A New Mexico judge on Friday rejected an effort by a movie set gunsmith to challenge his manslaughter conviction in the 2021 shooting death of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film “Rust.” ”.
After hearing brief arguments during a virtual hearing, Santa Fe-based Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said she would stay the course and that gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez-Reed would remain in custody pending her sentencing in April.
Gutierrez-Reed was convicted by a jury in early March for the October 2021 shooting outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, during a rehearsal. Baldwin was indicted by a grand jury in January and pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter, with a trial scheduled for July.
Gutierrez-Reed’s defense attorneys had filed a request earlier this month for a new trial and urged the judge to release their client from jail as deliberations continued. Attorney Jason Bowles told the judge Friday that his client committed no wrongdoing during the trial, cares for his father and has been receiving counseling.
“She hasn’t done anything wrong. She is not a danger or a flight risk,” she said.
The judge responded: “Please note that there was one death that the jury determined was caused by her, so I will not release her.”
Involuntary manslaughter carries a penalty of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Gutierrez-Reed is being held at the Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center.
In court papers, defense attorneys claimed that jury instructions in the case could confuse jurors and lead to a non-unanimous verdict. Similar objections to jury instructions were rejected at trial, but Bowles on Friday presented a new ruling from the New Mexico Supreme Court in an unrelated case that addressed situations in which jurors have two or more specific acts to consider when deliberate on a charge.
In Gutierrez-Reed’s case, she explained that one act was loading a real bullet into the gun used on set and the other was the accusation that she failed to conduct a proper safety check on the firearm. She was unsuccessful in arguing that jurors should have received separate instructions for each act.
Gutierrez-Reed could be sentenced as early as April 15 under current scheduling orders.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin has maintained that he pulled the gun’s hammer, but not the trigger. Testimony from an independent weapons expert during Gutierrez-Reed’s trial cast doubt on Baldwin’s account that his gun discharged without pulling the trigger.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unintentionally bringing live ammunition to the set of “Rust,” where it was expressly prohibited. They also said he did not follow basic gun safety protocols.
“Rust” Deputy Director and Safety Coordinator Dave Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and served a sentence of six months of unsupervised probation.