Rust armorer denied new trial after Alec Baldwin’s case was dismissed

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers failed to convince a judge their client had been deprived a fair trial

Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has been denied a new trial after her lawyers failed to convince a judge that their client had been deprived a fair hearing by the same evidence dispute that led to Alec Baldwin’s case being dismissed in July.

New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer instead upheld the manslaughter conviction against Gutierrez-Reed.

Her lawyers had alleged that prosecutors failed to share evidence that could have cleared her.

In her written order, Marlowe Sommer noted that the attorneys did not establish that there was a reasonable possibility that the outcome of the trial would have been different had the evidence been available to Gutierrez-Reed.

The judge also rejected a request from Gutierrez-Reed that she be released from custody, saying it was moot because the request for a new trial was denied.

Marlowe Sommer is the same judge who halted and ended Baldwin’s trial based on the misconduct of police and prosecutors and their withholding evidence from the defense in the 2021 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set outside Santa Fe.

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed standing trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico in March 2024 (Santa Fe New Mexican)

Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for Rust, was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

A jury convicted Gutierrez-Reed of involuntary manslaughter in March in a trial overseen by Marlowe Sommer, who later sentenced her to the maximum 18-month penalty.

Gutierrez-Reed has an appeal of the conviction pending in a higher court.

Jurors acquitted her of allegations she tampered with evidence in the Rust investigation.

Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of Rust and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.

Evidence that Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys said prosecutors failed to share included a report by a firearms expert about the functionality of the gun that Baldwin used, ammunition that was later turned in to authorities and an interview with Rust ammunition supplier Seth Kenney.

Gutierrez-Reed has pleaded not guilty to a separate felony charge that she allegedly carried a gun into a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where firearms are prohibited. A proposed plea agreement is awaiting court review.

Last month, director Souza said that the accidental killing of Hutchins during the film’s shooting had “ruined” him.

“When I tell someone it ruined me, I don’t mean in the sense that people might generally think,” he told Vanity Fair.

“I don’t mean that it put my career in ruins. I mean, internally, the person I was just went away. That stopped.”

Additional reporting by Associated Press