Defense attorneys for Tyler Robinson, the 23-year-old accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk, are pushing for an insane request in hopes to bide some time and prepare for the trial. Except, they want it to happen three years from now in a 2029 trial date. Their reasoning: they need that long to get ready. Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk has a different word for that timeline, and it’s not “reasonable.”
Attorneys for Erika Kirk fired back Thursday, calling the proposed schedule “absurd” and accusing Robinson of simply trying to delay. Utah District Court Judge Tony Graf has scheduled a hearing to nail down an actual trial date, because apparently somebody has to be the adult in the room.
Robinson pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder in the killing of Kirk, who was shot while speaking to a crowd of several thousand people at Utah Valley University. He turned himself in a day after the shooting, and his lawyers have not offered any alternative theories for how Kirk ended up dead. He could face the death penalty if convicted. You can follow the Charlie Kirk trial proceedings for the latest on how the court sorts out this mess.
Utah County prosecutors say Robinson targeted Kirk specifically for his political beliefs. They allege a bullet found in the rifle used to kill Kirk was engraved with the words “Hey Facist! CATCH!” and that Robinson sent a text message about Kirk reading, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.” So the defense’s theory that this needs years of investigation is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
President Trump weighed in before the hearing, posting on social media that the case should be tried “within a month” and going after the judge for “taking forever to ask questions that people already know the answer to.” Whether you love that kind of pressure or hate it, the frustration is completely understandable given the circumstances.
Prosecutors said they anticipated a 17-week trial and would be ready by October 2027. Trying to avoid scheduling the whole thing over Thanksgiving and Christmas, they proposed a start date of January 31, 2028. Erika Kirk’s attorney Jeffrey Neiman pushed for an even earlier start, next October, the soonest date prosecutors themselves had floated.
Neiman put the human cost of delay in plain terms. “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,” he wrote. “They will face the uncertainty of this criminal proceeding longer than they had their father in their lives.” Hard to argue with that math, though the defense team seems determined to try.
Robinson’s attorneys, for their part, say they must sift through tens of thousands of files from prosecutors and conduct extensive investigations into Robinson’s background for mitigating factors. They wrote in a filing that predicting a trial date right now “is an exercise that, at this time, will necessarily be infected with false precision.” Which is a very fancy way of saying they want more time and hope nobody notices.
Judge Graf’s hearing will determine whether justice moves at a reasonable pace or whether Kirk’s family spends the rest of the decade waiting. Given that the defense’s star argument so far appears to be “this is complicated,” maybe 2029 is just the opening bid in a long game of delay. Kirk’s kids deserve better than that.
