Observations from the Trial of Hannah Gutierrez and Thoughts on the Livestreaming of Trials

I’m sure by now that most, if not all of you, are aware that Hannah Gutierrez, the Rust movie armorer, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on March 6, 2024. Like most trials these days, her trial was livestreamed on the Internet. I watched some of the trial and commentary about the trial on YouTube, and I have some thoughts. 

First, the defense’s gun safety expert, Frank Kouchy III, has been accused of not following proper gun safety protocol in the courtroom. The judge in the trial, Mary Marlowe Sommer, told Kouchy he was making everyone nervous since he had not demonstrated that the guns he was using were unloaded. The special prosecutor in the case, Kari Morrissey, also got into a heated exchange with Kouchy over gun safety, and she also claimed that he pointed the gun in the judge’s direction. I think we can all learn a lesson from these moments in court—choose your experts carefully and review what they will discuss in court. 

Second, attorneys need to be prepared during trials. Being a litigator is not easy, but a litigator should at least be prepared for obvious things that will happen. There is one moment in particular I am thinking about. After the verdict was read, the state requested that the defendant be taken into custody before sentencing. The defense attorney argued that his client should not be taken into custody, but it took him a couple seconds to scroll through his phone and find and cite the rule that would allow that (Rule 5402 Release Pending Sentencing). He should have had that rule memorized or at least already pulled up on his phone. One commentator I watched said that he should have already had that rule pulled up on his phone once he was notified that a verdict was reached. This is because the jury only took about two and a half hours to deliberate, and guilty verdicts are generally what happens when a jury does not take very long to deliberate.    

Third, we need to remember that defendants are innocent until proven guilty. I have listened to some commentators insist that particular defendants are guilty despite not having been ruled guilty by a jury. This causes lay people to automatically assume that a defendant is guilty. While people are free to think what they want, I think other attorneys and commentators need to be careful in how they speak about defendants. This may taint society’s thoughts about criminal defendants generally, which could harm our justice system. 

I will conclude this blog by discussing my thoughts on livestreaming trials. Overall, I think livestreaming trials makes our legal system more transparent, which is very beneficial given the legal system is not transparent in many countries. Also, I think trials can educate attorneys, law students, and the public about our legal system. I regularly watched a trial the same semester I took Evidence, and it was helpful to watch objections and see how the judge would rule on those objections. Still, I think the public can negatively interfere with trials when they are livestreamed. For example, during Darrell Brooks’ trial, there was a Reddit post posted by someone pretending to be a member of the jury. That post discussed the purported juror’s thoughts on the case. While the jury was deliberating, the judge brought up the Reddit post so it would be in the court record. The post turned out to be fabricated, and the person who posted was not a juror on the case. Still, something like that could take up the court’s time and cause delay.