A Utah judge found on Tuesday that prosecutors had presented enough evidence to try a 23-year-old man for murder in the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, and allowed them to seek the death penalty.
The highly anticipated ruling by Judge Tony Graf was a major step forward in one of the country’s most scrutinized murder cases. Shortly after the ruling, the defendant, Tyler Robinson, entered a plea for the first time through his lawyer: not guilty to all charges.
In his ruling, Judge Graf said prosecutors had reached the probable cause standard to bring Mr. Robinson to trial on aggravated murder, which could bring with it the death penalty, as well as all six of the lesser charges they had brought against him, including felony discharge of a firearm causing serious injury, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Mr. Robinson, dressed in a light gray suit and seated beside two of his lawyers in a courtroom in Provo, Utah, showed little reaction. He peered at his lawyer’s laptop screen and examined his fingernails.
Behind him in the packed courtroom gallery, Mr. Robinson’s mother quietly cried, and his father hung his head. A few rows back, Mr. Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, dabbed her eyes as Judge Graf read aloud a lengthy order that detailed her husband’s killing and the judge’s legal rationale for sending Mr. Robinson to trial.
Mr. Kirk’s family issued a statement on Tuesday calling the ruling “an important step in our family’s pursuit of justice.” But in court, Jeffrey Neiman, a lawyer for the family, also expressed some frustration at how slowly the legal process was moving and urged the judge to “set this trial as soon as practically possible.”
The ruling came nearly a year after Mr. Kirk was assassinated during an open-air speaking event attended by thousands at Utah Valley University in Orem. And it is still unclear when Mr. Robinson will go to trial, or how long the trial might last. Judge Graf said he wanted to set a trial date at the next hearing, which he scheduled for Oct. 23.
Kathryn Nester, one of Mr. Robinson’s lawyers, suggested there could be more lengthy procedural fights ahead, telling the judge that there were still “many, many phases of trial before we even get to the trial.”
Prosecutors say the evidence against Mr. Robinson is overwhelming. During a weeklong hearing in July, they presented surveillance videos of Mr. Robinson near the crime scene and text messages in which he confessed to his roommate and lover, Lance Twiggs, that he had killed Mr. Kirk because he had “had enough of his hatred.”
Mr. Robinson’s lawyers have questioned DNA and ballistic evidence tying Mr. Robinson to the killing on Sept. 10. But they have not offered a concrete defense, apart from arguing that Mr. Robinson should not face the death penalty.
The defense tried to get capital punishment taken off the table by arguing that Mr. Kirk’s assassin had fired just once and hit his “intended target,” and thus had not put anyone else in grave danger — an aggravating factor that makes the murder charge against Mr. Robinson eligible for the death penalty.
“The shooter did not miss his intended target and did not chamber another round, leaving the spent cartridge in the rifle,” Mr. Robinson’s court-appointed lawyers wrote.
But Judge Graf rejected that argument on Tuesday. He said prosecutors had established probable cause that Mr. Robinson had knowingly put at least one other person in danger by climbing to a rooftop and firing into a courtyard where Mr. Kirk was taking questions from the audience.
Judge Graf’s ruling followed several hours of oral arguments from Utah County prosecutors and Mr. Robinson’s defense lawyers. Mr. Robinson chatted and laughed with his lawyers at the start of the day, and did not glance at anyone in the packed gallery behind him, including his family or Mr. Kirk’s.
Ms. Kirk was a constant presence at the preliminary hearing in July, and again on Tuesday. She watched the proceedings intently, once bowing forward and clutching her head when one of the lawyers mentioned the gunshot that killed her husband.
Mr. Kirk, 31, founded the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA and was one of the country’s most influential conservative Christian activists. A close ally of the Trump administration, he regularly hosted campus debates where he invited liberal critics to question him in exchanges that often went viral on social media. And he consistently opposed gay marriage and gender transitions, describing the latter as a “middle finger to God.”
Legal experts overwhelmingly expected Judge Graf to find probable cause to proceed to trial. Prosecutors argued that “this isn’t a close case.”
Mr. Robinson’s lawyers had challenged other elements of the prosecution’s case, including the contention that Mr. Robinson had killed Mr. Kirk because of his views, but Judge Graf said prosecutors had established those beyond a probable cause standard as well.
In order for Mr. Robinson to be convicted, jurors would need to find that Mr. Robinson was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, a much higher standard.
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