A Utah judge found a prosecutor in contempt of court for violating a pretrial publicity order in the murder case against Tyler Robinson, the man charged with fatally shooting Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus last September. However, the ruling handed the defense a partial win. The death penalty stays.
Robinson, 23, faces charges of aggravated murder, felony use of a firearm, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and committing a violent act in the presence of a child.
The defense’s contempt motion stemmed from comments prosecutor Christopher Ballard, also a spokesperson for the Utah County Attorney’s Office, made to media outlets this spring about an inconclusive ballistics report mentioned in a defense filing.
While trying to clarify the results of the report to reporters, Ballard also referenced the strength of the state’s case against Tyler Robinson – statements the judge on Friday found risked prejudicing the jury pool.
That ATF report in question stated the agency “was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson.” Prosecutors countered that the defense omitted a critical detail: the ATF also concluded that it could not rule out the rifle as the weapon. Some reporting on the analysis implied that the bullet didn’t match Robinson’s gun.
The judge’s pretrial publicity order – issued in September and amended in December – prohibits the parties from making public comments about the case except under certain circumstances.
However, Ballard spoke with reporters this spring after news outlets began reporting on an inconclusive ballistics report referenced in a defense filing. The filing states the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson.”
Prosecutors argued the defense’s characterization in the filing omits an important piece of the ballistics report’s conclusion: The ATF was also unable to exclude the bullet as coming from the rifle.
Ballard said his comments were not about specific evidence but rather the circumstances that can lead to an inconclusive result.
Ballard argued his media comments were meant to correct the record, not discuss evidence. “The goal of these interviews was to respond to the specific media inquiries that were being generated by the misinformation in the filing,” he said.
Judge Tony Graf agreed with that defense up to a point. He ruled that Ballard’s comments explaining the inconclusive ballistics result fell within a protected exception allowing statements when a lawyer believes there is a “substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent publicity not initiated by the lawyer or the lawyer’s client.” Correcting a misimpression that the defense created clearly qualified.
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However, in a separate statement to TMZ in March, he said prosecutors had “ample evidence” against Robinson that would overcome his presumption of innocence. That comment crossed the line for the judge.
“Those additional public statements possessed a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the proceedings by communicating the prosecutor’s assessment of the defendant’s guilt,” Graf wrote. “Further commentary concerning the overall strength of the prosecution’s evidence did not materially assist in correcting specific misimpressions. Rather, those additional statements induced a separate subject — the prosecutor’s assessment of the ultimate merits.”
The defense pushed hard for Graf to strip the death penalty as a sanction for the contempt. Prosecutors called that remedy “grossly disproportionate to the alleged misconduct” and argued it would be “a drastic and never-before-imposed remedy” to reduce an aggravated murder charge to a first-degree felony. Graf declined the request.
Instead, he said he will consider additional jury-selection measures to offset any prejudice stemming from Ballard’s TMZ comments. Graf also granted the defense the right to recover legal fees tied to the contempt proceedings.
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