ACTOR Alec Baldwin in a scene from Rust. — IMDB

TAOS, N.M. — Hannah Gutierrez, the armorer imprisoned for the 2021 Rust shooting, on Tuesday filed a motion for her conviction to be dismissed after charges against actor Alec Baldwin were dropped on prosecutors withholding evidence linked to the 2021 fatality. A lawyer for Ms. Gutierrez said the buried evidence of live rounds, and other information concealed from defense lawyers, were grounds for dismissal or a new trial.

Should Ms. Gutierrez be successful in her motion it would mark a complete unraveling of New Mexico’s criminal prosecution of the rookie weapons handler and Mr. Baldwin for the death of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The motion followed the dismissal of charges against Mr. Baldwin during his trial on Friday as a judge ruled prosecutors deliberately hid the existence of live rounds handed into police that could reveal the source of the round that killed Hutchins.

The Ukrainian director of photography died when Baldwin’s gun fired a live round inadvertently loaded by Gutierrez as the actor set up a camera shot in a movie-set church southwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In Ms. Gutierrez’s motion to dismiss, lawyer Jason Bowles said he contacted state prosecutor Kari Morrissey in January requesting that the FBI test the live rounds that were eventually handed into police on March 6, the day Ms. Gutierrez was convicted.

Bowles said Morrissey responded by saying she did not plan to retrieve the rounds or test them as they looked different to six live rounds found on the set of Rust.

Three of the rounds handed in by Troy Teske, a friend of Ms. Gutierrez’s stepfather Thell Reed, were similar to live rounds found on the Rust set.

Bowles listed other instances of prosecutors failing to disclose evidence to defense lawyers, including an interview with Rust props supplier Seth Kenney and a supplemental report on Mr. Baldwin’s gun by firearms expert Lucien Haag.

Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer must now schedule a hearing on Ms. Gutierrez’s motion to dismiss. — Reuters

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