Tyler Robinson, the man accused of murdering Charlie Kirk as he spoke at Utah Valley University, was back in court Friday. Robinson’s defense continues to argue for restricting public and media access by banning cameras in the courtroom and making court filings private.
On Friday, the defense was dealt a setback on that front. In January, Robinson’s lawyers filed a 262-page motion to ban cameras and microphones from the courtroom. They wanted it to be private, arguing it could bias the potential jury pool.
Fourth District Court Judge Tony Graf didn’t buy that.
“The public has a presumptive right to access court records,” the judge said in his ruling. However, he added that right is not “absolute.”
The currently secret filing, as described by the judge and attorneys, includes a list of media stories and discussions the defense views as harmful to Robinson — including commentary and conspiracy theories. The defense doesn’t want to publicize, again, stories it views as harmful by making the filing public.
Based on their arguments, it seems they are especially concerned about reporting on what politicians have said about this case — including President Donald Trump — that the defense says characterizes Robinson as guilty and deserving of the death penalty.
Graf, however, said the information is already out there, and therefore, the document should be as well. The judge will allow the defense to redact private information before the document’s release by the end of the month.
Another defense document dealing with evidence will also be unsealed. The argument against was that publicly talking about evidence at this stage could also bias the jury pool.
Defense attorney Staci Visser said they are not focused on public opinion, nor trying to sway it.
“There seems to be an idea that flooding the public sphere with information or evidence from this courtroom will somehow dispel conspiracy theories or shift public narrative. That, in and of itself, is concerning to the defense,” Visser told the judge. “No one should be worried about that. All we should be worried about is protecting what happens in this courtroom.”
Prosecutors recently suggested in their own filing that open proceedings help to “quell and contradict the tide of misinformation.”
Graf ruled that the defense’s arguments weren’t specific enough and said that the Utah Supreme Court recognizes, “even in highly-publicized cases, the defendant's right to a fair trial can be protected through the regular time-honored process for selecting jurors.”
That includes a larger jury pool and a more intensive screening process.
The bigger question of whether the public will be allowed to see and hear what happens in court through the media is still up in the air. An upcoming April 17 hearing will deal with cameras and recordings in the courtroom. The defense wants a ban, and the prosecutors in the Utah County Attorney’s Office have disagreed with a blanket ban.
In Utah, judicial rules say there’s a “presumption” that electronic media coverage by journalists is allowed in public court hearings. The rules also state a judge can restrict media coverage, like cameras, if there’s a compelling reason — like a likelihood it could “prejudice the right of the parties to a fair proceeding.”
University of Utah law professor RonNell Andersen Jones said camera debate often bubbles up in major cases people are interested in, with tensions between the defendant’s rights and public transparency.
As Judge Graf contemplates the arguments, Andersen Jones said he’ll have to weigh constitutional rights on both sides of the scale. There’s the public’s First Amendment rights to discuss the court system and view firsthand what the government is doing in its name. On the other side, the defendant has a right to due process and an impartial jury.
The level of national and international attention this case has garnered “exacerbates a lot of the pressures on both sides of the equation,” Andersen Jones said.
“It's hard to come up with a comparable precedent in Utah, in part because this is unquestionably the highest profile nationally followed crime to take place here,” Andersen Jones said.
The case is still in the pretrial stage. Robinson hasn’t even entered a plea yet. Teneille Brown, another University of Utah law professor, pointed out that there could be things shared now that won’t be shared in the actual trial. If a potential juror hears something, they can’t unhear it. And an impartial jury, Brown said, means jurors only decide the case based on the facts at trial, not outside information.
To her, it makes sense why the defense would be concerned about publicity and a fair jury in this case. Brown said it will likely already require going through a lot of potential jurors to find ones who can be impartial, given the gravity of the crime, the strong feelings people have about Kirk and the number of people who were at Utah Valley University during the shooting.
Still, Brown thinks a blanket ban on cameras in the courtroom is unlikely. She said there are narrower restrictions a judge can make.
“You're going to have to show that literally, having [cameras] every day for every topic and every witness is too prejudicial,” Brown said. “I think that's a pretty high bar.”
