Alleged Charlie Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson heads back to court to try and oust prosecutors from case

By Andi Babineau, Nick Watt, CNN

(CNN) — Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is appearing in a Utah courtroom Tuesday for another hearing addressing whether the prosecutor’s office has a conflict of interest and should be removed from the case.

Robinson’s defense argues they should, because the 18-year-old child of one of the prosecutors is a student at Utah Valley University and was in the crowd on September 10, 2025, when Kirk was killed.

The proceedings are the second day of argument on the issue, and picked up at the same place a January 16 hearing ended: with Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray testifying under oath about what his office knew about the child’s presence at the event as the shooting unfolded and in the following hours and days.

Gray stood firm in his previous statements Tuesday, saying the presence of the prosecutor’s child is “completely irrelevant to anything that matters in the case.”

Lead prosecutor denies ‘any conflict whatsoever’

The county attorney’s office has repeatedly denied having a conflict of interest because the student, referred to as “adult child (AC)” in court documents, “did not see Charlie get shot,” and “did not see anyone (in the crowd or elsewhere) with a gun.”

Gray defended his decision not to remove the student’s father, who is a member of the executive team at the county attorney’s office and one of the prosecutors assigned to the case against Robinson. He insisted the child’s attendance that day has not swayed his team’s actions.

“I do not believe that there is any conflict whatsoever,” Gray said Tuesday. “I made that conclusion. I stand by that.”

The county attorney said he notified Robinson’s counsel of the possible conflict out of an abundance of caution. Robinson’s team was notified via email on October 20, a little over a month after Kirk was killed, Gray testified in the previous hearing.

Robinson’s defense attorney, Richard Novak, pressed Gray about whether he had consulted a formal policy on conflicts of interest when deciding to keep the prosecutor on the case.

Gray replied he did not, saying he instead “relied on my 25 years of knowledge” on the issue.

The lead prosecutor testified in January he found out about the shooting from the student’s father.

He said the two were at an event together in Layton, Utah, when his colleague, “Prosecutor A,” showed Gray a text from his child saying, “CHARLIE GOT SHOT.”

Gray did not meet or speak to the prosecutor’s adult child at the university following the shooting because students had left the scene by the time they arrived, he said.

He testified as he understood it, “the child was not in that line of fire,” a detail Gray said is important because the charging documents allege when Kirk was killed, the shooter “placed others in grave risk of death.”

Three more witnesses expected to testify

Before Judge Tony Graf makes a ruling, the court will hear from three more witnesses on Tuesday: the prosecutor in question, his adult child and Special Agent Cole Christensen with the investigations division at the county attorney’s office.

Christensen helped determine where the student was located in the crowd relative to the positions of both Kirk and the shooter.

Graf denied a defense request to close the entirety of the January hearing but said he would consider further requests on a witness-by-witness basis, leading to his decision to close the hearing for the adult child’s testimony.

Robinson has not yet entered pleas for the slew of charges he’s facing, including aggravated murder, felony use of a firearm, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, along with several victim targeting enhancements and an aggravating factor of having committed a violent offense in the presence of a child.

He won’t be arraigned until after his preliminary hearing, which has been scheduled to begin May 18 and is expected to last three days.

The brazen killing – seen by thousands of people in person and many more in videos that spread swiftly online – took place as Kirk was speaking at the Utah university last year and was followed by an intense, 30-plus-hour manhunt for a sniper who authorities said fired the fatal shot from a nearby roof.

A charging document laid out key evidence against Robinson, including DNA on the suspected murder weapon and a confession.

A bolt-action rifle, a towel, a used cartridge casing and three unused cartridges were discovered in a wooded area near the crime scene, and DNA on several of those items was consistent with Robinson’s, according to the document. The cartridges were engraved with phrases from internet memes and video games.

Robinson turned himself in to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office the day after the shooting, accompanied by his parents and a family friend. His parents had recognized their son from the surveillance photo, the charging document said.

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CNN’s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.