A judge is planning to hear arguments in court Thursday over whether to dismiss a criminal conviction against a movie armorer in the shooting death of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has requested a retrial or dismissal of her March conviction for involuntary manslaughter in response to allegations that prosecutors failed to share evidence including ammunition that might have been exculpatory in the shooting death that occurred on the set of the Western movie “Rust” in 2021.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer is reconsidering the armorer’s conviction after throwing out an involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin midtrial on similar grounds.
is this the one person on set who was supposed to make sure there was no live ammo? where managing these human-killing devices was her sole responsibility?
Yes, but she has connections. That’s how she got the job in the first place despite not being fit for it. Watch her walk away with nary a slap on the wrist.
If she walks it’s not going to be because she has connections, it’s going to be because the prosecutor engaged in misconduct.
Exactly. This whole incident has been treated as a political windfall by multiple prosecutors. The reason number 3017 why prosecutors are generally bad people.
There should be outrage if everyone walks away from this without any real consequences, there was significant negligence and disregard for safety on the movie set and it resulted in a death. This conviction should be overturned anyway. There isn’t even the illusion of fairness or justice when the state is allowed to hide and even destroy evidence as they have in this case. For the state to strip rights and freedoms from a person it is incumbent upon the state to prove that the person has committed the crimes of which they have been accused and to do so in a fair and open process.
This, exactly.
Cops love up push lines like “Getting off on a technicality” when mistrials happen. They can get fucked. It’s not a “technicality”, it’s the police violating rules that exist to ensure that people are judged fairly and they convictions are only found in cases of genuine guilt. Those rules fucking matter, because they’re one of the very few things that prevent the police from abusing their power.
Hannah Guiterrez isn’t “getting off with a slap on the wrist.” She was convicted of manslaughter. That’s a really serious charge. If that conviction is overturned, it will be because the justice department did an absolutely piss poor job of following some really basic rules. Any outrage over that should be directed at the people who fucked up a perfectly good conviction by thinking they could just trample over people’s basic rights without consequence.
Most directly, yes.
The general argument has been that Baldwin, as a producer, has certain leadership and oversight responsibilities to ensure the staff under them to do their jobs.
Essentially there is argument that Baldwin should have fired the armorer for such breeches, but it was known staff were shooting guns recreationally in the desert after filming. That’s all super bad
Or breaches even. Breeches are pants.
Bach? Beethoven? Breeches? Shiiieeet you’d get shot for wearing those where I’m from
That’s why.
ehhh, his charges were more about did he pull the trigger, and now that the gun was broken by the feds, it cant be discerned.
no one is challenging the fact that it was live ammo in a gun which she was responsible for making sure had no live ammo
No. It’s about prosecutor’s not sharing evidence.
Please read the article.
Why did you include a different quote in your last comment when you said “that’s why?”
Now you’re saying “no that’s not why, (new quote) this is why!”
Both quotes are back-to-back in the article. The first gives general reasons for the retrial request, the second lists specifics.
Why did you ask a question without reading the summary or article first?
Not sure why you keep claiming that nobody but you read the article since I did read it. Perhaps you should put a little effort into writing your comments instead of doing a copy and paste along with a two word comment?
I watched some of her trial. She was absolutely grossly negligent at best.
I also think her conviction should be dismissed because of this prosecutorial misconduct.
I think the police and prosecutors who suppressed evidence (wether I find that evidence credible or not) should be prosecuted. The state has a duty to follow the rule of law that is absolute.
Yes but apparently she was busy doing cocaine and using the prop guns with live ammunition to shoot cans in their downtime to consider the safety aspect. People will point out that she’s unqualified or whatever, but her father is a famous Hollywood armorer as well.
From what little I have heard the production kept distracting her with additional roles and responsibilities when they shouldn’t have, essentially preventing her from doing her job properly. I wouldn’t throw all the blame on a single person if there was an organizational problem that contributed to the accident. Otherwise the armourer’s job isn’t to ensure safety anymore but just to be a scapegoat every time things go wrong.
ahh yeah i spose. a part of me thinks that just proves how unqualified she was… that she wasnt able to identify the risks as they loaded her plate. i often hear ‘i cant do this job successfully if you want me to do x, y and z’.
i wonder if she brought any of that up before the event
I fully agree that she should have absolutely refused to work under those conditions.
But in an environment where some producers might not understand the importance of leaving her to do her job undisturbed and will have the mentality of constantly pressuring people like her to compromise safety under the threat of firing then and “finding someone who will”, I believe that the blame is to be shared. Otherwise, these accidents will happen again.