Tyler Robinson, the alleged gunman who fatally shot conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, is seeking to disqualify the attorneys prosecuting him in Utah.
Robinson’s defense team has raised concerns with one of the deputy county attorneys whose child attended the campus event at Utah Valley University where Kirk was shot, according to The Associated Press.
The 18-year-old attendee sent a series of messages to his father, who works in the Utah County Attorney’s Office, describing the slate of events.
While the second person in line was speaking with Charlie, I was looking around the crowd when I heard a loud sound, like a pop. Someone yelled, ‘he’s been shot,’” the attendee, whose name was redacted from court documents, stated in the affidavit, which was reviewed by the AP.
“CHARLIE GOT SHOT,” the attendee wrote later in the family group chat, as reported by the AP.
Robinson’s lawyers said the message thread “raises serious concerns about past and future prosecutorial decision-making in this case,” according to the court documents.
They suggested that the county was in a “rush” to seek the death penalty against Robinson in a display of “strong emotional reactions” while urging District Judge Tony Graf to dismiss prosecutors from the case.
Still, Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray has defended the team of prosecutors and says the messages will not impact the prosecution as the attendee is not a “material witness nor a victim in the case.”
“Under these circumstances, there is virtually no risk, let alone a significant risk, that it would arouse such emotions in any father-prosecutor as to render him unable to fairly prosecute the case,” Gray said in a filing, according to the AP.
Robinson was arrested last September and booked on suspicion of felony discharge of a firearm and obstruction of justice, in addition to the murder offense. President Trump, who considered Kirk a friend, has also called for the death penalty and railed against critics of the Turning Point USA co-founder.
A Utah judge last month also ruled that the transcript and audio recording of a closed-door hearing in the criminal case against the 22-year-old Robinson must be made public with some redactions.
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