Judge weighs release or new trial for "Rust" armorer

Sep. 26—A judge said Thursday she will rule next week whether "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed should be released from prison or receive a new trial for a 2021 shooting death on a New Mexico movie set.

Much of the argument in a virtual hearing on Thursday centered on a batch of live bullets turned over to law enforcement by an Arizona man in the final days of Gutierrez Reed's trial in March.

In July, the judge tossed the involuntary manslaughter case against actor Alec Baldwin in mid-trial after finding that prosecutors failed to provide the same collection of live bullets to Baldwin's legal team.

A jury convicted Gutierrez Reed of involuntary manslaughter on March 6 in the shooting death of "Rust" cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. The 1st Judicial District Court jury found that Gutierrez Reed loaded live ammunition into a prop gun that Baldwin was holding when it discharged.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sentenced Gutierrez Reed in April to the maximum 18 months in prison.

Neither trial settled the question of how live ammunition found its way onto the "Rust" set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch south of Santa Fe.

Marlowe Sommer threw out the case against Baldwin after examining a collection of live bullets provided by Troy Teske, a retired Arizona police officer. The collection contained three Starline Brass .45-caliber rounds with similar characteristics to five live bullets found on the "Rust" set after the fatal shooting.

Gutierrez Reed now is asking the judge to throw out her conviction or order a new trial for "egregious prosecutorial misconduct" based on similar arguments made by Baldwin's attorneys.

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey reiterated Thursday that she had never seen the rounds provided by Teske until the judge examined them at the Baldwin trial.

"I had no idea that there were three rounds that had the same characteristics as the live rounds from the set of 'Rust' until July 12," she said. Morrissey said she knew of the existence of Teske's rounds at least since January but didn't believe they were relevant to the case.

She also argued that Gutierrez Reed's attorney, Jason Bowles, had called Teske as a witness and had an opportunity to view the rounds during Gutierrez Reed's trial.

"Mr. Bowles knew about this during trial," Morrissey said of Teske's rounds. Bowles "had them during the trial and chose not to use them."

Bowles argued that prosecutors chose to "bury and hide" the rounds, which could have supported the defense theory that someone other than Gutierrez Reed had supplied live rounds to the movie production.

"I was not able to see those rounds until the second to last day of trial," Bowles told Marlowe Sommer on Thursday. Bowles said he directed Teske to hand over the rounds to law enforcement.

"I didn't want to be in the chain of custody, nor did I want there to be any allegation that I had anything to do with with something nefarious with regard to those rounds," Bowles said. "I directed Troy Teske to turn those into the sheriff, which he did, because we wanted law enforcement to have them."

The rounds were stored in the department's evidence vault under a number different from that of other "Rust" evidence.

"I thought, naively, the state would do the right thing and would test them," Bowles said. "Never in a million years did I think the state was going to hide those in a separate file under a separate case number, which then came out on the Baldwin trial."

Bowles also argued that prosecutors had told Teske that they would retrieve the rounds from Arizona but failed to do so.

The rounds provided by Teske belonged to veteran movie armorer Thell Reed, the father of Gutierrez Reed. Teske delivered the rounds to the sheriff's office the day Gutierrez Reed was convicted.

Morrissey responded that under New Mexico law, prosecutors are only required to provide defense attorneys with evidence collected from the crime scene.

"The state is not required to scour the planet Earth for potentially exculpatory evidence," she said.

Morrissey also said she informed Bowles in January by email that she didn't intend to collect the rounds from Teske. That decision was based on photos Teske provided showing rounds that had no resemblance to the live rounds collected on the "Rust" set, she said.

"It does not show any ammunition that looks remotely similar to the live rounds that were found on the set," she said of the photos. "Mr. Bowles understood we were not going to collect it."

Gutierrez Reed also is asking the judge to order her release from prison while the New Mexico Court of Appeals considers her appeal. Marlowe Sommer said she will issue orders next week on Gutierrez Reed's requests both for dismissal and her release from prison.