El Siglo Futuro - 'Rust' armorer loses bid for new trial

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'Rust' armorer loses bid for new trial
'Rust' armorer loses bid for new trial / Photo: © POOL/AFP/File

'Rust' armorer loses bid for new trial

The manslaughter conviction for the armorer on the Alec Baldwin movie "Rust" will stand, a US judge ruled Monday, dismissing her argument that withheld evidence could have changed the jury's verdict.

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Hannah Gutierrez was in charge of weapons on the set of the budget Western film when a gun Baldwin was holding went off, killing the film's cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding its director.

The 27-year-old was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter for accidentally loading Baldwin's prop gun with a live round.

Baldwin's own trial spectacularly collapsed in July when it emerged that prosecutors had not turned over a batch of bullets that detectives had found during their investigation into the October 2021 tragedy in New Mexico.

Gutierrez, also known as Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was already in the process of appealing her conviction prior to the Baldwin trial.

But her lawyers then filed an expedited motion for a new trial or dismissal of charges due to "severe and ongoing discovery violations by the state."

That application was dismissed in a written ruling issued Monday.

"Defendant has not established that there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence been available to Defendant, the evidence would have produced a different verdict," Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer wrote.

C.Ferreira--ESF