Judge sets trial date for Charlie Kirk’s accused killer for summer 2028

By Andi Babineau, CNN

(CNN) — Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting and killing Charlie Kirk during a Turning Point USA event on a Utah university campus, is scheduled to stand trial for the conservative activist’s murder in the summer of 2028, a Utah judge said Monday.

Jury selection will begin on June 21, 2028, Judge Tony Graf said.

The judge’s decision comes after an October hearing where he heard arguments over the parties’ proposed trial timelines: Ahead of that hearing, Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, lambasted the defense request for jury selection to start in the second half of 2029, calling it “grossly out of line” and calling for the trial to be set for 2027. Prosecutors had asked for a January 2028 trial start.

Graf effectively decided on a compromise and set aside 105 days to hear the case. In making his ruling, the judge said he considered the rights of both Robinson and Kirk’s widow.

“This trial setting and case management order’s intent is to ensure that the constitutional rights of Mr. Robinson and Mrs. Kirk are upheld at every junction,” Graf said. “Each party is treated with the dignity and respect they are due, as they are human beings, and that the Sixth Amendment right is protected.”

In a statement, the Kirk family said the judge’s decision was “deeply disappointing.”

“While nothing will restore the time we have lost with Charlie, every additional day without justice prolongs our family’s pain and forces us to wait even longer for accountability,” the statement said.

Kirk was speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University in Orem when he was fatally shot on September 10, 2025.

Prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty against Robinson, who is charged with aggravated murder, felony use of a firearm, committing a violent offense in the presence of a child, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Robinson pleaded not guilty to the charges in September, following a lengthy preliminary hearing in July.

Graf ordered an enormous pool of 3,600 prospective jurors to report in and fill out an extensive questionnaire. The parties had initially estimated about 3,000 summonses would be needed because of the publicity the case has received and the amount of people in the county connected to either UVU or witnesses to Kirk’s killing.

Defense proposed tentative 2029 trial date

Attorneys for Robinson had proposed a trial date in the third quarter of 2029 – but called that timeline “a necessarily speculative approximation.” They also proposed “quarterly hearings in 2027 and 2028 that are specifically devoted to assessment of the continuing viability of beginning trial during the third quarter of 2029,” a defense filing said.

They needed that time, they argued in court, to conduct studies on potential “venue issues;” to wade through tens of thousands of pieces of evidence and litigate any discovery issues they may find, including possibly issuing motions to compel or subpoenas in order to gather additional evidence; and because all of Robinson’s attorneys have other high-profile cases they’re handling simultaneously.

“The reality is, rushing to trial does not equal closure,” Robinson’s attorney Staci Visser argued. “It leads to mistakes… it leads to having to do this again.”

Prosecutors, on the other hand, said they believed the trial could start much earlier, proposing a trial start date of January 31, 2028. They specified they could be ready to prosecute the case as soon as October 4, 2027, but said they did “not believe that it is wise to schedule the trial to span the worst of the winter season and the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.”

They reiterated that sentiment during the October hearing, with prosecutor Chad Grunander adding he didn’t want to lose a qualified juror because of childcare issues or because of inadvertent juror misconduct at holiday gatherings.

Kirk’s widow called defense timeline ‘out of touch with reality’

Jeffrey Neiman, an attorney for Erika Kirk, filed a motion ahead of last month’s hearing asking Graf to schedule the proceedings “for the earliest practicable date in 2027” – the latest indication of the family’s desire to see the case resolved as quickly as possible.

“Every additional day of delay carries the weight of all that Charlie’s murder has taken from his family, especially his two young children,” the filing said, emphasizing the defense timeline would see the trial begin four years after Kirk’s death.

Neiman echoed that sentiment, telling the court in October, “You know who doesn’t get to spend time with their family over the holidays? Charlie.”

The motion pointed to several other capital cases in Utah which proceeded to trial within six months to a couple of years, saying those display “how out of touch with reality the Defendant’s motion is.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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