The man accused of killing conservative leading light Charlie Kirk was in court Friday for a marathon hearing as his lawyers argued to push his case back four months and to keep cameras out of the courtroom going forward.
During the full-day hearing in a Provo, Utah, court, Robinson’s lawyers first asked a judge to postpone a three-day preliminary hearing scheduled for next month, claiming the defense still hadn’t received all the DNA evidence yet and were behind in wading through 200 terabytes of data turned over by prosecutors.
“There is not a enough time to determine everything we are missing,” argued Staci Visser, as she cited, the “sheer magnitude of what we are dealing with — dozens of law enforcement agencies and hundreds of reports.”
Prosecutor Ryan McBride claimed both sides had all the evidence they needed for the early-stage hearing which he argued didn’t need to be delayed.
“We shouldn’t punish the state and the victims and everyone else by delaying the proceedings,” McBride said.
Robinson, 23, is accused of fatally shooting the 31-year-old Turning Point USA co-founder in front of a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025.
Robinson’s lawyers have been fighting since the start of his case to limit the media from filming and photographing in the courtroom, claiming images of him could prejudice potential jurors and prevent him from getting a fair trial.
The defense has accused the media of sensationalizing the case, pushing political agendas and painting Robinson as a villain.
On Friday, Robinson’s team planned to call two experts to testify about how the non-stop coverage of the case will prevent him from getting a fair shake at trial.
The first witness, Dr. Brian Edelman, a California-based trial consultant, testified about how television coverage has been sensational rather than simply educating the public about the court hearings.
“This case is capturing this community’s attention,” Edelman said, citing the results of a survey he conducted. “Despite the size of this county, there is a 99% recognition rate.”
Edelman said in the large county of Utah, residents had a 99% recognition rate of Robinson which was extraordinarily high in his experience.
“They are following somewhat or very close already and nothing has really happened yet. We haven’t had the preliminary hearing. We haven’t had the big things happen,” Edelman said.
Kirk’s widow Erika, who is a victim representative in the case, has pushed for maximum press access – as have lawyers representing the media.
Press attorneys have claimed the more access the public has, the easier it is to debunk conspiracy theories that have swirled around the case.
Judge Tony Graf said he would set a hearing where he would read his decisions on whether to postpone trial and whether to continue to allow the press to livestream the hearings.
Robinson’s team recently lost a bid to boot the Utah County Attorney’s Office from prosecuting him because the daughter of one of the prosecutors was just 80 feet from Kirk when he was shot.
Judge Graf, however, said he wasn’t persuaded the prosecutor’s office was swayed in any of its prosecutorial choices simply because the daughter was at the public assassination.
Robinson’s team has also been fighting to prevent prosecutors from conducting any more testing of the ballistic evidence in the case following an initial report’s findings.
That report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) found the bullet jacket fragment taken from Kirk’s body during an autopsy was too damaged to be able to say for sure one way or the other whether it was fired from the rifle found at the scene of the crime.
The same report found a spent .30-06 shell casing was fired from the gun.
Robinson, who is being held behind bars, could face the death penalty if he’s convicted on the charge of aggravated murder.
