The Utah judge in the murder case over Charlie Kirk’s killing held prosecutors in contempt of court on Friday over comments they made to media organizations about defendant Tyler Robinson’s guilt.
Judge Tony Graf says the comments violated his restrictions on what the two sides can say about the case outside of court.
But Graf denied a defense request to take the death penalty off the table as a sanction for the violation. He said the problem could
instead be resolved through the screening and questioning process for potential jurors, which is intended to weed out people who could be biased about the case.
Robinson has not yet entered a plea. The 23-year-old from southwestern Utah is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk, an ally of President Donald Trump who was shot in the neck while addressing a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University.
Defense attorneys had accused Deputy Utah County Attorney Christopher Ballard of trying to influence potential jurors by going on a “media tour” to talk about ballistics evidence in the case. Ballard also said prosecutors had enough evidence to show Robinson murdered Kirk.
The judge said the comments were not made out of any malicious desire to taint the jury pool. But he added that the comments about Robinson's guilt were "unreasonable" given the court's restrictions on speaking about the case.
Legal experts had said blocking the death penalty would have been an extreme remedy.
