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As we’ve been covering, Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial for the death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins went from jury selection on Tuesday July 9, to dismissal with prejudice — meaning Alec can never be recharged — by Friday July 12. Alec’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case after they learned of evidence the prosecution had failed to disclose, which is a major Brady violation. It was a pretty stunning turn of events, and I’m still gobsmacked that the prosecutors made such a blunder. And the ripples may still be coming: Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of the same charge earlier this year and sentenced to 18 months in prison, where she is now. She’s already appealed the conviction, but legal experts say she could have her conviction overturned on the same grounds as Alec:
‘Lost by the prosecution’: “I fully expect Hannah Gutierrez Reed to make the same argument for her conviction to be overturned,” Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN. “I think this case wasn’t won by Alec Baldwin as much as it was lost by the prosecution. … This evidence is more exculpatory and exonerates Gutierrez Reed even more than Baldwin.”
More about the evidence that was withheld: A crime scene technician testified that a man had delivered a box of ammunition to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office after Gutierrez Reed’s conviction. Troy Teske, a retired cop and friend of the armorer’s father, told investigators he believed the ammunition could be associated with the “Rust” case, according to testimony by crime scene tech Marissa Poppell. But, Poppell told the jury, the bullets were catalogued separately from Baldwin’s case and were not included in the “Rust” case inventory or tested to see if they matched the lethal round.
The Brady rule: Baldwin’s defense team argued prosecutors buried this evidence. His attorneys claimed in a motion the state “unilaterally withheld” evidence that could be favorable at his trial — a violation of the Brady rule, named after the 1963 Brady v. Maryland case. The rule requires prosecutors “to disclose material, exculpatory information in the government’s possession to the defense,” according to Cornell Law School.
Hannah’s attorney will file for a dismissal: Jason Bowles, Gutierrez Reed’s attorney, told CNN Friday that he will seek freedom for his client. “The judge found intentional misconduct and we also have had the same failures in Hannah’s case by the state. We will be moving for dismissal of Hannah’s case,” Bowles said.
Relevancy: [Judge Mary Marlowe] Sommer was also the judge in the armorer’s trial. Her ruling regarding the failure to disclose the ammunition should carry significant weight in the Gutierrez Reed case, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said. “I think what you’re going to see is a motion from her attorney giving the indication that when she was on trial, she did not have this information,” Jackson said. “Clearly, it was in the prosecution’s control. Clearly, it was brought to the prosecutor’s attention. And prosecutors don’t get to make a unilateral decision as to whether something’s relevant or important in the case. It’s shared and then assessed and analyzed.”
‘A tragedy to the victims’: Rahmani, referring to Gutierrez Reed, said: “I fully expect either the trial court or the appellate court to overturn that conviction. It won’t just be Alec Baldwin who’s a free man. Hannah Gutierrez Reed will go free as well. And it’s really a tragedy to the victims in this case.”
Well, sh-t. Color me stupid, but when the news broke about Alec’s dismissal, it didn’t even occur to me that it could benefit already-convicted Hannah. It’s curious that the judge is the same for both cases. Judge Sommer can’t really maintain one opinion/ruling for Alec and a different one for Hannah, right? But since Judge Sommer did not hold back at all in her scolding of Hannah at the sentencing hearing, my prediction is that she will overturn the conviction… after a preamble reiterating how reckless Hannah was in her job as armorer. And we don’t have nearly enough info yet, but there’s something fishy about the detail that the man who first brought the withheld evidence to the Sheriff’s Office is a friend of Hannah’s father.
The final expert quoted got it right, though: this is all a terrible miscarriage of justice for Halyna Hutchins, and my thoughts are with her husband, her son, her sister, and her parents.