BREAKING: Utah prosecutors say Tyler Robinson defense has not challenged 'substance of evidence demonstrating' his guilt in Charlie Kirk killing

In a new filing in the case against Tyler Robinson, the man charged with killing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Utah prosecutors argued that the defense, in its filing issued earlier in August, had not made valid challenges to the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing in July. They urged the judge to make a probable cause finding, allowing the case to move forward to its next stage. The case has not yet gone to trial as the one year anniversary of Kirk's murder nears.

The state wrote, “Defendant does not challenge the substance of the evidence demonstrating that he was the person who crawled to the sniper’s perch on the Losee Building rooftop, fired the fatal shot that killed Mr. Charlie Kirk, hid the rifle in a wooded area, got rid of some of the clothing he was wearing, and told his roommate to delete their texts about the shooting.”

“Rather, he merely asserts the repeatedly rejected claim that the overwhelming evidence establishing some of these facts could not be introduced as reliable hearsay at this preliminary hearing. Defendant therefore raises no valid challenge to the evidence supporting Count 1 as at least murder; Count 2, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury; Counts 3 and 4, obstruction of justice; or Count 5, tampering with a witness.”

Prosecutors wrote that the defense’s challenging of the aggravating circumstance in the case, that Robinson “knowingly created a great risk of death to another,” is based “on his misrepresentation of both the evidentiary standard at a preliminary hearing and the test for establishing the aggravating circumstance.”

The prosecution said that the defense “erroneously maintains that the test for establishing” the great-risk-of-death aggravating factor “depends on the presence of some minimum number of factors or circumstances.” 

“In fact, the Utah Supreme Court has expressly disavowed such an analysis. Instead, the governing test is the one the statute provides—whether a defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to another. The evidence here easily establishes at least probable cause to believe that Defendant did so when he intentionally fired his grandfather’s high-powered rifle towards a crowd of thousands, several of whom were in the line of fire between him and Mr. Kirk, while others were in close proximity to Mr. Kirk. Indeed, the evidence is more than sufficient to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The prosecution said that evidence presented at the hearing “supports a reasonable belief that the statutory test for the great-risk-of-death aggravator is satisfied here.” The prosecution wrote, “Here, there were several people close to Mr. Kirk when Defendant shot him dead. Most significantly, the questioner was directly between Defendant and Mr. Kirk, and within a few feet of Mr. Kirk. There were also several people who were near the questioner. There were also those with Mr. Kirk who were under or near his tent. All these people were visible in the clear line of sight between Defendant’s perch and Mr. Kirk’s seat.”

“Indeed, from a distance of 410 feet from Mr. Kirk, basic mathematics dictates that an angular shift of even one-eighth of an inch would result in a substantial miss of the intended target (either above, below, or to the right or left, depending on the direction of the shift) placing many others in danger.”

State's Reply Robinson by Hannah Nightingale