Charlie Kirk's Accused Killer Speaks in First Court Appearance

Could you state your name?

Tyler James Robinson

Tyler Robinson suspected killer of political activist Charlie Kirk who was brazenly gunned down in cold blood last week in front of a packed Crowd out in Utah has officially been charged and appeared in court for the very first time We are breaking down all of the legal angles of today's developments from the charges the evidence Anyone else going to be arrested, and most importantly, what can we expect next? Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law & Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

We have charges and a first court appearance for 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting to death political activist Charlie Kirk last week at a speaking debating engagement at Utah Valley University. And I want to get into what just happened at this first court appearance, right? We're going to talk about the charges, the defenses, evidence, discord, a lot about that too, federal charges. But what did the day start with?

There was a press conference held out in Utah to announce the formal state charges Here's Utah County Attorne

filing a criminal informa Robinson, age 22 with the Count one aggravated murd intentionally or knowingly causing the death of Charlie Kirk under circumstances that created a great risk of death to others. Count two, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, a first-degree felony. The state is further alleging aggravating factors on

counts 1 & 2 because the defendant is believed to have targeted Charlie Kirk based on Charlie Kirk's political expression and did so knowing that children were present and would witness the homicide. The state is also charging defendant with count three, obstruction of justice, a second degree felony for moving and concealing the rifle used in the shooting. Count four, obstruction of justice, a third degree, a second degree felony for

disposing the clothing he wore during the shooting. Count five, witness tampering, a third degree felony for directing his roommate to delete his incriminating texts. Count six, witness tampering, a third degree felony for directing his roommate to stay silent if police questioned him. And count seven, commission of a violent offense in the presence of a child, a class A misdemeanor,

for committing homicide knowing that children were present and may have seen or heard the murder and did so based on Charlie Kirk's political expression. Okay, again, those are state charges, not federal charges, state charges. And Gray announced that they plan to file a notice of intent to seek the death penalty here. Yes, there are some new details. Yes, there are new charges here because when you look at the original probable cause affidavit that listed murder and obstruction and the firearm discharge charges, those were the ones he was booked on.

We now learned about these aggravating factors, right, about children and political expression and these witness tampering and additional obstruction and violent offense charges. This is new. And by the way, Gray revealed a lot more details too that are going to be pivotal in this case. Reading from the criminal information that was filed here, and yes, there's no grand jury that's necessarily used in Utah, but this is like kind of like the indictment of

criminal information. Aside from all of this surveillance footage allegedly capturing Robinson before, during and after the shooting, including on the roof, you need to listen to this. They claim that he deposited the rifle in the woods right after the shooting. Right. The information says, quote, the rifle, ammunition, and towel were sent for forensic processing.

DNA consistent with Robinson's was found on the trigger, other parts of the rifle, the fired cartridge casing, two of the three unfired cartridges, and the towel.

Wow.

Oh, and also, quote, police executed a search warrant on Robinson's residence. During that search, police discovered a shell casing with etchings like the etchings found on the shells in the rifle near UVU. Police also found several targets with bullet holes in Robinson's home. So not only do they have evidence linking him to this alleged crime, they're also trying to show, right, preparation, planning.

And these etchings that were found with the alleged murder weapon. What am I talking about? Notice is bulge. Oh, W.O. What's this? Hey, fascist catch.

Oh, Bella, ciao, Bella, ciao, Bella, ciao, ciao, ciao. If you read this, you are gay. So we go back to the idea. If they found etchings at his place that are consistent with this, it's pretty strong. You might think watching Sidebar you've seen it all.

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outside the badge to break the case from unforgettable setups to shocking reveals. Every episode proves when killers think they got away with murder. Think again. Watch 50 ways to catch a killer with 50 cent exclusively on Fox Nation. So the information also goes into how Robinson's mother and father suspected he was the shooter based on the images that were released by law enforcement.

They apparently spoke to him on the phone. They had a family friend help turn himself in. So now you're talking about potential witnesses who will testify against him. OK, but we got to talk about this roommate. OK, this roommate is so important to this case. You may have seen talk about this roommate. Okay. This roommate is so important to this case. You may have seen reporting about the roommate.

Governor Spencer Cox had announced that the roommate was cooperating. And now you're seeing how Robinson is accused of trying to get this roommate to delete evidence and stay quiet. But the criminal information and gray, my gosh, revealed something else. Confirmed what was reported that Robinson was apparently in this romantic relationship with this roommate who Robinson's mother claimed was a biological male transitioning genders.

But here is what the criminal information says. On September 10th, 2025, the roommate received a text message from Robinson, which said, drop what you're doing. Look under my keyboard. The roommate looked under the keyboard and found a note that stated, I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it.

Police found a photograph of this note. After reading the note, the roommate responded in a text, what? With a ton of question marks and you're joking, right? To which Robinson replies, and I'm going to read portions of this text message exchange, I am still okay my love, but I'm stuck in Orem for a little while longer yet. Shouldn't be long until I can come home, but I got to grab my rifle still.

To be honest, I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age.

I am sorry to keep this secret till I died of old age. I am

sorry to involve you." The roommate writes, you weren't the one who did it, right? And Robinson replies, or Robinson allegedly replies, I am. I'm sorry. The roommate then later asks why, to which Robinson allegedly writes back, why did I do it? Roommate? Yeah. Robinson. I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out.

The roommate also asks, How long have you been planning this? To which Robinson allegedly replies, A bit over a week, I believe. And then Robinson allegedly writes about getting the rifle, I'm wishing I had circled back and grabbed it as soon as I got to my vehicle. I'm worried what my old man would do if I didn't bring back grandpa's rifle.

I don't know if I had a serial number, but it wouldn't trace to me. I worry about prints. I had to leave it in a bush where I changed outfits, didn't have the ability or time to bring it with. I might have to abandon it and hope they don't find prints. How the bleep will explain losing it to my old man? Goes on to say, remember how I was engraving bullets? The bleeping messages are mostly a big meme. If I see notices, bulge UWU on Fox knew I might have a stroke. Robinson then allegedly

texts delete this exchange and don't talk to the media please. Don't take any interviews or make any comments. If any police ask you questions, ask for a lawyer and stay silent. So that makes up the witness tampering charges, right? And how much of that, that exchange is consistent with the allegations that authorities put out about what the shooter did, right? I know, I know.

It's how many times do we talk about text messages being some of the most important evidence you can have in a criminal case? Sometimes it's ambiguous. What did they mean?

What not?

This is really unambiguous in my opinion, but I'm going to debate it out in a minute. But then later on in the day, Tyler Robinson made his first court appearance. It was virtual. He appeared via the Utah County Jail, but it was an appearance for the Fourth Judicial District Court.

Could you state your name?

Tyler James Robinson.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Robinson. I'm Judge Graff. Mr. Skourtis.

Good afternoon, your honor. You're probably already aware of my presence or why I'm going to turn it over to you Mister scott us. Good afternoon, your honor you're probably already aware

of my presence or why I'm here

but if not I am not entering

appearance, I'm not Council on this case I'm working with the

county to get Council. Assigned but we need you to allow for the appointment of Council. Thank you Mister score is. It is well I want to go through the qualifications for indigent see but that is my intent Mr. score is very well and I thank you for being here.

So Mr. Robinson, you have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one the court can appoint an attorney to represent you. I have reviewed your declaration of financial status and find that you are indigent. I'm provisionally appointing a Rule 8 qualified attorney to represent you on your case, Mr. Robinson. Along with the filing of their appearance of counsel, the assigned attorneys must file declarations with the court that outline their qualifications under Rule 8 and rule 8c, I'm sorry under rule 8b and rule 8c for a council appointment in a case where death may be a sentencing option. I'm ordering that those

declarations be filed prior to the next hearing date which is set for September 29th at 10 a.m. Mr. Robinson, I also wish to inform you of your rights against self-incrimination. Anything that you say in court today could be used against you and we want to protect your constitutional rights. Mr. Robinson, at this time, you will remain in custody without bail. Mr. Skourtis, is there any other points that you wish to address? No, thank you very much. Your honor. Turning to the state.

Yes, your honor. Chad Grunander for the state. I'm also joined and they're listed as attendees. Ryan McBride, Lauren Hunt, David Sturgill and Chris Ballard. We are the trial team on this case. I do have a few points I'd like to bring up with your honor. We have filed a pretrial protective order

on behalf of Erica Kirk. We would ask the court to review that. It should be in your queue, your honor, and sign that.

Thank you.

I have reviewed the pretrial protective order and will be grant issuing this pretrial protective order in favor of Erica Kirk.

Is there any other business that we need to address today, counsel? Just for the court's information, we did file just recently within the last few minutes a notice of intent to seek the death penalty that was filed by Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray. That should be in the court's file. Lastly, I would just indicate to the court and to, at this point,

Mr. Robinson that we are prepared to collect all of the discovery in this matter and get that turned over to the defense as soon as possible. Rule 16 requires us to provide what we have relied on in charging the information and bringing these charges within five days once it's requested. So that'll be prepared to disseminate to the defense as soon as possible.

All right. So now I want to talk about all of this and let me bring on renowned criminal defense attorney, Bradford Cohen. Bradford, so good to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time. First of all, I want to go over what we just saw in this court appearance. Why was there a protective order issued for Erica Kirk, right? Charlie Kirk's widow,

the victim's widow in this case. What is that about? Yeah, it's not unusual. It's usually typical in these type of cases where even if the individual is not getting a bond, the prosecutor always asks for a stay away order or a non-contact order. And why they do that is because just in case a third party is contacting, like they don't want someone calling from jail and speaking to their father, their mother, not that that would happen in this case, but I'm just saying in any case, they don't want

them speaking to anyone else and saying, hey, you should really have a discussion with Erica or see if she will back off the death penalty or anything like that. And that's why they enter these orders. And it's typical in these type of cases, not just typical in these type of cases, typical in any kind of violent crime whatsoever.

Is that also because he's been charged with obstruction and witness tampering? There's an emphasis on making sure that nobody harasses her or tries to talk to her in any

way?

Sure. I think that that's, that can be one of the reasons, like I said, I think it's very typical, especially in high pro, so I've had high profile cases across the board where, especially in high profile cases, they don't want anyone that is related to the case contacting the victim's family or any of the immediate people that are around him, friends, anything like that. And this is, you know, it's a really horrible case.

So I don't think, I didn't expect them not to do that. Let me put it that way. I thought that they would have something in effect that would say don't contact either his wife, his kids or of counsel under Utah law. He can't afford his own attorney. Very interesting, because it seems at this point he's not getting any financial support from family or friends. Were you surprised to hear that?

Not really. I think that, you know, at this point, this individual is persona non grata with everyone. I don't see his family really stepping up and paying for an attorney for him, not knowing what I know, if it is true, the discussions he had with his father, the discussions he

had with another sheriff that ended up helping him surrender. I'm not surprised that he doesn't have the money or that his family is not going to give him the money or that his family is not going to give him the money. It would also not shock me if some of these fringe, real left-wing organizations might come up with money to donate to him. You know, in these cases, it's really quite interesting where individuals that have allegedly committed horrible crimes are either supported by different

organizations or they get love letters suddenly and they're somehow put on a pedestal. And you see that in quite a few cases where the evidence is overwhelming, but there's still this need to support this individual because people support, quote unquote, the cause that this individual allegedly stood for. And you see that with Mangione in New York, where he's getting amazing support and allegedly, you know, he point blank assassinated a guy with two kids and a wife.

So you see that quite often in these cases, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it. I think it's going to be very difficult to find a defense attorney that is going to be willing to put themselves on the line for this. And that's always difficult because as defense attorneys, we are, it's almost like a doctor, right? We're sworn to uphold the law and an oath to take cases that I feel very vehemently about. I take cases that I'm passionate about. This type of case, obviously, is gonna be very difficult to find a defense attorney that's going to be passionate about it.

And I'll get back to the defense in a second. You know, they mentioned September 29th, 10 a.m. is a waiver hearing where he can decide if he wants to waive a preliminary hearing, correct? So in Utah, there's a preliminary hearing where the prosecutor presents evidence that says, you know, is there enough probable cause to move this forward to trial?

If the judge says there is, then it goes into an arraignment and then he will enter his plea of guilty or not guilty. Any advantage to waive a preliminary hearing or not waive a preliminary hearing? I can't imagine what the advantage would be to waive it because wouldn't you kind of want to hear what the government's evidence is?

Yeah, you're spot on. So in districts where they have preliminary hearings, there's quite a few, California being one. You don't want to waive your preliminary hearing because at the preliminary hearing, that's where you really start to figure out, OK, what are the witnesses going to say? What evidence do they have?

What are they going to present? And don't forget, at a preliminary hearing, the state is also kind of playing these little games where they don't want to put on every bit of evidence, but obviously they want to show the strength of their case and the strength of the evidence that they have against the individual. individual and it's a very low burden to show that there is probable cause to arrest and charge this individual with the crime that they're charging him with.

So that usually isn't the issue. Really the issue here is going to be whether or not they want to put on this kind of dog and pony show when they know kind of the evidence that's already out there. My opinion is you have to. I think it's malpractice not to and waive that preliminary hearing. I think that would be a huge mistake in a case where it's this large.

But again, you know, the evidence that I've seen, it's going to be a very difficult case for anyone to say that this was not him.

So that brings me to now what happened today, right? They have listed a number of charges against him. It's not necessarily right. Did he do it right? Is he guilty of doing it? Is he guilty of aggravated murder?

Is he guilty of obstruction? Is he guilty of witness tampering? I will tell you, I was talking about this before. There is a mountain of evidence. I mean, if they say that they have the DNA, his DNA on the rifle and the towel and on the trigger and the bullet casings, and they go back and found a search warrant and go to his house and they find engravings on a shell casing that

match the other engravings. And then you have the parents who may be potential witnesses. You have this conversation with this roommate. You and I both know that text message conversations are such key evidence. I don't know how you say it's ambiguous. I mean, he allegedly admitted it's him, said why he did it, talked about things, arguably maybe only the killer would know about the rifle and the engravings. But at the same time, from a defense perspective,

is the name of the game going to be, we try to make, try to have none of that evidence come in. And if it does come in, we say it doesn't meet the elements, the very specific elements of aggravated murder or enhancements that he's facing, you know, like with children being present or this being a killing done for political expression. I mean, is that the name of the game here?

Yeah, I think the name of the game is to mitigate it as much as possible. That would be my guess. The only advantage when we're talking about preliminary hearings, the advantage, the only advantage, the only advantage of waiving it would be if there was some sort of negotiation to take the death penalty off the table and not have to put people through a preliminary hearing. I don't see that happening in this case. I think that the only thing that they can do is mitigate the circumstances.

I know there's a lot of conspiracy theories that are flying online. I've seen the videos. I've seen the evidence in terms of what they're presenting. I've read the PC affidavit. I've read the PC affidavit. I've read those texts. I think that it's almost an impossible task to say that he did not do this. And the admission to his father, the gun that was

given to him by his grandfather, the grandfather's probably going to come in and be a witness. The father himself, obviously they have very different political views from the text and things of that nature that he relayed to his roommate. I don't see this being anything but a mitigation type case where you're saying, okay, maybe the aggravators don't meet the requirement. Maybe it's not witness tampering, but even with witness tampering, it's not really a stretch when you're telling people, hey, get rid of the message. Don't talk. Yeah. And not only that, they're going to triangulate

these phones. They're going to know exactly where he was and when he was there. This is going to be a mountain of evidence. You'd have to live on a different planet or be a complete moron to think that this there's some way to walk this guy, there is no way to walk this. And I just wanna, I wanna give you a caveat.

Yes, yes.

I am slightly biased in this case because I have met Charlie Kirk many, many times at different events and no matter what you feel about someone's political views or even their personal views, he was just a good kid to talk to, funny kid,

knowledgeable kid, and those are the things, hopefully, are not lost in these cases where you just simply talk about the evidence against the defendant and the defendant himself. Hopefully, that does not get lost in this case. And this is a real tragedy, not that any murder is a good murder. But this was a tragedy because it

was a, what we consider someone who is just someone that's off the battlefield. He's just someone who was giving his opinion on things and, and was, was murdered because of his

opinion. And I say the same thing about with the Mangione case in the sense that I don't care if you hated Charlie Kirk. I don't care if you disagreed with every single thing that he said. Murder is wrong. Murder can never be the answer.

And for those who are not convinced by that argument, what would you say if someone else who has a different opinion than you says, you know what? You deserve to die. Your hero deserves to die because of their opinions. This becomes a very slippery slope. I said it with Mangione, I'll say it now.

It doesn't just end with health insurance executives. It goes to politics, it goes to real estate, it goes to this, it goes to that. There's people, there's a lot of enemies in society. It can turn to violence. OK, I get off my soapbox because it was a good soapbox. From the defense, though, and look, you know, the evidence, if they can present all this

and it comes into court, it's I mean, it's such a strong case. However, you know, aggravated murder. They're trying to say it was a killing done in the commission of an incident. There were circumstances where it presented a grave risk of death to others. The idea of firing a shot.

Yes, Charlie Kirk was the target, but you're firing a shot into an open crowd. Is there room for a defense to say, I don't think that's aggravated murder? Is there ground to say, you know, was this really a killing done for political expression? Yes, he was killed right as he's talking about gun violence, right as he's talking about the transgender community. You know, a killing done in the presence of children. They focused a lot about that. Again, going back to these elements, is there look what just happened with Mangione. They threw out some of his charges because

they said they were in terrorism. It didn't fit the definition. Is that what we're talking

about here? I mean, that's the only thing that they can they can argue. I think it's going to be very difficult. Like I said, there's a couple things at play, right? The first thing at play is whether or not there is case law in Utah that this meets the criteria, right? One shot in a large crowd that's aimed specifically at one individual. Is that going to be considered aggravated murder? I don't know of any case law that stands for either for or against that. I think that it's going to be a difficult case because of that. And then I think the secondary thing that it's a difficult case in these high profile cases, I was surprised, not shocked in the Mangione case, because I thought the terrorism charge was a little unusual in that case, the state terrorism charge,

because of the way that that went down. As opposed to this, I mean, there were children present, right? This was a big gathering of 3,000 people that brought kids and brought other individuals to this event.

I think that's the only thing they have is to argue those things. And how far does it get them though, right? At the end of the day, let's say you eliminate some of those things. It's still a first degree murder case.

It's still a death penalty case, even without those things, I think there's still enough aggravators where it's still gonna be a death penalty case. I don't know. I think that that's the only argument they're going to have at a preliminary hearing. But I think more of the the same path is that they're going to the police department. They're going to the police department. They're going to the police department. They're going to the police department. They're going to the police department. They're going to the police department. They're going to the police department. they're going to have at a preliminary hearing.

But I think more of the same path is that they're going to the preliminary hearing just to see what is out there, see the evidence that they have, and then kind of try and put together some kind of case. I think ultimately they're going to beg to take the death penalty off the table. And I think this is very difficult, right? I think the family is gonna have to discuss it.

I think they're gonna weigh very heavily on the Kirk family. I think Erica Kirk is gonna have a voice in that and whether or not she believes that this individual should be put to death or not put to death, I have my own view on those things,

but I'm not the victim's family in this case. And I think that she will have her own view and and go according to her religious beliefs and things of that nature. It wouldn't shock me. It wouldn't shock me if Erica would say, you know, to take that off the table. It's a very difficult thing to go forward with.

Then he would have to agree to plead guilty to the most severe charges. He would have to agree to plead guilty to the enhancements. One of the reasons they're really moving for these enhancements, because if you look at aggravated murder under Utah law,

there can be life without parole, there can be life, you know, there can be an indeterminate term of not less than 25 years that may be for life. So 25 to life, they if they're like, we're going to take the death penalty off, you're

going to prison for the rest of your life.

Right.

No, that would be the only. Yes. Yeah. That would be the only thing I could imagine is that he would plea to to life without parole over a death penalty sentence. You know, listen, in this type of case, unless there's other mitigators that I don't know about, it's a horrible, horrible case. And there's

arguments on both sides of the coin, death penalty, not death penalty. When you're the victim's family, I don't think, I find very few people would say, hey, I don't want the death penalty, but the Kirk family is unique, and I think that, you know, they have strong religious beliefs. I'm not sure where that's gonna fall,

but I'm sure they'll make the right decision.

Real quick, before I let you go,

federal charges, is that on the table? I'm trying to struggle with what the federal charges would be if there are any.

You know, so the gun obviously was not made in the in the state that it was fired in. There's federal charges that you could bring for interstate commerce. And also if there was some sort of political that, you know, you associated with a political murder. There's there's some charges that you could fit for this kind of case. I don't know if that's the route that they're going. I think they're going to see. Again, I think this is very driven by Charlie's family

and a discussion with Charlie's family. I don't think anyone is just going to make the move without a discussion with Charlie's family. And he's got a very great family that family that, you know, meets and talks. And I'm sure they've had many discussions here. It was very tough to watch that, that funeral.

And, you know, they're going to, I'm sure they'll make the right choice of how to move this forward. I don't know. Are there federal charges that could be filed? Yes. Will they be filed?

Like, again, I think that the driver of this is going to be Charlie's family. And I didn't know that you knew Charlie and had that connection. So I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry for what's been happening in the past.

He was a great, he was a very funny guy. He was a, he was a good kid. He was a good kid. And this is a real shame, like I said. Doesn't matter what your beliefs are. And I have friends on both sides of the aisle and I'm friendly with Democrats and Republicans. This was a tough one too, to watch

and even tougher when I found out the details. And we're still in the beginning stages of this legal process. We'll continue to cover it here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for coming on, Brad for Cohen. Always appreciate it.

Thanks for having me Jesse. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get podcasts. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber, I'll see you next time.

I'm Jesse Weber, I'll see you next time.

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