Judge rules death penalty eligible in Charlie Kirk shooting case

A Utah judge has ruled that Tyler Robinson, 23, will face trial for killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Robinson is accused of shooting Kirk in September while Kirk was speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University. Judge Tony Graf Jr. also kept the death penalty as a possible punishment.

Robinson's lawyers had asked the judge to remove the death penalty option. They argued that a prosecutor had made public statements that broke a court order on pretrial publicity. The judge agreed that the prosecutor, Christopher Ballard, had broken the order and found him in civil contempt. However, the judge decided that removing the death penalty would interfere too much with the prosecution's authority. Instead, he will allow extra questions for jurors to check for bias. No trial date has been set.