Charlie Kirk assassination case judge to rule on removing death penalty

Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin Tyler Robinson is expected to learn whether a Utah judge will grant his defense team’s request to have the potential death penalty taken off the table in response to alleged gag order violations by the prosecution Friday.

Judge Tony Graf Jr. is expected to rule on whether prosecutors violated his gag order or state court rules and, if so, what the possible sanctions should be.

Robinson’s defense team has said the only appropriate remedy is to remove the potential death penalty — which Utah County prosecutors say would be a disproportionate response, if the judge sides with the defense.

“The only way that this Court can demonstrate that its orders, and the ethical rules that counsel must obey, are not optional when it comes to the State’s attorneys, even in this case, is to impose the sanction undersigned counsel have urged upon this Court: striking the State’s death notice,” reads the filing, signed by defense attorneys Kathryn Nester, Richard Novak, Michael Burt and Staci Visser.

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Tyler Robinson is accused of fatally shooting Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at a public speaking event at Utah Valley University in September. (Bethany Baker/Pool via REUTERS, Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)

Prosecutors have countered that they did not violate the gag order or any other court rules when they “set the record straight” after what they call a misleading statement from a defense filing led to viral news coverage suggesting that the ATF could not match the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk to the suspected murder weapon, Robinson’s grandfather’s rifle.

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The ATF could neither identify nor exclude Robinson’s grandfather’s rifle as the source of the bullet fragment recovered from Kirk, describing the tool mark analysis as inconclusive, according to court records. But the caliber was consistent, and a spent casing was also a match.

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Charlie Kirk throws a “Make America Great Again” hat to the crowd at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 10, 2025. Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was speaking at his “American Comeback Tour” when he was shot in the neck and killed. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)

Neither the gag order on Robinson’s case nor state court rules prohibited prosecutors from correcting what they saw as the defense’s misleading court filing, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted of assassinating Kirk during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025.

Investigators search a taped-off area in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 11, 2025, related to the hunt for evidence in the assassination of Charlie Kirk during a rally at UVU. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

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The back-and-forth has evolved into a war of words, with prosecutors accusing the defense of releasing misleading information through court filings, and the defense accusing prosecutors of “hubris” when responding in a string of media interviews they claim violate a gag order.

Robinson will attend remotely from jail. He has not yet entered a plea and is not expected to until after his preliminary hearing, which is scheduled to take place over a week in early July.