April 3, 2023: David Halls, the “Rust” assistant director who used the gun that killed the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021, pleaded no competition on Friday to a misdemeanour charge of the negligent use of a gun.

The plea makes Halls the person held criminally accountable for Hutchins’ death. Actor Alec Baldwin and the movie’s original armourer, Hanna Gutierrez-Reed, are charged with manslaughter over Hutchins’ death.

Both have been judged not guilty to the complaint, which carries 18-month prison sentences.

The judge in New Mexico overseeing the “Rust” case has sentenced the director to six months of probation without supervision, a $500 fine and 24 hours of service.

He will also have to complete a firearms safety course and testify in future “Rust” hearings or trials, stated by New Mexico Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer’s ruling. Halls had last agreed to the plea agreement in January.

Preliminary hearings for Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed are anticipated to begin in early May.

Notably, the hearing on Friday was the first to be held under the supervision of the judgement new special prosecutors, Kari Morrissey and Jason Lewis.

Until now, “Rust” has been routinely disturbed by complications concerning the deals of the case’s last special prosecutor.

Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor for this issue, took away earlier this month after Baldwin’s defence lawyers filed a movement requesting her disposal.

Her allegedly contradictory commitments were at the heart of the request for Reeb’s removal; Reeb was named special prosecutor before being chosen by the legislature. Baldwin’s lawyers fought that the state’s constitution contains people from simultaneously serving as prosecutors and legislators.

While Reeb and the district lawyers’ office abandoned the movement, Reeb’s decision to resign was followed by a New York Times report in June 2022. He presented in an email that working on the case could help her political future.