'Rust' assistant director David Halls pleads no contest to weapons charge

Mar. 31—David Halls, 63, an assistant director of the ill-fated Western film Rust, pleaded no contest Friday to a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon in connection with the October 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, a 42-year-old wife and mother of a young son.

Halyna died and film director Joel Souza was injured on the film set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch south of Santa Fe after a prop gun held by Rust star and producer Alec Baldwin discharged a live round during a rehearsal.

State District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer gave Halls a suspended sentence of six months of incarceration, placing him on unsupervised probation for the term and requiring him to abide by standard conditions of release, including refraining from use of alcohol and non-prescription drugs.

Sommer also ordered Halls to pay a $500 fine, serve 24 hours of community service, complete a gun safety course within 60 days and cooperate with the state in the prosecution of his co-defendants' cases.

Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for firearms, ammunition and gun safety on the set, face one count each of involuntary manslaughter.

Halls, who appeared in court by video Friday wearing a brown shirt and earbuds in a darkened room and hallway, said little during the hearing, except to answer the judge's direct questions regarding his age and education, his understanding of his plea and his satisfaction with his defense attorney, Lisa Torraco.

Torraco confirmed Halls appeared at the virtual hearing from his home but declined to say which state he lives in. She wrote in a text message "he treasures his privacy."

She told the court Halls was standing about 3 feet from Hutchins when she was struck by the bullet and was "traumatized and just rattled with guilt and so many other feeling of 'What could I have done better? How could I have changed things?' "

Taking a plea of no contest was his way of making things easier on the Hutchins family and his co-defendants, Torraco said. She argued for a deferred sentence for Halls and said he was in a lot of pain after the incident.

Sommer denied Torraco's request.

"I'm not persuaded that a deferred sentence is appropriate for you in this case," the judge told Halls.

Torraco wrote in a text message she was unsure what kind of community service Halls would perform to satisfy the terms of his plea, as well as when or where he would perform the service.

"Mr. Halls can complete his community services in any nonprofit agency in the area in which he lives. It is ultimately his choice," Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, wrote in an email Friday.

By most accounts, Hutchins' death was a tragic accident that occurred as the result of the mistaken co-mingling of live rounds and dummy ammunition. Still, Halls, Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed were charged with criminal counts due to what First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies has characterized as their "reckless" negligence on set.

Court records said Halls had called out "Cold gun!" before handing the revolver to Baldwin to indicate it contained no live ammunition. But he did so without checking the gun to ensure every round was indeed a dummy round, prosecutor Kari Morrissey said Friday.

Morrissey noted Halls had served as the "safety coordinator" for the Rust production and had 30 years of experience. She also pointed out there had been reports of two "negligent discharges" of weapons on the set prior to the Oct. 21, 2021, shooting that killed Hutchins. In addition, she said, a camera crew had walked off the set the day before the shooting due to "safety concerns, among other issues."

Morrissey said the film crew was preparing to rehearse a scene in which the script called for Baldwin to pull his revolver in a "cross-draw motion" when the shooting occurred.

Gutierrez-Reed had handed the unloaded firearm to Halls prior to the incident, and he had checked to confirm it was empty before handing it back to her, Morrissey said.

The armorer then loaded the revolver with "what I think people believed were going to be dummy rounds," the attorney said, adding Gutierrez-Reed told Halls it was loaded with dummy rounds when she returned it to him.

"Now the protocol at this point in time is for Mr. Halls to check and confirm," Morrissey said. "He's kind of the last line of defense."

There is a way to easily check and see that a round is not an actual live round, she said.

"Mr. Halls did not check every round that was in the gun to confirm that it was a dummy round and not a live round. He then handed the gun to Baldwin."

Baldwin began to practice his cross draw, Morrissey said.

"And during that action ... the gun went off."

Torraco conceded the state could prove or convince a jury of those facts but disputed the scope of Halls' responsibility as safety coordinator.

"We deny that it's the role of the safety coordinator that he is in charge of safety," Torraco said. "If the people handling the firearms are negligent, he can't control how other people handle firearms.

"What he can do and what he was supposed to do is have safety meetings and trainings and make sure that people are aware that there are firearms on set, that there's horses on set, that people stay hydrated, that there's rattlesnakes in the area, things like that," she said. "But he doesn't have control over how individual people handle things."

He did check the firearm, Torraco said, but "in his mind he was checking for dummy rounds or blanks."

"Never in anyone's wildest dreams, never in anyone's imagination did anyone think there could possibly be a live round in the firearm," Torraco said. "Mr. Halls does not like firearms. His job is not to handle firearms. And so when checking the firearm, he wouldn't have even thought that there was a live round in that gun."

Friday's hearing was the first court appearance by Morrissey and co-counselor Jason Lewis, two New Mexico lawyers appointed by Carmack-Altwies as special prosecutors in the Rust cases last week. The original special prosecutor, state Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, a retired district attorney, stepped down earlier this month after defense attorneys raised questions about whether the New Mexico Constitution allowed her to prosecute a case as a sitting lawmaker.

Carmack-Altwies, who had been prosecuting the case with Reeb, announced she was stepping off the cases earlier this week after Sommer ruled state law did not allow her to work as co-counsel with a special prosecutor.

The second of two hearings on that matter, which had been scheduled Friday, was canceled as a result of the district attorney's decision.

Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed's cases have been joined for the purposes of trial, and a two-week preliminary hearing in the combined case is expected to take place in May.