Judge considers disqualification motion in Tyler Robinson murder case
Jan 16, 2026, 12:55 PM | Updated: 5:33 pm
Tyler Robinson, accused in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, appears during a hearing in Provo on Dec. 11, 2025. He is appearing again in a hearing on Friday as the judge considers a motion to disqualify the Utah County Attorney's Office. (Pool)
(Pool)
PROVO — Attorneys are set to argue Friday whether the Utah County Attorney’s Office has a conflict of interest and should be disqualified from prosecuting Tyler Robinson’s capital murder case.
Robinson, 22, is charged with shooting and killing Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025.
He and his attorneys asked for the disqualification in a December motion claiming the office has an emotional bias because the adult child of one of its prosecutors witnessed Kirk’s shooting. The motion says the family member — an 18-year-old Utah Valley University student — immediately sent texts to their father.
Robinson argues in the motion the state could be making decisions — including the decision to seek the death penalty announced the same day the charges were filed — based on emotions due to the trauma the prosecutor’s adult child incurred that day.
The redacted public versions of the motions do not identify the prosecuting attorney or his adult child.
In an affidavit attached to the reply, the student described scanning the crowd and not watching Kirk when the shot was fired. The student has not had lasting trauma from the event, needed counseling or missed classes or work since the shooting.
“The only time I have seen the actual shooting of Charlie Kirk was when I saw a post on social media that recorded it,” the student’s affidavit states.
The Utah County Attorney’s Office said in its reply that Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray’s decision to seek the death penalty had nothing to do with that family member’s presence at the event.
In addition to capital murder, Robinson is charged with felony discharge of a firearm causing serious injury, a first-degree felony; two counts of obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; two counts of tampering with a witness, a third-degree felony; and committing a violent offense in the presence of a child, a class A misdemeanor.
This story will be updated.
