Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said on Tuesday that cameras will likely be allowed in the courtroom during the trial of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson.
Utah Fourth District Court Judge Tony Graf ruled on Monday that the transcripts and audio from a closed hearing in October must be released to the public with necessary redactions. Based on this decision, Jarrett argued on “Fox & Friends” that the judge seemed prepared to allow cameras in the courtroom when the trial begins.
“Look, under federal and state law, the media does have a right to access and although the defense has urged the judge to ban cameras from the courtroom and they’ll continue to argue that, it appears that the judge, Tony Graf, is on the path to allowing televised coverage and for pretty good reason,” Jarrett said. “I mean, if people are to have trust in our justice system, they have to be able to see it with their own eyes and that’s why our framers did away with the so-called secret star chambers where the public never knew if the process was fair often. It was not because of that. So they embedded the right to a public trial in the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.”
“What does that mean today, where an entire nation is interested in this case? The audience should not be limited to a small number of people who can squeeze into the courtroom. And thanks to cameras and instantaneous transmission, trials can be accessible to everybody and the truth that unfolds in a courtroom does counteract misinformation and the many conspiracy theories that have tended to proliferate here,” Jarrett continued.
National and local media outlets have fought to keep the case open to the public while Robinson’s lawyers and the Utah County Sheriff’s Office asked the judge to ban camera access from the courtroom in December. The judge allowed cameras to remain in the courtroom during a pretrial hearing on Dec. 11.
Lawyers for media outlets wrote in a filing that allowing full press access “safeguards the integrity of the fact-finding process” while properly conducting judicial proceedings, according to WRAL News. Graf previously ordered that the media could not publish photographs of Robinson in shackles and stopped a livestream of a hearing earlier in December.
Kirk’s widow, Erika, has pushed for the trial to be open to the public to ensure transparency.
Robinson is charged with one count of aggravated murder, one count of felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury, two counts of obstruction of justice for hiding the rifle and discarding his clothing, two counts of witness tampering for instructing a roommate to delete texts, and one count of committing a violent offense in front of children. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
During his first in-person hearing on Dec. 11, Robinson could be seen smirking while he talked with his attorneys.
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