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Lawyer for Hannah Gutierrez Reed, arms manufacturer for the Lust film Convicted Two defendants charged with manslaughter in the 2021 shooting death of a cinematographer on a film set are seeking a new trial or dismissal of the case after a related lawsuit against actor Alec Baldwin was dismissed. Dramatically dismissed last week.
The lawyers filed the motion Tuesday in Santa Fe First Judicial District Court, citing multiple allegations of “gross prosecutorial misconduct” and “serious and continuing discovery violations by the state.”
Gutierrez Reed’s lawyers are asking the court to order her release and to remove Kali Morrissey as special prosecutor “due to the misconduct and violations uncovered in Gutierrez Reed’s case.”
A manslaughter case began against Baldwin on Friday, when authorities say he possessed the prop gun that fired the shot that killed cinematographer Halina Hutchins in October 2021. Fired The actor’s case collapsed after the judge presiding over the case ruled that the prosecution had not properly turned over evidence to the defense. Gutierrez Reed is released She was released from New Mexico State Prison, where she is serving an 18-month sentence. March conviction.
In Tuesday’s filing, Gutierrez Reed’s lawyers argue that her case should be dismissed or retried because of the judge’s finding that evidence was suppressed in Baldwin’s case, their allegation that Morrissey lied about the evidence in court on Friday, and other instances in which evidence was suppressed in cases involving gun manufacturers.
CNN has reached out to Morrissey for comment.
The shooting and the defense’s arguments
A shooting incident occurred October 21, 2021Baldwin was practicing “cross-draw” with a prop gun on the set at a ranch outside Santa Fe when the gun discharged with a live round, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
As a gun warden, Gutierrez-Reed was responsible for the safety and security of the firearms. At her trial, prosecutors argued that she repeatedly violated safety regulations and acted carelessly in carrying out her duties, ultimately leading to Hutchins’ death. Gutierrez-Reed’s defense lawyers argued that she was made a scapegoat for the safety failures of film set managers and other staff members.
The evidence that collapsed Baldwin’s trial came to light last week when a crime scene technician testified that a man delivered a box of ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March. Gutierrez Reed’s convictionTroy Teske, a former police officer and friend of the gunsmith’s father, told investigators: Ammunition was obtained from prop supplier Seth Kenney. The technician testified and said he believed the ammunition could be linked to the “Rust” incident.
But the technician testified that those items were classified separately from Baldwin’s case, were not included in the inventory of the “Rust” case, and were not tested for a match to the fatal bullet.
This “may indicate an outside source of live ammunition (props),” Baldwin’s lawyers argued last week in papers seeking dismissal of the lawsuit. Seth KennyAccording to the Baldwin team’s complaint, the prosecution withheld evidence because it would be “favorable to Baldwin.” According to a filing last week.
According to the motion filed last week, Baldwin was unaware of the risk of live ammunition being brought to the “Last” scene, so for prosecutors to establish a link between Baldwin and the source of the live ammunition, they will need to prove that gun manufacturer Gutierrez Reed brought the live ammunition to the scene. “The evidence that the live ammunition came from Kenny is favorable to Baldwin, which is why the State concealed it,” the document from last week stated.
During a chaotic hearing that lasted for hours on Friday, investigators testified that they and Morrissey determined the ammunition was not related to the “Lust” shooting and therefore did not turn it over to the defense. Morrissey also testified that investigators determined the ammunition did not match anything found on the “Lust” filming site and therefore had no evidentiary value. But the lead investigator testified that the bullets were “similar” to imitation bullets used on the film’s set.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled that the prosecution had not properly turned over evidence to the defense. She dismissed Baldwin’s lawsuit and ruled that it cannot be refiled.
In Tuesday’s filing, Gutierrez-Reed’s defense team said prosecutors, and Gutierrez-Reed’s defense team itself, knew about the ammunition Teske had before he turned it over to the sheriff’s office in March. According to Tuesday’s filing, her defense team emailed Morrissey in January, saying it would be “important to compare the gunpowder in Teske’s ammunition to the gunpowder in the live ammunition found in Rust’s gun.”
Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys said in a filing Tuesday that Morrissey responded that the bullets looked different and were not relevant, so they had no plans to retrieve or test them.
But during Baldwin’s trial on Friday, Morrissey argued that Gutierrez Reed’s attorneys didn’t want that because the bullet Teske had would have convicted their client, according to Tuesday’s filing.
“That is simply false. … Far from distancing itself from the Teske bullets, the defense recognized that had the state tested the bullets it could have resulted in an acquittal,” court documents state.
Tuesday’s filing said Teske turned the bullets over to the sheriff’s office in March with the expectation that they would be tested “while Gutierrez Reed pursues his appeal.”
“Instead, the state attempted to hide them by placing them in separate case files,” Gutierrez Reed’s lawyers wrote in Tuesday’s filing.
In court filings Tuesday, the lawyers argued that an interview with Kenney, the props supplier, was suppressed and that had the lawyers known, they would have used his statements during cross-examination at Gutierrez-Reed’s trial. In that interview, Kenney recounted his experiences and, among other things, said he had not heard any allegations that he was in danger, the lawyers wrote.
A report prepared by the state’s firearms expert was likewise not provided to Gutierrez-Reed’s defense team, and the state only disclosed it to Baldwin’s defense team after Gutierrez-Reed was convicted, Tuesday’s filing said. The report also stated that the gun used on the “Rust” set had “unexplained tool marks on key surfaces of the trigger and sear,” Tuesday’s filing said.
Gutierrez Reed’s lawyers previously made similar arguments in separate court filings. Reuters reported: Last month, Gutierrez-Reed asked the judge to release her from jail, saying the firearms expert’s findings were evidence that the gun may have fired accidentally and that she could not have been convicted in the case, her lawyer, Jason Bowles, said. I said last monthAccording to Reuters.
Tuesday’s filing said Gutierrez-Reed’s defense team is also “aware of approximately 900 additional pages of material” regarding the state’s witnesses that were disclosed to Baldwin’s defense team shortly before trial but not to Gutierrez-Reed’s defense team.
Her attorneys “were still reviewing these at the time of filing this motion,” the lawsuit states.
The state violated Gutierrez Reed’s due process rights by failing to disclose the evidence, her lawyers said in a filing Tuesday.
“On July 12, the Court declared that the integrity of our justice system requires that the Court dismiss Mr. Baldwin’s lawsuit,” the complaint states. “Why should it be any different in Mr. Gutierrez Reed’s lawsuit, given its demonstrated gross abuses of discovery?”
“The deliberate concealment of important evidence… “This action by the state undermined the integrity of the entire judicial process,” the lawsuit states.
Gutierrez Reed previously Appeal against her conviction In May.
CNN’s Dalia Farheid contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional information.
