President Donald Trump's public call for the execution of Charlie Kirk's accused killer moved decisively closer to reality this week, as a Utah judge refused to block capital punishment and a legal expert branded the prosecution's case a 'proverbial slam dunk'.
Paul Cassell, a former federal judge and University of Utah law professor, said the threshold prosecutors must clear at this stage is minimal. 'This seems like the proverbial slam dunk at this stage of the case, where the only issue is whether there is a sound basis for moving forward with a trial on the merits,' Cassell said.
The Ruling
The ruling came after Tyler Robinson's defence team tried to have the death penalty struck from the case entirely, arguing that prosecutor Christopher Ballard's public comments about the strength of the evidence had tainted the jury pool. Judge Tony Graf held Ballard in civil contempt for violating the gag order but rejected the defence's request outright, calling it 'grossly disproportionate to the misconduct and legally unavailable in this civil contempt framework'. The death penalty stays on the table.
'Effectively, it's 51% — there's a 51% chance they did it,' Kouris, now an adjunct professor at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law, said in an interview. 'This standard is extremely low, and the chances of them not getting through it are, quite frankly, almost nothing.' This preliminary hearing is not the trial itself; prosecutors only need to show enough evidence for the case to proceed.
The Evidence Against Robinson
That evidence, according to court filings, includes a note in which Robinson allegedly wrote, 'I have the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it,' along with DNA recovered from a rifle and a text message in which he is said to have targeted Kirk because he was 'fed up with his hatred'. Robinson has not yet entered a plea.
Utah reinstated the death penalty after the US Supreme Court's 1972 ruling invalidating it, and prosecutors filed capital charges against Robinson on 16 September 2025, days after Kirk was fatally shot during a campus event at Utah Valley University on 10 September 2025. The aggravating factors prosecutors cite include the public nature of the shooting and the danger it posed to others present at the event. Utah juries have sentenced 26 people to death in the modern era, though a death sentence requires unanimous agreement from all 12 jurors and would trigger mandatory and discretionary appeals that could stretch on for decades.
Trump has made his position on the case clear. 'I hope he's going to be found guilty, I would imagine, and I hope he gets the death penalty,' the president said. His comments now align with a legal process that, according to Cassell and Kouris, is moving firmly in that direction.
Preliminary Hearing Enters Final Stretch
Robinson's five-day preliminary hearing began this week, with Judge Graf expected to rule by the end of the week on whether the case proceeds to a full trial. That ruling will determine whether Robinson faces a jury on capital charges or whether prosecutors are sent back to strengthen their case.
A guilty verdict at trial would still require unanimous agreement from all 12 jurors to impose a death sentence, and any such sentence would trigger Utah's mandatory and discretionary appeals process. That means even if the case proceeds exactly as prosecutors expect, an execution, if it happens, remains likely years away.
