09 17 25 FOX News' Eben Brown on Charlie Kirk murder suspect first court appearance

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Colorado's Morning News, the Wednesday edition. The man
accused of killing conservative activists and Turning Point USA founder
Charlie Kirk now formally charged with several counts, including aggravated murder.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Twenty two year old Tyler Robinson appeared at a virtual
hearing in Provo, Utah, where he was informed the state
of seeking the death penalty in the case. Away comment
Spirit Health Hotline as Fox News Radio's Evan Brown.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Evan, thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
As always, tell us a little bit more about his
first court appearance. Did we hear or see any real
reaction when Robinson was read the charges.

Speaker 4 (00:33):
Not really. He seemed to have a pretty stoic or
neutral expression through it. He actually wasn't in the physical
court roam. He appeared via video link and that will
probably be how he appears at the coming hearings in
the future. There's another one scheduled for the twenty ninth.
But he did sit there and listen to the charges

(00:54):
being read against him by the prosecutor, and there was
a list of them. It included felony, aggravated murder, felony
discharge of a firearm, two counts of obstructing justice, two
counts of witness tampering, committing a violent offense in the
presence of children. And this will be a death penalty case.
And there might be other charges that could be pending too,

(01:16):
but they'll be proceeding as a death penalty case. And
the judge did find Robinson to be indigent, meaning he
doesn't have money to pay for his own defense. However,
I guess in Utah, or at least in this county
which is called Utah County, the public defender won't work
with death penalty cases, so they hire an attorney at

(01:41):
taxpayer offense. So they'll get a private attorney that'll agree
to work for a preset raid or with a preset budget.
However that plays out to provide a defense for him.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Ven clear this up for me, because I just want
to make sure I and I'm sure maybe some of
our listeners don't understand these charges yesterday. Are these the
local charges or the Feds coming with charges later or
are these a combination of both?

Speaker 4 (02:03):
These are not a company, well, they wouldn't do combinations.
This is from the This is a state leiser state
charges as filed by a county prosecutor, which is usually
how the model works in every state, and so they
will they'll pursue these defens have said that they will
pursue charges as warranted. But you know, with murder cases,

(02:26):
it's it's interesting. Murder is usually tried at the state level,
you know, by the county prosecutors, whether they call them
district attorneys or something else. Murder at a federal level
is a very peculiar thing. There may often has to
do with civil rights matters. You know. For instance, if

(02:47):
you remember the Mother Emmanuel Church shooting in South Carolina,
there was a federal trial based on murders committed out
of hate crimes, you know, I mean, you know they
were targeted for their race. Now, if you could argue
that Charlie Kirk was targeted for being a Christian, then
you might have a federal you know, type of prosecution there.

(03:10):
That could happen, you know, either in tandem or one
after the other or something any which way they could
do it. The Feds have said, however, that they're very
happy with the way the state prosecution is proceeding. That
they don't feel that Robinson would would walk easily. That
is not how they feel. By the way in New
York with Luigi Mangioni, who they've initially they've very much

(03:35):
feared that the district attorney in New York, Alvin Bragg
and named that the entire nation has come to know,
might go easy on him because of politics, and so
they're pursuing, you know, a stringent of a federal case
as possible. You may have heard just the other day,
I think it might have been yesterday that the judge
in the New York state case against Mangioni dropped terrorism

(03:56):
charges already against him. So you know, the Feds want
to continue doing their work in that case to make
sure that if New York should drop the ball, so
to speak, that there's still a strong federal case. They
seem to be taking the opposite you know, attitude here
with Utah. They seem to be very happy with what
Utah is doing so far.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
I've been in wrapping up with you what comes next
in the legal case for Robinson, his next court appearance.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
In any idea of how long it could take.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Well, next court appearance is supposed to be on the
twenty ninth. They have to they'll probably be like a
status hearing. They probably find out whether or not they
were able to recruit an attorney. But this is a
death penalty case, and these don't get done very quickly
even usually, and I don't know the rules in Utah,
but usually even if someone wants to plead guilty in
a death penalty case and is not going to fight

(04:46):
the death penalty, they still have some kind of trial
or maybe a penalty phase proceeding, you know, in front
of a jury anyway, because it is you know, it
is a death penalty. So there, you know, these things
don't wrap up very quickly.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Fox News Radio's Evan Brown, thank you.