Gutierrez-Reed gets maximum 18 months for involuntary manslaughter in 'Rust' shooting

Apr. 15—Hannah Gutierrez-Reed pleaded with the judge not to send her to prison.

"I beg you, please don't give me more time," she said Monday. "The jury has found me in part at fault for this godawful tragedy. But that doesn't make me a monster; that makes me human."

Gutierrez-Reed, 26, said her heart "ached" for the family of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins — fatally wounded on the set during a rehearsal in October 2021 — and she hoped they have found peace.

But her words did not move District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, who sentenced the onetime armorer to 18 months in prison — the maximum — following her March conviction on an involuntary manslaughter charge. The judge said she'd considered giving the young woman a lesser sentence but decided against it because Gutierrez-Reed had failed to take responsibility or show remorse for her role in Hutchins' death.

"But for you, Ms. Hutchins would be alive, a husband would have his partner and a little boy would have his mother," the judge said to Gutierrez-Reed.

"Please take her," Sommer added, ordering Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office deputies to lead Gutierrez-Reed out of the courtroom.

The judge deemed Gutierrez-Reed's crime a serious violent offense as requested by the state, meaning she'll be required to serve at least 85% of her sentence — limiting the amount of credit she can earn through good behavior while incarcerated to 15%.

During her trial, prosecutors presented evidence Gutierrez-Reed inadvertently brought real bullets to the movie set south of Santa Fe and loaded one — rather than a dummy round — into a revolver used by the film's star and producer, Alec Baldwin, during a scene walk-through. Authorities contend Baldwin pointed the revolver in the direction of the camera Hutchins was standing behind, cocked the gun and pulled the trigger.

Baldwin — who has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with the incident and is set to stand trial in July — has claimed he didn't pull the trigger, and the gun discharged on its own.

Citing Gutierrez-Reed's age and lack of criminal record, Gutierrez-Reed and her lawyers had asked the court to sentence her to probation and grant her a conditional discharge, which would have given her an opportunity to avoid prison and a felony conviction. Special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis had asked the court to deliver the maximum sentence.

The judge said she considered sentencing Gutierrez-Reed to 12 months incarceration, followed by six months of probation, which would have allowed Gutierrez-Reed to complete her sentence in county jail instead of state prison. But Sommer said she decided against that because it would have meant giving the defendant "a pass" she did not deserve.

Sommer cited Gutierrez-Reed's own words in court Monday as evidence of her dismissive attitude toward the proceedings, plus a lack of remorse.

"I did not hear you take accountability in your allocution," the judge said to Gutierrez-Reed. "It was your attorney that had to tell the court that you're remorseful."

When given a chance to address the court, Gutierrez-Reed said she'd been young and naive when she took the job of armorer on the Rust set, "but I took my job as seriously as I knew how to — despite not having proper time, resources and staffing when things got tough. I just did my best to handle it."

However, she also said she was "saddened by the way the media sensationalized our dramatic tragedy and portrayed me as a complete monster, which has actually been the total opposite of what's been in my heart."

The judge highlighted those words — and other things Gutierrez-Reed said on jail calls while awaiting sentencing — as examples of Gutierrez-Reed's continued failure to accept responsibility.

Sommer read some parts of the call transcripts aloud, including passages in which Gutierrez-Reed complained about how much of her time the criminal proceedings were taking and how the process was "messing up her modeling career."

"This is while she's incarcerated awaiting sentencing," the judge said. "And what does she say about the death of Halyna? Hannah is dismissive of the judge talking about someone dying as a result of her actions. Hannah says she's looking at 13 months which is 'ridiculous over what happened.'

"Hannah says that 'people have accidents and people die.' It's an unfortunate part of life. But it doesn't mean she should be in jail," the judge added.

The court also heard from friends and family of Hutchins, 42, during the hearing, including at least one who traveled to Santa Fe from Los Angeles to speak at the hearing, and several others, including Rust director Joel Souza, who participated in the hearing via video.

They described the married mother of a young son as joyful, energetic and luminous, an exceptional artist and cinematographer whose presence on set was a "beacon of light."

Souza, who was injured by the same bullet that killed Hutchins, said his greatest desire was "that none of this ever happened," and that Hutchins was with her son again, in a home she'd purchased before Rust began filming but had never gotten to live in.

"These last two and a half years are difficult to put in words," Souza said.

"One moment, the world made sense," he said. "The next moment it didn't, and it still doesn't, and I don't know if it ever will again."

High-profile Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred — who represented Nicole Brown Simpson's family in O.J. Simpson's murder trial in the 1990s — spoke for Hutchins' mother, father and sister at the hearing.

In addition to reading a statement from Hutchins' mother, Olga Solovey, and father, Anatolii Androsovych, and sister Svetlana Zemo, Allred presented video statements the family recorded, despite the fact "they live in Kiev, where they are being bombed every single day."

"Her death has shattered my heart," Zemo wrote in her statement. "She was not just my sister, she was my friend and in a certain sense my second mother."

Allred told reporters outside the courthouse following the hearing neither Baldwin nor Gutierrez-Reed had called Hutchins' mother to express their condolences after her daughter's death.