Days after New Mexico’s case against Alec Baldwin collapsed amid allegations of concealing evidence in the “Rust” shooting, gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez asked a judge to dismiss her case as well.
Gutierrez’s attorney, Jason Bowles, filed a 23-page motion Tuesday night asking that Gutierrez’s manslaughter conviction be overturned or that he be granted a new trial because of the state’s “serious and continuing violations of the discovery obligation.” Bowles alleged that the proceedings against Gutierrez were unfair because the state also withheld evidence in his case.
Gutierrez is currently serving an 18-month sentence for his role in the shooting death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of a low-budget Western on Oct. 21, 2021.
The move comes as New Mexico's legal world is reeling from revelations made during a dramatic hearing Friday, in which New Mexico First Judicial Circuit Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the felony criminal charge against Baldwin, abruptly ending the actor's high-profile trial.
The judge became alarmed after Baldwin's lawyers alleged misconduct, including alleged collusion between the prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff's deputies to conceal potential evidence (a bag of ammunition) from defense attorneys.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, center, questions special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, second from left, about evidence not turned over to defense attorney Alex Spiro, second from right, during the trial of actor Alec Baldwin on July 12.
(Eddie Moore/Associated Press)
At issue is a bag of cartridges that a retired law enforcement officer, Troy Teske, had turned over to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March after Gutierrez’s trial ended. Teske, a friend of Gutierrez’s stepfather, Thell Reed, had offered the evidence to prosecutors late last fall, but special prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey declined to do so.
Morrissey has said that after looking at a photo of the shells, he determined they did not match Rust's actual ammunition. The sheriff's crime scene technician also testified last week that the bullets were not like those found on Rust.
However, after Marlowe Sommer donned blue latex gloves and opened the evidence bag in a dramatic hearing on Friday, it was revealed that three of the casings were stamped with Starline Brass, which was an identifying characteristic of the “Rust” bullets.
Despite the judge's warnings that he did not have to testify, Morrissey took the witness stand to give sworn testimony about his handling of the Teske ammunition and the Baldwin case.
Shortly before, Morrissey's co-counsel, Erlinda O. Johnson, resigned from the case. Johnson told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo that she resigned because Morrissey had told her he hadn't seen the ammunition before, but that didn't appear to be the case.
“We have an obligation as prosecutors … our obligation is to make sure that all the evidence is presented,” Johnson told Cuomo. “It is not for us to decide what the defense is going to be.”
Morrissey, via email, said he would provide a written response to Gutierrez's motion.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey discusses evidence not turned over to the defense during actor Alec Baldwin's manslaughter trial for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
(Eddie Moore/Associated Press)
Last week, she testified that she didn’t believe Teske’s bullets had probative value because they had never left Arizona. The shooting of “Rust” occurred outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Teske was in Santa Fe for Gutierrez’s trial in March. He was scheduled to testify on Gutierrez’s behalf, but Bowles did not call him to the stand.
The bullets were part of a batch that had been supplied to Seth Kenney, a supplier of guns and ammunition to Rust. Baldwin’s lawyers alleged that Kenney may have mixed real bullets with so-called imitation bullets, an allegation Kenney has long denied.
Bowles also pointed to an interview with Kenney that was not disclosed to the defense until after Gutierrez was convicted.
“Ms. Gutierrez-Reed respectfully requests that this Court order a new trial or dismissal of the case for the egregious prosecutorial misconduct,” Bowles wrote in Tuesday’s motion.
Actor Alec Baldwin, left, at his July 12 trial for involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
(Ramsay from Give/Associated Press)
Bowles argued that among the misconduct allegations that came to light last week, crime scene technician Marissa Poppell “had been instructed to place the Teske bullets in a separate case file with a separate number (not Rust) and create a report that was also filed in that separate case file so that these would not be disclosed to the defense,” he wrote in Gutierrez's court filing.
Gutierrez had been scheduled to testify at Baldwin's criminal trial, but Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case on what was scheduled to be the third day of testimony.
