SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) – Defense attorneys for the man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk are suggesting a 2029 trial date because they say it could take them that long to prepare their case.
Attorneys for Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, said Thursday that the defense’s proposed schedule was “absurd” and defendant Tyler Robinson was simply trying to delay.
Utah District Court Judge Tony Graf has scheduled a Friday hearing to set a trial date.
Robinson pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder in last year’s killing of Kirk while the ally of President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of several thousand people at Utah Valley University. The 23-year-old defendant turned himself in a day after the shooting, and his lawyers have not offered alternative theories for Kirk’s death. He could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
Utah County prosecutors allege Robinson targeted Kirk for his political beliefs. They say a bullet found in the rifle used to kill Kirk was engraved with “Hey Facist! CATCH!” and that Robinson wrote in a text message about Kirk: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
Trump weighed in on the trial date in a social media post prior to the hearing. He said the case should be tried “within a month” and accused the judge of “taking forever to ask questions that people already know the answer to.”
Prosecutors said in court filings they anticipated a 17-week trial and said they would be ready by October 2027. But rather than hold the proceedings during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, they proposed the trial begin Jan. 31, 2028.
Erika Kirk’s attorney, Jeffrey Neiman, said the trial should start next October, the earliest date identified by prosecutors.
“Under the Defendants’ proposed schedule, Mr. Kirk’s two children, who were one and three at the time he was murdered, will be six and eight years old by the time the trial concludes,” Neiman wrote. “They will face the uncertainty of this criminal proceeding longer than they had their father in their lives.”
But Robinson’s attorneys said in court filings this week that they must sift through tens of thousands of files turned over by prosecutors.
They said they’ll have to conduct extensive investigations into Robinson’s life in search of mitigating factors that could influence his sentence if convicted, and must devote “substantial time” to issues such as jury selection.
The defense lawyers said they respected the court’s attempt to set a “realistic trial date.” Yet because it’s a complex death penalty case, trying to predict when it will be ready for trial “is an exercise that, at this time, will necessarily be infected with false precision,” they wrote in a document filed Wednesday.