Tyler Robinson defense tries to disqualify entire Utah Country prosecutors office because attorney’s daughter was on UVU campus during Charlie Kirk assassination

She did not witness the shooting and is not a witness in the case. Prosecutors told Judge Graf that the daughter's life was not disrupted, she did not seek therapy, and she did not miss classes.

After hearing the arguments from both sides, Judge Graf said he would issue his ruling on February 24 at 10:30 am local time. Once the matter of prosecutor disqualification is dispatched, the next matter of business will be whether or not cameras will be permitted in the court room. One still camera and one video camera have been permitted in the court room during hearings, but they have been heavily restricted as to what they can show and not show. That hearing will be via Webex and will be audio only as the defense has been insistent that Robinson not be seen on camera.

The prosecutor in question, known as "Prosecutor A" in court docs and identified in the courtroom as Chad Grunander, testified. He said that he has been a prosecutor with the Utah County Attorney’s Office for nearly 22 years.

He said he was making a presentation to the elected county attorneys for the state of Utah at a conference around the time of the shooting, and that after he finished his presentation, he began receiving text messages from his daughter, with one sent at 12:26 pm local time stating, in all caps, "someone was shot," and another message that said "something to the effect of I’m okay."

He said he and his daughter spoke briefly over the phone moments later, adding that "I don’t know that we even talked too much about the facts" of what occurred, "but I wanted to make sure she was okay." He said he spoke with Gray about the messages and alerted him to the situation, as well as a few attorneys in the Utah County Attorney’s Office. He testified that by around 12:50 pm he was on the road heading down to Utah County.

When he arrived, he and Gray "tried to understand what was happening. It was quite chaotic." When asked if he had mentioned to anyone that his daughter was a potential witness, to which he replied that he was "sure I mentioned that my daughter was there and left a bag behind," but "I don’t think I would have, I am confident I didn’t characterize it as she’s a potential witness here, or say that she was there during the incident that happened."

He said, as chief deputy in the office, he was "part of the effort in deciding what charges were appropriate," but added that Gray "has to approve the charges" in any homicide case. "The ultimate approval was Mr Gray’s."

He said that in the days following the shooting, "by the time we were talking about the death penalty my role was, do we have the facts to support an aggravating factor under Utah law that would support a potential death penalty case, but I don’t remember a conversation with Jeff Gray where he asked, what would you do in this situation. But there would have been discussions."

When asked what motivated him to disclose his link to the shooting to the defense, he said, "what motivated my behavior was to act wth professionalism and integrity, disclose this to the defense. But don’t mistake our disclosure, my disclosure, our abundance of caution, our professionalism, integrity, to be a concession that we believe there’s merit to this alleged conflict."

During the state’s turn to question the prosecutor, he was asked what effect did his daughter’s presence at the shooting have on him, to which he said, "I was, I mean, obviously concerned when I first heard and saw these text messages… and then it was, there was work to be done, and so we got busy trying to understand what had happened that day and start to put the pieces together."

He said it did not affect the decisions he has made as an attorney, and that it did not affect the charging decision that was made or the decision to seek the death penalty.

Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray testified before the court during the hearing, telling the defense that the prosecutor the defense is seeking to remove from the case was present during the "informal" discussions the office had after Robinson’s arrest regarding the decision to seek the death penalty.

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During questioning from the state, Gray said that he had not met the prosecutor in question’s child, and that the presence of the child at the shooting had "zero" effect on the decisions he has made in the case, including to seek the death penalty.

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He said that he gave the notice of intent to seek the death penalty when he did because he learned from another high-profile case that "the longer you delay that decision," it "just creates all this unnecessary public speculation." Gray said he chose to seek the death penalty "because the evidence that had been gathered supports the aggravated murder charge, and I believe that the death penalty is entirely appropriate in this particular case."

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Judge Tony Graf denied a motion from the defense team representing Tyler Robinson requesting that the Utah Attorney General’s Office handle a motion from the defense that seeks to disqualify a Utah County Attorney’s Office lawyer because he has an adult child who witnessed the shooting.

"The defendant argues that there exists a known factual basis suggesting a potential conflict," said Graf. He added, "the court has carefully considered that argument and reviewed the briefings, however, the statute does not adopt the standard proposed by the defendant, nor does such a standard appear in existing case law or court rules."

He later added, "there is no indication that the Utah County Attorney’s Office lacks the resources, knowledge, or ability to litigate the motion to disqualify on behalf of the state." He said the court could not make the findings "to justify referral to the Attorney General’s Office."

The daughter who witnessed the September fatal shooting at Utah Valley University’s campus testified on Tuesday. The parties in the case requested that the court go into a closed session for her testimony, saying that there are "privacy and safety" reasons to do so. Judge Graf partially denied the motion, saying, "the court finds that closure of the adult child witnesses’ testimony is not necessary and would not be narrowly tailored under circumstances presented." Graf allowed the court to temporarily go into a closed session so that the adult witness so that she could give "identifying information."