Lawyers for Tyler Robinson are trying to block prosecutors from playing video of the assassination of Charlie Kirk during an upcoming hearing.
Robinson has been charged with murder in the Sept. 10 death of the Turning Point USA founder, who was shot to death while speaking at Utah Valley University.
The Feb. 3 hearing concerns allegations from the defense that the prosecution should be disqualified because a child of one member of the Utah County Attorney’s Office was present when Kirk was killed, according to Fox News.
“This is a solid argument,” Donna Rotunno, a Chicago-based criminal defense attorney, said. Rotunno is a Fox contributor and is not connected with the case.
The prosecution has said it does not need to call upon the adult child who was at the college when Kirk was killed. Rotunno said playing the clip is not necessary to advance the argument that there is evidence available without hearing from the adult child or to prove no conflict of interest exists because of the adult child’s presence.
“The video should not be played if it isn’t needed to prove any material issues in the hearing,” she said. “I do not see how it is needed to determine if the prosecution should be disqualified.”
Skye Lazaro, a Salt Lake City-based defense attorney unconnected to the case, said she would not want the video played, noting that it is unclear how Judge Tony Graf will rule.
The defense filing said the objection to the video is based upon “Mr. Robinson’s right to a fair trial.”
“Mr. Robinson objects, here, to the admission into evidence in connection with this motion of the State’s proposed Exhibit 4.1, a close-up color video, with audio, of the shooting of Mr. Kirk. This proposed exhibit is clearly inadmissible. If admitted, which would be in contravention of the Utah Rules of Evidence, it should remain sealed until it is admitted into evidence, if it is, at trial,” the filing said.
It was unclear which video was being considered by the prosecution to be admitted. Multiple videos of Kirk being shot were shared on social media.
“Exhibit 4.1 is a video clip of the shooting of Mr. Charlie Kirk. The video is in color and from a distance of only a few feet away from Mr. Kirk. There is audio contained within the video clip capturing sounds, including unidentified voices, immediately before, during, and after the shooting,” the filing said, noting that vast pre-trial damage could be inflicted upon Robinson if the video is shown in court with the media present.
“Assuming that the hearing scheduled for February 3, 2026, will be televised, any video exhibit played at the hearing would be subject to immediate publication nationwide and internationally, absent a proactive decision by this Court to seal the exhibit,” the filing said.
“Exhibit 4.1 is graphic and likely highly disturbing to any person who views it, negatively impacting Mr. Robinson’s constitutional right to a fair trial,” the filing said
The filing said the video has no bearing on the defense’s claim that Utah County prosecutors should be barred.
The motion to ban the showing of the video also included a lengthy attack upon the media.
“As the highly biased traditional local and national media and nouveau international social media coverage of this case demonstrates, every in-court statement by attorneys representing the State, whether under oath or not, every statement by counsel for Mr. Robinson, and every observation and ruling by this Court are under a microscope and subject to micro-surgery by journalists, bloggers, media ‘experts,’ and others,” the filing said.
“To make matters worse, those media entities which now purport to refer to themselves as ‘litigants’ in this prosecution, in complete disregard of this Court’s admonition to the contrary, seek to ensure that every single pleading filed in and statement to this Court is available for widespread public dissemination long before a neutral, untainted, and reliably unbiased jury is ever impaneled, undoubtedly undermining the ability of this Court and the two litigants to do so,” the filing said.
“As the last two hearings demonstrate, repeated violations of this Court’s decorum order which, not coincidentally, arise from improper, prohibited telescopic views of Mr. Robinson and his counsel conferring at counsel table and result in absurd but widely published opinions from putative ‘lip readers’ and others who seek fame and future from interpreting facial expressions or the lack thereof, are brushed off by the media’s in-court representatives as unintentional mistakes that will not be repeated, again. This is, alas, the context in which the present hearing and the present objection must be viewed,” the filing said.
The filing also noted that before the hearing, “Mr. Robinson will, again, move this Court to prohibit both the videographer and the still photographer from capturing close-up images of Mr. Robinson while he is seated at counsel table.”
“Widespread publication of these images has served no legitimate purpose and merely fuels rampant unfounded speculation about Mr. Robinson’s state of mind during these proceedings,” the filing said.
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