One part of the Rust on-set shooting saga has come to a close, for now. On Monday, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the maximum time allotted, after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter last month. The trial was a result of the Oct. 21, 2021, accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by actor Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico set.
Gutierrez-Reed was the weapons expert in charge of on-set safety for everyone who handled a gun behind the scenes or in front of the camera. Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer slammed the 26-year-old for her “recklessness” during production. “You were the armorer, the one that’s to be between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone,” the judge sternly said, per Fox News. “You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon. But for you, Mrs. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner, and a little boy would have his mother. Please take her.”
It only took the jury less than three hours to deliberate and come to the verdict on March 6, and this might not be a good sign for Baldwin’s upcoming trial in July. The prosecution didn’t hold back when it came to describing the 66-year-old actor during closing arguments in Gutierrez-Reed’s case. “Hannah Gutierrez knew that Baldwin was loose. She knew it,” Morrissey said during closing arguments. “She didn’t do anything about it, even though it was her job. It was her job. It is her job to say to an A-list actor, if, in fact, that’s what you want to call him, ‘Hey, you can’t behave that way with those firearms.’ That is her job,” said prosecutor Kari Morrissey. “That is what they pay her for. That is the job that she applied for. That is the job that she accepted.”
Legal expert Emily D. Baker told People that the outcome of Gutierrez-Reed’s trial should be “a wake-up call” for Baldwin’s legal team because it proves that “the court is taking these cases very seriously.” She added, “I imagine Baldwin and his legal team are going to have serious discussions about what it means if he is convicted.” Judge Sommer will also be presiding over Baldwin’s case in the summer, so the 30 Rock star should be prepared for every scenario.
Baker thinks that Baldwin’s team should try for a plea deal again even though the first one was rescinded because the actor is working on a documentary about the shooting. “There’s no love lost between the prosecution and the defense,” she noted while pointing out that Morrisey claimed Baldwin had “an impressive level of arrogance” in court documents. However, the Emmy winner pulled the trigger on the belief that the weapon was not loaded, which may generate sympathy from the jury — and that may be his defense team’s only strategy in a case that is tragic from all angles.
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