The
filing comes as a New Mexico judge is expected to rule on Friday
on a request from Alec Baldwin's legal team that a manslaughter
charge against him for the on-set shooting during the filming of
"Rust" be tossed out.
During filming in 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot
and killed by a gun used as a prop that was being handled at the
time by Baldwin.
According to the filing, state prosecutors possessed a report
from their own weapons experts that the gun used on the set of
"Rust" had "unexplained toolmarks on critical surfaces of the
trigger and sear."
That, Gutierrez's attorney Jason Bowles said, is evidence that
the gun could have accidentally fired, as both Baldwin and
Gutierrez's legal teams have argued, and could have led to her
not being found guilty at trial.
Bowles requested that Gutierrez be released from prison pending
a new trial.
Bowles said he learned of the information during evidentiary
hearings given in Baldwin's case this week, describing it as
"bombshell exculpatory evidence" withheld by prosecutors that
"would have resulted in a fundamentally different trial and
likely a different outcome" for his client.
State prosecutors did not respond to after-hours calls. During
the evidentiary hearings in Baldwin's case, one of the state's
weapons experts said that while he had at one time said in a
report that marks on the gun might not have been caused during
testing by the FBI, he later determined they had been.
In March, Gutierrez, 27, was found guilty of involuntary
manslaughter for mistakenly loading a live round into a revolver
Baldwin was using on a Santa Fe, New Mexico, movie set. She was
sentenced in April to 18 months in prison.
The shooting, which stunned Hollywood, is believed to be the
first time in modern times that a member of a film crew or cast
was killed by a live round accidentally loaded into a gun.
Baldwin's trial is set for July 10 after a grand jury indicted
him on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in January.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Editing by
Edwina Gibbs)
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