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The 22-year-old man charged with the murder of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk is due back court this week in Utah in his bid to get the prosecutor’s office tossed from the case.
Tyler Robinson’s defense team argues the county attorney’s office should be removed from the death penalty case because a deputy prosecutor’s 18-year-old child was at the September speaking engagement at Utah Valley University at which the conservative political activist was killed.
The county attorney’s office has denied any conflict of interest, saying the 18-year-old UVU student “did not see Charlie get shot” and “did not see anyone (in the crowd or elsewhere) with a gun,” court documents show.
On the heels of similar claims in two other high-profile murder cases, here’s what legal experts told CNN about whether the UVU student’s presence at the event where Kirk was slain could pose a conflict of interest:
The defense asserts the entire office of County Attorney Jeffrey Gray should be removed because “no effort was made to shield their prosecution of this case from his conflict,” according to a motion to disqualify filed in December.
Robinson’s defense cited Utah’s Code of Judicial Administration, which states attorneys can’t be involved in cases with “a concurrent conflict of interest,” which may include “a personal interest of the lawyer.”
But courts rarely accept conflict of interest arguments, said Paul Cassell, a criminal law professor with the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.
“There’s a presumption of good faith for prosecutors, and more broadly the government, and without some clear showing that there is reason to doubt the fairness of the proceedings, generally the proceedings will move forward,” Cassell said. “The chances of this prevailing based on other similar claims that have been presented are very, very low.”
Still, the court in Provo will weigh whether the parties “are making decisions predicated upon the merits, the facts, the law, and the circumstances only and that there are no outside influences that are going to impact the judgments that are being made,” CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said.
The defense has estimated some 3,000 people were at the event, according to a filing with declarations from five witnesses, some of whom described the scene as “pure panic” and “chaotic,” with one disclosing, “I thought I was about to die.”
The prosecutor’s office has said the 18-year-old would not be called as a witness because their knowledge of the incident “is based entirely on hearsay.”
The county attorney’s office, in its opposition to the disqualification motion, said comparing the defense’s witness statements to that of the prosecutor’s child shows “just how unnecessary (the child’s potential testimony) is in the case.”
“It’s ultimately going to turn on: How did the (adult child) witnessing that impact, impair, affect the decision, if at all?” Jackson said. “The issue before the court is whether an actual conflict – not a perceived conflict – has been presented and can be established based upon the chain of events.”
When Robinson’s case resumes Tuesday, Gray will finish his testimony before the defense calls three more witnesses: the prosecutor in question, his adult child and an investigator with the county attorney’s office.
If the judge agrees there is a conflict of interest, the response would more likely be “disqualifying a person who has been tainted by a particular conflict,” rather than an entire office, Cassell said. The latter would be a serious step, he said, because the Utah County Attorney is an elected official.
“If you disqualify an entire office, you’re essentially invalidating the results of the election,” he said.
If it happened, the case would likely be reassigned either to another prosecutor’s office in a neighboring county or to the state Attorney General’s office – all options which come with their own drawbacks.
Salt Lake County has resources similar to Utah County, but unlike Gray, its district attorney is a Democrat, which could impact the approach to the case. Counties to the south are smaller and may not have the resources necessary to prosecute a case of this magnitude, while reassigning it to the Attorney General’s office would remove it from the hands of an elected county official, Cassell said.
The alleged conflict of interest may have influenced the prosecution’s decision to pursue the death penalty so quickly in the case, the defense further implied in its filing.
In Utah, prosecutors have 60 days after an arraignment to file notice of intent to pursue the death penalty against a defendant.
Robinson will not be arraigned until after his preliminary hearing, which is scheduled to begin May 18 and last three days. As such, he has not yet entered pleas to charges including aggravated murder, felony use of a firearm, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
“The rush to seek death in this case evidences strong emotional reactions” by the county attorney’s office, the motion says.
The county attorney’s office pushed back in its response, saying, “There is nothing unusual or untoward about filing a death penalty notice before a preliminary hearing.”
The evidence and circumstances of the case “justify the death penalty,” and a delay “would have been unnecessarily unsettling and painful to Charlie Kirk’s loved ones and does not promote justice for anyone,” the court filing said.
“There’s going to be all kinds of information, of facts, that are going to come out in the hearing to determine if there was an … actual conflict,” Jackson said. “You want, at the end of the day, fairness in a system that doesn’t take anything into account but the case.”
Though conflict of interest claims can be infrequent in court, they’re not unprecedented.
Attorneys for Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk in 2024, filed a motion to bar the death penalty in his case over a conflict of interest with US Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Mangione’s attorneys argued Bondi should have recused herself from decision-making in the case because she had previously worked for Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm that represents UnitedHealth Group, before she joined the Trump administration.
The judge in that case ruled Friday that Mangione won’t face the death penalty – but not because of the conflict of interest claim.
She dismissed the federal murder charge he was facing, his only charge carrying the death penalty, because it hinged on his stalking charges being classified as “crimes of violence,” which the judge disagreed with based on Supreme Court precedent.
Brian Kohberger, who pleaded guilty in July to the gruesome stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, faced a conflict of interest issue with his own attorney.
His appointed public defender, Anne Taylor, had previously represented the parent of one of the victims, a 2023 court record shows.
Taylor told the court though she represented the former client for roughly three months, she had never met them nor provided any legal advice. The record shows the judge, with Kohberger’s agreement, allowed Taylor to continue representing him.
