Or we have breaking news and a live look now
inside that courtroom for the rust trial.
Remember for the movies armorer.
We know that jurors have a verdict in the rust
shooting trial.
I'm going to ask my control if this is a
live look.
I believe that it is
and this is live. This is live.
So this is obviously 607 out east.
It's a couple hours earlier there in New Mexico.
You are looking at Hannah Gutierrez Reed again.
A live look here in court as she is preparing
to hear the verdict in the case 407 there in
Santa Fe in the case against her.
Prosecutors in closing arguments have told the jury that when
Gutierrez Reed wasn't doing her job,
filming was like a game of Russian Roulette.
Every time an actor had a gun,
you see them standing. I want to see if we
have audio at all to be able to listen in
to this verdict.
We do not have audio,
but we do have a producer in court.
Our Dana Griffin, I believe is in court as well.
I hear some of the background noise here.
They may have just turned the microphones on,
so we're going to listen in here now.
Remember what she faces right?
This is an issue where she is accused.
She she has loaded the gun
that went off in the hand of Alec Baldwin back
in October of
2021 that led to the death of the movie cinematographer
Helena Hutchins.
It is now up to the jury to decide
if she is guilty or not.
Have been voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence.
We do have audio. Now I want to listen in
as the jury is about to read out its verdict
here in this pic of the jury through the foreperson.
Have you reached a verdict?
Yes. All right, let me see the verdict.
Join
me. She needs her hearing arrival
so moments away now from this verdict being read.
Remember, this only went to the jury this afternoon,
so they have not had the case for that long.
We just saw closing arguments presented today from both the
both the prosecution and the defense.
The defense has tried to make the case,
essentially that Hannah Gutierrez Reed was not the one who
was ultimately to blame.
Beyond proof of reasonable doubtless,
I said, Ladies and ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
through the foreperson, have you reached a verdict?
Yes. All right. And do you wish to read the
verdicts?
Sure. OK, I will start with Count One.
OK, Both of them. Will the defendant please stand?
We find the defendant, Hannah Gutierrez,
guilty of involuntary manslaughter as charged from Count 1.
If I'm independent, Hannah Gutierrez,
not guilty of tampering with evidence destruction come to you?
All right. Thank you, baby.
So you didn't let me get those forms.
Retrieve those forms from you.
I'm going to do what's called polling the jury.
What I need to put on the record is that
this is your individual verdict.
OK, so I'm going to start with the gentleman in
the back.
Is this your verdict? Yes,
ma'am. This is your verdict,
Hannah Gutierrez read There. The armorer on the set of
the movie Rust.
The day that Helena Hutchins was killed by a gun
going off on set.
Found guilty of involuntary manslaughter,
not guilty of tampering with evidence.
And you saw her there?
Yes, no reaction, very little reaction as those counts were
read.
I want to bring in our NBC News legal analyst,
Danny Cevallos, who is joining us as well.
And here we have Hannah Gutierrez Reed in her late
20s after two weeks now of this trial.
Alec Baldwin will go to trial later on this year.
Remember, this is separate now from the case on Baldwin
as we keep an eye.
Danny, on this live look inside court,
can you first explain the difference in these charges here?
Why would a jury find her guilty of one charge
but not the other?
Help us understand that
so far, That's the one that mystifies me the most
and approves the old adage that you simply can never
guess at what a jury is going to do.
If anything, I would have said the tampering with evidence
might have been the slam dunk
and the involuntary manslaughter charge,
what might have been an acquittal,
although this was the stronger of the two cases that
the State had.
After all, the case that they had was that Hannah
Gutierrez Reed was somebody with responsibility for firearm safety on
set.
Now she shared that with other people and named the
defense,
made a case that she was overworked and made to
do 2 jobs.
And I rather think the state,
when they made their initial promise that they would prove
where the live rounds came from,
it seemed to me most of their proof was well,
where else could they have come from but Hannah?
Gutierrez read. But it appears
that the jury has believed the state's evidence to beyond
a reasonable doubt.
And the way I saw this case is that either
an acquittal or a conviction is good news for Alec
Baldwin for several reasons.
Number one, no matter what,
Yeah, no matter what, Alec Baldwin's team gets a first
look at the evidence.
This was one of several missteps by the state trying
these two defendants separately.
So now Alec Baldwin's seen pretty much with the state's
cases,
and frankly, I think that if you're Alec Baldwin's team,
you take the state's case against Hannah Gutierrez Reed,
and that's your defense case.
It's pointing the finger at somebody else who is responsible.
They will put Hannah Gutierrez Reed on trial,
the defense for Alec Baldwin,
and now they've had the benefit of the state doing
that job for them
just before Alec Baldwin's trial.
Now with a conviction, I think that's good for Baldwin
because he can voice the blame on her.
And an acquittal would also be good for Baldwin,
because it shows that the
state's case isn't strong, and it's their strongest case,
that one against the armor,
She would face, I believe,
up to 18 months behind bars.
If in fact the judge follows the sentencing guidelines ultimately,
which will happen down the road,
Danny, is this appealable? In other words,
is she expected? Is her team expected to appeal?
Potentially,
yes. Every conviction is appealed as of right to the
intermediate Court of Appeals.
Now the rules are slightly different from state to state
and the federal system,
but in terms of time to do it,
but that is the rule.
You get an automatic appeal to the intermediate Court of
Appeals.
Appeals beyond that are discretionary and there will be appealed.
This case will be appealed.
There's no doubt about it and they may have
some legal issues on appeal,
but it's it's always a hollow promise that the appeal
will come because statistically your odds are just so slim
on appeal. And you know,
in any case, whether it's a
a high risk case like I think this is,
or just your run-of-the-mill case you've never heard of,
an appeal after conviction really isn't much
much of A an assurance if your client's going to
be spending that time incarcerated.
So then what happens now?
We just saw that shot and obviously there's some emotion
in court.
It's not clear who the folks are sitting in the
back right now.
We'll get to our producer and our correspondent Dana Griffin,
who are in court later on.
Once they leave the room,
does she immediately get remanded to custody here?
Danny, Is that why? Is that what's happening?
Well, typically whether or not a defendant gets remanded immediately
after a conviction is really not related to what their
sentence will be.
If you do look at the gravity of the crime,
usually that's a function of has she been out
prior to the verdict and has she done well on
pretrial release?
Then often you can you can remain out.
However, sometimes the DA will ask for remand after a
conviction in a case where for example,
you have an involuntary manslaughter.
And so the interesting thing here is that the remand
itself is not necessarily related to our sentencing,
but the sentencing will likely not happen for some time.
They have to put together a sentencing memorandum and a
pre sentence investigation report.
We saw Gutierrez read. It looked like comforted there briefly
as she is now exiting the courtroom.
And Danny, as you mentioned,
we are now looking ahead of course to the trial
of Alec Baldwin which is supposed to start in July.
Lots of developments, lots of breaking news on that front.
Thank you very much for walking us through it here
and rolling coverage right here on NBC News now.
Thanks, Danny.