PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "“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."
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STORY: "Armourer on Alec Baldwin film Rust loses bid for new trial," by Agence Free Press, published on October 1, 2024.
SUB-HEADING: "Hannah Gutierrez is serving an 18-month prison sentence for an involuntary manslaughter conviction."
The manslaughter conviction for the armourer on the Alec Baldwin film Rust will stand, a US judge ruled on Monday, dismissing her argument that withheld evidence could have changed the jury’s verdict.
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 Joel Souza.
The 27-year-old was sentenced to 18 months in prison 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 before the Baldwin trial.
But her lawyers then filed an expedited motion for a new trial or dismissal of charges owing to “severe and ongoing discovery violations by the state”.
That application was dismissed in a written ruling issued on 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."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
- SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;