(DailyDig.com) – A judge in New Mexico, Mary Marlowe Sommer, dismissed actor Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charge for the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on July 12.
Hutchins was the cinematographer for the movie “Rust,” during which Baldwin’s gun discharged, resulting in her death in 2021. Judge Sommer ruled that prosecutors purposefully withheld evidence that Baldwin’s defense could have used in their case. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the movie’s armorer, could have used the same evidence as her defense about the availability of live ammunition on the set.
In her March trial, the court charged and found Gutierrez-Reed guilty of involuntary manslaughter. She is now serving her sentence, an 18-month maximum penalty, in prison. In her trial, the prosecutors claimed that she was guilty of bringing the live ammunition unknowingly to the movie’s set. They claimed this showed her lack of due diligence in her job. They stated that she was thoughtless and negligent.
Following the judge’s dismissal, the issue of how the live ammunition became available on the set resurfaced. Because the prosecution received the guilty verdict in their March trial by stating that Gutierrez-Reed was the source of the live ammo, the new claim that the prosecutors withheld evidence has raised questions about her verdict.
According to the evidence withheld, a man brought an ammunition box to the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe County in March. He told them that the box was from the movie’s prop supplier, and officers matched it with Hutchins’ October 2021 fatal ammo.
The prosecutors claimed that the evidence had no value and withheld it from their files. This, in turn, did not allow the defense of either Gutierrez-Reed or Baldwin to access the information. Jason Bowles, defense attorney for Gutierrez-Reed, stated that the court dismissed Baldwin’s case because of the judicial system’s integrity, and it should be no different for her case as he filed a motion to dismiss her case.
Judge Sommer stated that the prosecution’s deliberate withholding of evidence was not something the court could accept as she dismissed the case.
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