A Utah judge on Tuesday (local time) ruled that the trial of Tyler Robinson, the 23-year-old accused of killing Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative political activist, can move forward.
District Judge Tony Graf announced his decision following a day-long probable cause hearing. Prosecutors asked the court to send the case to arraignment, while defence lawyers maintained that the evidence was not strong enough to move forward, NBC News reported.
The judge said prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to support an aggravated murder charge against Robinson, who faces a possible death sentence if convicted. He has, however, yet to enter a plea.
Robinson is facing trial after allegedly killing Kirk with a single rifle round fired from a rooftop during an event at Utah Valley University on 10 September. Kirk, 31, the co-founder of youth advocacy group Turning Point USA and a close ally of President Donald Trump, was addressing a crowd of more than 3,000 people during a tour for the group when he was shot from a nearby building. His assassination rocked US politics last year.
The high-stakes hearing on Tuesday came roughly two months after prosecutors laid out a comprehensive public reconstruction of the alleged events surrounding Kirk’s assassination and presented evidence against the suspect, including security video, digital records and forensic material.
Before announcing the ruling, lawyers on both sides presented their closing arguments on Tuesday. The evidence had already been presented in July. During the state’s closing arguments, Utah County prosecutor Ryan McBride told the court, “It’s not difficult to understand the motive here,” adding, “The defendant’s views were repugnant to the positions that Charlie Kirk famously took.”
McBride also alleged that Robinson endangered the lives of people who were present at Kirk’s event in September last year. He said, “You can’t shoot a rifle into a crowd of 3,000 people without knowing that you create a great risk of death to all those around your target.”
However, Robinson’s defence attorney, Richard Novak, argued that the state could not prove what motivated Kirk’s assassination. Novak said, “There’s no evidence as to really what was in Mr. Robinson’s mind, if in fact he was the shooter, about Charlie Kirk,” and added, “Because we have no testimony that Mr. Robinson had ever spoken about Charlie Kirk, that he’d ever heard anything he’d said, that he’d ever discussed anything” about Kirk.
A former State Bureau of Investigation agent, David Hull, characterised Robinson's movements before and after he shot Kirk. His testimony was accompanied by excerpts from campus video shown in court.
According to Hull, the suspect arrived at the university hours before the shooting, bought a meal from a Chick-fil-A restaurant on campus, and made contact with Kirk's advocacy group representatives. Later, Robinson changed outfits and took position on a rooftop overlooking the amphitheater where Kirk was speaking. In a video shown in court on 7 July, Robinson was crouching on the rooftop moments before firing shots at Kirk, following which he was seen running across the rooftop before climbing down to ground level and fleeing the scene on foot.
Prosecutors also played a separate video containing partially redacted excerpts from law enforcement investigators’ interview with Robinson's former romantic partner and roommate, Lance Twiggs. The latter reportedly told the investigators that Robinson expressed regret and "said he wishes he hadn’t done it.”
The ruling clears the way for the case against Robinson to proceed to the next stage, with the prosecution now set to pursue the aggravated murder charge.
