BREAKING: Court 'anticipates' April 17 Tyler Robinson hearing, with witnesses, will be open to cameras

Judge Tony Graf said on Friday that he "anticipates" an upcoming hearing regarding Tyler Robinson, the man charged with assassinating Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk during a Utah campus stop in September, will be open to press. He also denied two motions and half-denied a motion from the defense to classify their motion to preclude electronic coverage.  

The April 17 hearing will include witnesses, the parties said. Graf said that "the presumption is that it will be open" regarding the next scheduled court date for Robinson. "The anticipation is it will be an open hearing, and again, if there is a portion that dictates that closure is appropriate after balancing all the factors, then there will be a closed portion," Graf said. 

The defense had argued regarding its motion to classify that Robinson had been subjected to "prejudicial pretrial publicity" from figures such as the president. The defense said that they moved to classify the motion because "we don't want to be in a position of inflicting another wound on Mr. Robinson’s right to a fair and impartial jury by republicizing, either right now in arguing this motion or on the 17th when the court hears from us, what the nature and extent of that pretrial publicity is."

He said that the "main concern" for the defense was the "tendency in this case for the press to, first of all, highlight all of the prejudicial information." He cited one news story in which it "focuses on let’s repeat for our audience, in a very dramatic fashion, all of the prejudicial statements made by politicians, from the president on down, characterizing Mr. Robinson as an animal, characterizing him as evil, characterizing him as deserving of the death penalty. And they string together all these quotes and rebroadcast them."

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