Will it be the Utah County Attorney’s Office to prosecute Tyler Robinson for allegedly murdering Charlie Kirk, or someone else?
Robinson’s defense has continued to argue to 4th District Court Judge Tony Graf that the entire county prosecutor’s office should be barred from the case. The Feb. 3 hearing was a continuation of a lengthy January hearing.
County attorney Jeff Gray was called to the stand, along with county prosecutor Chad Grunander and his 18-year-old daughter, who were also questioned.
Because Grunander’s daughter was at the Utah Valley University event where Kirk was killed, the defense contends that it creates, at the least, an appearance of conflict of interest. They allege that a father’s emotional response to his daughter potentially being in harm's way could have informed the office’s decision to quickly announce that it would seek the death penalty.
Judge Graf is scheduled to give a ruling Feb. 24. Until then, he told both sides to “move forward diligently” in their roles as he hasn’t made up his mind yet. So far, Robinson’s trial has moved in fits and starts with motions and debate over preliminary issues, like cameras in the courtroom and Robinson’s attire.
When Gray took the witness stand, he said that the presence of Grunander’s daughter at the event, which was also attended by 3,000 others, was “completely irrelevant to anything that matters in the case.” Gray pointed out that he ultimately had the final say on whether to seek the death penalty, not his colleague.
His office has described this as a laughable stall tactic and said in a recent court filing that “there has already been too much delay in this relatively new case.”
For safety concerns, the judge cleared the courtroom whileGrunander’s daughter, who is a freshman at UVU, said her name for the record. While attorneys on both sides asked the judge to keep the public out for her entire testimony, Graf denied their requests.
On the stand, she said she was a fan of Kirk’s and excited to attend his event. She said she loved watching Kirk’s videos where he debated people who disagreed with his conservative views.
While the 18-year-old said she could see Kirk from her standing position in the courtyard, she was looking away when she heard a popping noise. She would soon learn it was a gunshot. She heard someone say, “he’s been shot!” and ducked. She testified that she didn’t see Kirk when he was shot and didn’t see him at any point afterward.
Initially, she said she was scared until she ran to safety in a nearby building. Once she learned it was Kirk who had been shot, she felt sadness. Now, months after the shooting, the student said she is “totally fine,” and that there haven’t been any long-term effects. She hasn’t gone to therapy nor missed classes.
Grunander testified that he quickly called his daughter to make sure she was OK. After that, he went to the crime scene to focus on the case. The prosecutor testified that his daughter’s proximity to the shooting didn’t influence the charging decision or any of his decisions.
The Utah County Attorney’s Office emphasized that Grunander’s daughter is not a material witness.” The case, they said, hinges on who killed Kirk, and Grunander’s daughter can’t testify to the shooter’s identity. In essence, she’s not a witness to the murder, only a witness to the circumstances.
“Look, if Mr. Grunander were related to Charlie Kirk, we would acknowledge there's a conflict here, right? But we’re not even close to that,” Ryan McBride, a prosecutor with the county’s office, said.
But Robinson’s defense team argues this is not about whether the prosecutor’s child could be called to testify.
Defense attorney Richard Novak said the issue is that the most experienced and senior prosecutor in the office, other than Gray, was not firewalled from the case “until this Court had an opportunity to consider whether disqualification is necessary.”
Novak said the way Gray handled the potential conflict of interest issue, in what could be a capital punishment case, was "inappropriately casual.” If Gray had consulted outside experts, Novak said, and at least temporarily kept Grunander off the case, this problem could’ve been avoided.
Because that didn’t happen, Novak argued the whole office is tainted and should be kicked off the case.
Outside of the disqualification arguments, the issue of news media access came up again. Graf moved the pool videographer and photographer further back in the courtroom behind the tables where attorneys and Robinson sat, restricting what images they could capture. The defense wants to completely ban microphones and cameras from the courtroom.
The day before the hearing, attorneys for Erika Kirk, Kirk’s widow, filed a court notice urging the judge “to deny any unnecessary requests to limit public or media access and to ensure that courtroom proceedings remain open to the fullest extent consistent with the defendant's right to a fair trial.”
