By Andrew Hay
July 10 (Reuters) – Erika Kirk was allowed on Friday to watch surveillance video, as she had requested, that prosecutors say shows the Utah man accused of killing her husband, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
While the proceedings of the five-day hearing, on whether Tyler Robinson should stand trial in the case, have mostly been livestreamed in accordance with Erika Kirk’s call for transparency, the video compilation of recordings by campus surveillance cameras was shown only to those present in the courtroom.
Reuters was not in the courtroom and was unable to view the video, which prosecutors said shows Robinson in several different areas of Utah Valley University on September 10, the day Charlie Kirk was killed on the campus.
The Associated Press reported that Erika Kirk watched intently as the video showed a person running across the roof of the campus building from which investigators say Kirk was shot. When the figure was shown dropping to a crawl near the roof’s edge, AP reported that Erika Kirk turned and embraced Kirk’s crying mother and the two looked away until the video was almost over.
As Charlie Kirk’s legal representative under state law, Erika Kirk has called for all evidence presented at the hearing to be made public via a livestream, or otherwise shown to herself and others present in the courtroom.
Jeffrey Neiman, her lawyer, argued in a court filing on Wednesday that, without transparency, “speculation and conspiracy theories related to the tragic assassination of Mr. Kirk will continue to proliferate.”
District Court Judge Tony Graf, who viewed the surveillance video earlier in the week but had not allowed it to be shown publicly in court, has weighed the request for transparency against concerns that allowing the public to see certain evidence at this preliminary stage would make it difficult to find impartial jurors if a trial is held.
Graf had called for parts of a pivotal interview with Robinson’s roommate to be redacted, and some prosecution evidence has only been displayed in the courtroom, not publicly livestreamed.
The judge will rule later this year on whether Robinson should stand trial, after hearing oral arguments scheduled for September 1.
ROLE OF WIDOW
The 31-year-old Charlie Kirk, a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, was killed in front of thousands as he debated students at Utah Valley University. It was one of the highest-profile incidents among a series of attacks on politicians and prominent figures that have intensified concern over U.S. political violence. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., attended the first day of this week’s hearing alongside Kirk’s wife.
Erika Kirk, 37, a podcaster, businesswoman and former Miss Arizona USA, took over leadership of Turning Point USA, the conservative group her husband co-founded, following his death.
Utah, like most states, grants a deceased person’s family the right to be informed of court proceedings and to be heard at sentencing hearings. Erika Kirk through her lawyer has argued in court that Utah’s crime victim law allows her, as a victim representative, to see all evidence presented in court.
In a statement released on Friday after court proceedings adjourned, the Kirk family said: “We pray that truth will continue to be heard through a process that is fair, transparent, and grounded in the facts.”
The defense has argued that prosecutors will represent certain evidence, such as the interview with Robinson’s roommate, as “confessions” that he killed Kirk.
Any potential jurors seeing such evidence could be biased, violating Robinson’s constitutional rights to a free and impartial trial, his lawyer Richard Novak said.
On Thursday, prosecutors displayed a handwritten note that the court had barred from public view. In the note, left under his computer keyboard, Robinson wrote: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I’m going to take it.”
As punishment for the airing of the note, on Friday Graf imposed a one-day moratorium on livestreaming any images entered as evidence. That was not related to his earlier decision not to allow livestreaming of the compilation video Erika Kirk asked to see.
Robinson, who was studying to be an electrician at the time of the shooting, faces seven criminal charges including aggravated murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. He has yet to enter a plea.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson and Edmund Klamann)
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