Charlie Kirk Prosecutor Contempt

Prosecutor in Charlie Kirk shooting case held in contempt by judge

Judge rebukes Christopher Ballard for talking to media but declines defense’s request to take death penalty off table

www.silverguide.site –

A Utah judge held a prosecutor in contempt on Friday for speaking to the media about the murder case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, but did not grant the defense attorney’s request to bar the death penalty as punishment in the case.

Defense attorneys for Tyler James Robinson, the Utah man who allegedly shot Kirk, a conservative political activist, last September, argued in a March court filing that deputy Utah county attorney Christopher Ballard had violated a pre-trial media gag order.

Robinson’s legal team had argued in a prior filing that a report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not prove the bullet that killed Kirk came from a firearm believed to belong to Robinson. The claims gained traction online and were regarded by some commentators as potentially exculpatory.

Afterward, Ballard gave statements to news outlets to combat what he later described as “misinformation” regarding the interpretations of ballistics testing.

Ballard told TMZ that the state had “ample evidence” to demonstrate Robinson committed the alleged crime. He also said in an email to Politifact “when the results of a bullet fragment analysis come back as ‘inconclusive’, that does not mean that the rifle did not fire the bullet”.

Robinson’s defense attorneys argued that Ballard’s conduct was “contemptuous” and interfered with their client’s right to a fair trial.

Utah district court judge Tony Graf sided with defense on Friday, saying that Ballard’s statements had a “substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the proceedings by communicating the prosecutor’s assessment of the defendant’s guilt”.

But, he said that the defense’s proposed remedy of taking the death penalty off the table would risk “an improper judicial intrusion into the executive branch’s prosecutorial discretion” and would be “grossly disproportionate” to Ballard’s misconduct.

Graf said to address any possible taint to the jury pool the court will consider expanding the pool of potential jurors and additional jury questionnaires.