Jury unexpectedly excused one day after defense filed emergency motion to dismiss
Jurors were seated only briefly on the morning of July 12, before Judge Sommer sent them home for the day after motions from the defense accused the state of destroying evidence.
Poppel testified that after Gutierrez was convicted of manslaughter in March for his role in Hutchins’ death, he received a box of ammunition from former Arizona State Trooper Troy Teske, a friend of Gutierrez’s father and previously described as a “good Samaritan,” later identified in court.
Spiro previously questioned Poppel about why she didn’t put the remaining evidence from the Rust case in the box.
This morning, before the jury was called in, Poppel again denied intentionally hiding anything, telling Spiro he did so because he was instructed to file it in a box under a different case number.
The defense claims that the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office and the state “hid from Baldwin that there was evidence that the live ammunition came from Seth Kenney.”
After the lunch break, prosecutors called Kenney, a PDQ prop owner who was hired to provide prop firearms and dummy bullets to Last Productions, to testify without the jury present as part of a hearing on the defense motion.
Kenny testified that while he had supplied dummy bullets for over 1,000 productions, there was “never a question” about whether he was able to bring real bullets onto the set.
Morrissey called the defense’s attempt to blame Kenney a “wild goose chase.”
