A major death penalty decision was just taken in the Charlie Kirk assassin trial.
In a major ruling by the Utah Fourth District, the judge decided how a death penalty remains a sentencing option for Tyler Robinson, who is the 23-year-old accused of fatally shooting the conservative political activist in September last year.
The decision followed a major defense motion that seeks to block prosecutors from pursuing capital punishment. Moreover, Robinson's attorneys kept on arguing about how Deputy Utah County Attorney Christopher Ballard continued to violate a gag order by taking part in a media tour to counter news reports linked to a preliminary, inconclusive ballistics test found on a recovered part of a bullet.
The defense sought to claim that these public statements prejudiced the prospective jury pool and compromised the presumption of innocence. While the judge in the civil contempt for comments asserted that there was so much evidence of guilt, he did reject the defense's request to throw out the death penalty.
He said that it was just disproportionate and a very big overreach into prosecutorial discretion.