SALT LAKE CITY — Tyler Robinson’s jury trial is still not scheduled, and although there will be more information on Nov. 9 about the schedule for the case, the judge did not make a promise that his order on the issue would include jury trial dates.
Fourth District Judge Tony Graf said he intended to issue a ruling setting a scheduling order at Friday’s hearing, but said there are many data points to consider and he decided to take more time. He said that if trial dates are not set, there is no “frozen period,” meaning other trials will be scheduled, and he expressed concern about Robinson’s and the Charlie Kirk family’s right to a speedy trial.
The judge said he wants to put the trial dates in his scheduling order, but doesn’t want “to set something that’s impossible.” He, along with attorneys on both sides, said this case is a priority.
During Friday’s hearing, the attorneys and judge discussed where heightened scrutiny and reliability apply in a death penalty case, updated the court on the discovery process, estimated the timing needed for jury selection and provided information on when they are scheduled for trials in other cases. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys said they estimate sending questionnaires to 3,000 people to find jurors, with one noting it is the most he has ever sent.
Attorneys submitted general timeline proposals for the case late Wednesday and discussed some aspects of them in the roughly three-hour hearing on Friday afternoon.
Robinson’s attorneys said they will need three years to prepare for the trial, which they estimate will last seven months. They suggested starting it in the third quarter of 2029, but asked for a soft trial date. They argued on Friday that moving too quickly to trial can lead to mistakes.
The Utah County Attorney’s Office, on the other hand, said in its memorandum that it anticipates a 17-week trial (about four months) and will be ready to go in a week, proposing the trial start Jan. 31, 2028. In the hearing, deputy Utah County attorney Chad Grunander said prosecutors want trial dates set that are “as firm as possible,” saying it would help them get ready for trial.
Friday’s hearing was not available on video, except to victims and attorneys approved by the court — Kirk’s wife and parents along with their attorney and one attorney on the defense team. Robinson wore a grey suit over his blue shirt and a tie. His parents sat in the front row of the gallery alongside a member of the defense team.
In September, Robinson, 23, was ordered to stand trial on seven charges, including aggravated murder, for allegedly shooting conservative political activist Charlie Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus on Sept. 10, 2025, during a Turning Point USA rally. Prosecutors have said they are seeking the death penalty in the case.
Kirk family seeks trial soon
Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, responded to the attorneys’ estimates with a motion on Thursday asking for a speedy trial, requesting it start as early as possible in 2027.
The reality is that rushing to trial does not lead to closure … it leads to mistakes.
–Staci Visser, Tyler Robinson’s attorney
Her attorneys argued that postponing the trial as the defense recommended would be “grossly out of line” with other similar cases and is inappropriate. It cited multiple Utah murder cases where defendants went to trial within one or two years, and claimed a four-year timeline would cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
“Utah law requires that the victims’ interests receive actual weight in setting trial. … Those interests include a judicial process that is fair, transparent, and without needless delay,” her motion says.
In Friday’s hearing, Erika Kirk’s attorney, Jeffrey Neiman, said each day without a resolution adds to the family’s anxiety and grief, noting that Charlie Kirk’s children, who were 1 and 3 when he died, will spend more time waiting for the trial than they did with their father.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys argued the case should not be scheduled over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, saying it is hard to find jurors and for those jurors to keep the requirement of not talking about the case at those times. Neiman responded, noting that each holiday the Kirk family has is one without him.
He argued “time is the defense’s best ally,” and said Utah protects victims from “undue delay.” He claimed that justice is not justice if it is delayed and urged the judge to set a hearing.
“This case should be a priority for everyone involved. The Kirk family deserves that,” Neiman said. “If you set (trial), it will happen. Set it, please.”
Schedule requirements
Staci Visser, one of Robinson’s attorneys, claimed scheduling a trial at this point was “premature” because so many variables may come up for everyone. But she said that doesn’t mean they should set an expectation for when that trial may be or a pretrial litigation schedule.
“The reality is that rushing to trial does not lead to closure … it leads to mistakes,” Visser said, saying it could lead to a need for a retrial.
The attorney contested the feasibility of the prosecutor’s schedule, saying one defense attorney has a three-month trial that will be going on when they suggested trial starts and that both sides providing disclosures at the same time is not practical and will take longer.
Visser said it is best to raise the question of venue as close to trial as possible, because things can change.
Kathryn Nester, who was involved in the venue motions ahead of Kouri Richins’ murder trial, said that process alone she expects to take five or six months. She also said the defense team has been working on building the mitigation portion of their case “since day one.”
Discovery and attorney duty
Visser argued the attorneys’ duties “are heightened” and require more time. She said they must coordinate a “village” of qualified individuals to help defend Robinson. Visser said they had 31,000 pieces of discovery to prepare for trial, along with 8 million artifacts or files. She estimated they are 25% of the way through the discovery process and will need at least nine more months, but realistically a year.
“There’s just so much that we have to have eyes on,” she said.
Deputy Utah County attorney Ryan McBride, who is overseeing discovery for prosecutors, said much of the discovery is one-or-two page PDF documents, many reports from people who reached out with a tip that did not have merit. He said prosecutors outsourced the digital forensics to be more efficient.
He said they have provided everything they have to defense attorneys, aside from some things that they are contesting whether they need to provide. McBride said the team is going through what they do have for references to things they might not have, and going to each involved agency to look for anything that was not provided to them.
In response to Visser’s claim that they needed to act with heightened scrutiny because this is a death penalty case, deputy Utah County attorney Chris Ballard said the standards for defense attorneys in each case were set in a death penalty case.
He argued that legal precedent suggests heightened reliability is needed at some stages, but not every stage. Ballard claimed the defense team is not entitled to more resources, different rules or changed due process standards.
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