Incarcerated ‘Rust’ Armorer Requests Dismissal Of Charges Or New Trial After Alec Baldwin Manslaughter Case Tossed Out

Almost immediately after Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial over the 2021 death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was tossed out last week, the lawyer for the troubled film’s incarcerated armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed vowed to make a move to free her. Today, he has.

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Based on the prosecution and local police’s failure to fully disclose evidence in Baldwin’s trial, Jason Bowles on Tuesday filed an expedited motion in the New Mexico courts to see Gutierrez-Reed’s case dismissed, or for her to receive a new trial ASAP.

“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, citing “egregious prosecutorial misconduct.”

“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.”

“In the alternative to an outright dismissal or at least a new trial, the Court should grant Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s already filed motion for immediate release pending appeal,” Bowles’ 23-page motion says, covering all the bases.

Click to read the Hannah Gutierrez-Reed motion to dismiss .

Stating that there was even more evidence “suppression” than previously known now unearthed, the filing also demands that Kari Morrissey “be removed as Special Prosecutor for the misconduct that has been found, and the violations committed in Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s case.”

Hutchins was fatally shot, and Rust director Joel Souza was injured on October 21, 2021 after the Colt .45 Baldwin was pointing at the director of photography fired off a live round during rehearsals at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.

In April, Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in a New Mexico state prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for the live round that ended up on the seemingly chaotic Rust set. The 27-year-old daughter of legendary movie gun coach Thell Reed had been in the process of appealing her sentence and trying to get early release. It has never been conclusively established how live rounds got on the Rust set and in several guns including Baldwin’s.

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The Gutierrez-Reed jury of seven women and five men returned their verdict in the criminal case after just a couple hours of deliberation. The trial was two weeks long, with the presence of a number of eccentrics, to put it politely, that one has come to expect from this matter. Taken into custody as soon as the verdict was delivered, and having been denied bail and release during appeal, it looked like Gutierrez-Reed would be serving most of her full sentence until the sudden and dramatic turn in Baldwin’s case on July 12.

“The state is highly culpable for its failure to provide discovery to the defendant,” Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer told the court that day, just minutes after it had heard from Morrissey that her special-prosecutor colleague Erlinda Johnson had resigned midday. “Dismissal with prejudice is warranted,” Sommer added as Baldwin broke down in tears of relief and joy, and his attorneys hugged each other and the 30 Rock actor in victory.

At the time, it was clear the ruling by Sommer last week, at the end of a often testy evidentiary hearing over a defense motion to dismiss over bullets dropped off to Santa Fe police in recent weeks by ex-Arizona cop Troy Teske, could also mean the release of Gutierrez-Reed.

Called as a witness in the Baldwin case against her wishes, Gutierrez-Reed was actually in the nearby county jail when Sommer’s ruling came down. Though it was likely she would plead her Fifth Amendment rights if questioned by prosecutors, the former armorer had been scheduled to take the stand that day – which clearly didn’t happen.

It later turned out that Johnson, who was recently brought onboard, didn’t merely leave the Baldwin case at a critical juncture because she was worried about a public hearing on the actor’s defense team motion, as Morrissey told the court when she put herself under oath. As today’s filing states: “In a media interview the same day, Ms. Johnson explained that she resigned because of her ethical duties as a prosecutor, and that she had argued that the case should be dismissed by the State because of the late disclosure and that she was overruled, obviously by Ms. Morrissey.”

Still, even with all the sheer incompetence and chaos in the Rust case since that terrible day almost three years ago, First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies insists she is standing by the special prosecutor appointed to take over a year and a half ago after the D.A.’s office bungled the matter. “There is no better advocate than Kari Morrissey to see the Hannah Gutierrez-Reed cases through, and her appointment and oath are still in place,” Carmack-Altwies’ office said Monday.

With today’s motion by Gutierrez-Reed’s team, the DA’s insistence for Morrissey to stay may go the way of Andrea Reeb. Offered deep support by old friend Carmack-Altwies, Reeb was the first Rust special prosecutor before she was asked to leave amid a wave of protestations in mid-2023 from Baldwin’s Quinn Emanuel lawyers of “unconstitutionally” and as a conflict of interest for being a GOP member of the state legislature who wanted to use the Baldwin case to help get elected.

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