel Souza.
During the trial, both defendants tried to shift the blame onto rookie arms maker Gutierrez Reed, arguing that he was working two jobs on the set and did not have enough time to properly monitor the safety of the weapons on set.
Baldwin’s side, on the other hand, argued that there could not have been live ammunition during the shooting and that he was just an actor performing at the time of the tragic accident.
