Eben Brown on Tyler Robinson's first in-person court appearance

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tyler Robinson, the guy that assassinated Charlie Kirk, was in
court yesterday, dare I say, alleged and they found out
some new information that looks like the judge is going
to allow cameras in this. Evan Brown's got some more
details for us, our Fox correspondent in Miami. Evan, welcome in,
thanks for being here. Good morning. So all in all,

(00:20):
what was the process for this first day in court yesterday?
I know the judge made a decision on cameras.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, that was predominantly the big issue that was being discussed.
At some point there was a closed door session discussion
about it where there was no camera or no press,
and the decision was made for now to keep the
camera in the courtroom, but to move it to a
different location. And one of the big problems, and I
know that this sounds very procedural or kind of behind

(00:47):
the scenes, but it actually is quite important to the
whole procedure the camera. There was one camera we call
a pool camera, and it's used to provide the shot
to all the TV stations and whatnot, and it seems
to be placed very close to the defense table where
they were getting these very clear close up profile view

(01:08):
of the defense, and it could see that Robinson was
shackled even though he was in civilian clothing, he was
still shackled at his wrists in his ankles, and the
defense was also complaining that their computer screens were visible
to the camera shot. The decision ultimately was made to
move the camera elsewhere in the courtroom. But this is

(01:29):
actually a very important detail because the camera has to
also not ever be able to see the jury, not
that there's a jury yet, but you have to prepare
for those things because you don't want it, even inadvertently
to happen. As someone who's reported on many trials and
has sat in many courtrooms, the moment I saw that shot,
I was saying that that camera is awfully close to

(01:52):
the defense table. I can't believe they're allowing that. So
you know, again, this is what happens at trials. There's
a lot of procedural arguments made at the very early
stages because you have to protect the descendant's rights. That's
very much a part of a trial when you're in.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
The court room. I've been covering these trials. It's not
like you're watching a production or a you know where
you've got a switcher and a director on cameras, and
there's cameramen behind the cameras and they're moving around the room.
These are stationary cameras.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
That are Yeah, usually a lot it depends on the
actual courtroom itself. For instance, I covered a case once
where there was just a single camera and every day
the local TV and some of the networks would take
a turn being the pool camera, right, they would they
would provide the cameraman and the camera for that day.

(02:40):
In other situations, yes, the courtroom was a bit more
modern and it was outfitted for this kind of stuff,
and there were fixed cameras mounted to walls that showed
only approved angles. Maybe one camera on the judge, one
camera on the witness, one camera on you know, from
from in front to look at the lawyer's tables, and
nothing on the jury. And a court employee was responsible

(03:04):
for which shot was going out where and so on
and so forth. So it just kind of depends on
the court itself. But you know, the interesting thing is
that we are dealing with a state court and really
for decades now it has been the norm that there's
a camera in these proceedings that the public can view them.
In fact, having a camera not in there is outside

(03:28):
the norm and it has to be as we're seeing
has to be ruled upon. At the most of federal court,
which there's never a camera.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
All right, let's talk about the biggest case I can remember.
The cameras were really at play, the OJ Simpson trial,
and it was a must watch TV every day. What
are your thoughts?

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Very new at the time, it was a new concept
that it actually gave birth to court TV, the idea
that we could do a whole channel of nothing but trials.
You know that that's kind of where a lot of
this started. I'll give you a bigger trial, I think, well,
it's not bigger, but more recently, more recently than OJ.
But was Casey Anthony? That was a courtroom, a special

(04:06):
courtroom in Orlando.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Right exactly. My question too, is what do you think
the impact is positive negative? Defense prosecution? Does it have
an effect on the jury at all with all this
action going on?

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, that's always the concern of the defense that it
could taint the jury pool. And in this day and age,
getting a jury from a different location or changing venues
doesn't make anything different anymore. Because we're so mass mediately.
Let me give you a real example from what happened yesterday.
The camera caught a view of Tyler Robinson apparently or allegedly,

(04:40):
and this has been described as a smirk. Now we
don't know the context of that, right His lawyer could
have told him something humorous or ironic, and maybe he
just sort of reacted in the moment. But if you
take that still image in the year twenty twenty five,
twenty twenty six, almost that's an instant meme, and that

(05:00):
could be prejudicial against him. It could be inflammatory, because,
let's face it, this guy is not well liked considering
what he's accused of doing, and having that weird facial
expression of some kind of smirk or something that might
look irreverent could really be taken out of context and
it could be problematic and.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
All you know, on the other hand, it could be
very indicative as to what he's really all about. I mean,
I've got a lot of evidence on this guy, digital
evidence as well. I think they got the right guy.
And Erica Kirk yesterday was denouncing all these conspiracy theories
out there and got actually very pod about it. If
you're coming after my husband and our organization saying there's
something going on besides what happened, then you need to

(05:41):
just shut her down basically. So how long do you
think it'll be before we actually get this thing underway?

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, I just want to clarify something. You absolutely cannot
use that picture or of him allegedly smirking to color anything.
It's not indicative of anything because it's taken out of context.
It would never fly in any of examination. How long
is this all going to take? Well, the only thing
that's really scheduled really going forward to at this point,
I think, is a preliminary hearing where they start discussing

(06:08):
evidentiary matters. That's not scheduled until May. So that's six
months away. So we're away off from a trial.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
All right. Devin, thank you so much for the update,
and I sure do appreciate you. Have a good weekend.