The arrest papers in Tyler Robinson’s case show how Utah state authorities intend to pursue capital punishment for the death of Charlie Kirk. Among the offenses listed in a probable cause affidavit from a state officer dated Friday is aggravated murder, a capital crime in Utah that requires certain factors to be met in order to secure a death sentence.
The affidavit said the officer believed Robinson shot Kirk “in a circumstance that put many around him at grave risk of death.” That appears to line up with a death penalty factor in the state’s aggravated murder law that I flagged on Thursday, which requires prosecutors to prove that a defendant “created a great risk of death” to another person besides the victim or the defendant. Kirk was speaking to a crowd at a Utah university Wednesday when he was fatally shot.
Robinson hasn’t been formally charged in court and so he hasn’t had an opportunity to contest the state allegations, though criminal defendants are presumed innocent. He’s being held without bail.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox noted before Robinson was in custody that the state has the death penalty, and President Donald Trump said Friday on Fox News that “I hope he gets the death penalty.”
Robinson was arrested on state charges, but federal charges could come later. People can be separately prosecuted for the same alleged actions in both state and federal court, as is happening for example with Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the shooting death of health care executive Brian Thompson. Utah is one of 27 states (plus the federal government and the military) with capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which notes that the state’s method of execution is lethal injection or, alternatively, the firing squad. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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