Kirk's killer tries to avoid death penalty | Hour 1

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron. Go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Pete Calendar here, thanks a lot for hanging out. I appreciate it. And we have more court filings in the trial of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk last year. So this is part of the preceding that we covered last month where that was a probable cause hearing went on for a week, witnesses were produced, and it's not the same system that we have here in North Carolina. In Utah, they go through a probable cause hearing, calling witnesses and the like. So people were calling it like that was the trial, and that's not the trial. It's just for probable cause to determine whether or not there is enough evidence to go to trial. Okay, and of course the defense is saying, no, there's not enough evidence to support probable cause for a trial. They've been trying to get everything thrown out that they can, They've been largely unsuccessful in doing so, but they have filed. Now after the probable cause hearing, each side gets the chance to submit a brief to the court, which the court will then review before it makes its decision on whether or not there's enough evidence to go to trial, and that is expected on September first, that final ruling. Now the defense has submitted their brief, and I believe the state will now have an opportunity to respond to that. So we're on a clock now for about another what seventeen days before September one, And so the defense has filed its brief. So that's what we have. This is the forty one page document. That's what I will be referring to. I look at this entire thing, the entire brief, as a negotiating strategy. After watching the proceeding, looking at the evidence right that was presented for probable cause, I think it's I think it's overwhelming evidence for probable cause, but also the evidence that we know that was not actually presented in court, but has been reported in like the bill of information, the charging document, but also in media reports and such like to me, and I've covered trials, I've covered murder trials, capital murder trials, and uh, like, the evidence right now is pretty overwhelming. You've got four or five admissions from Tyler Robinson to different people. Right. You have the gun, you have the ammo. You have the ammo that had engravings on them. You have the dremal tool that made the engravings. You had the target practice target paper paper targets rather. You have him on video again, you have the admissions. You have the fact that his family recognized him and they went with him to turn himself in. Like, you have the comments that he made to his roommate slash intermittent transgender gay lover guy Lance Twigs. Right, there's just overwhelming evidence. So this is a tall order I think for the defense attorneys to They're like to try to create enough reasonable doubt that a jury would not convict him. Okay, So if you look at the evidence, you're the defense attorney, You look at all this evidence and you're like, Okay, they've got this guy. Six ways till Sunday so what are we trying to do? The defense attorneys are going to try to get something, get some sort of a plea agreement, if not a cent or a an acquittal right. If they think acquittal is going to be very difficult, then they're trying to get the best deal, the best sentence that they can for their client, something that the client can live with. And if the death penalty is on the table, well that's not something their client can live with, So they have to first try to get that off the table right now. If they're going to if they're going to enter into a plea deal with the state, they're starting from the state's strongest position, which is we're seeking the death penalty. So really, the only thing the state may be interested in doing a deal with you on is that you plead guilty and you spend the rest of your life in prison, no chance of parole. That would be what the state may be willing to do a deal for. Anything less than that, the state's like no right. So if you can get the death penalty off the table as a potential sentence, then you can go in and now the state's maximalist position is life without parole. Now you can start from there and work backwards a little bit. You can say, okay, how about ninety nine years with the possibility of parole something like that. Right, you've got more. Flexibility to negotiate some sort of an agreement if you can get the death penalty off of the table. That's what this filing is seeking to do. Whenever you go for a death penalty, you have to stack up aggravating factors. Right, So you committed. Murder, and here are three aggravating factors, Like you did it for the money, Right, that would be an aggravating factor. The aggravating factor here in this case is that there was a high probability of risk or death for many other people. And so that's the only aggravating factor that the state has thrown here. That may be a problem. They should have probably attempted a bunch of other aggravating factors, so if some of them fall off, they at least have one or two left, you know, because the defense will offer what's called mitigating factors, things that say, we'll see he was a choir boy, he helped this old lady across the street one time, he was abused as a child. These are all mitigating factors, right, So they're trying to get the aggravating factor tossed. Okay, that's what this is about. This is not about the trial. It's not about guilt or innocence. This is simply about whether or not the state can keep this aggravating factor as part of the charge. If they lose this. If the state loses it, then that takes the death penalty off the table as a sentence. So the aggravating factor is that the shooting created a high probability of death to someone other than Charlie Kirk, and that Robinson knew of that high probability. Okay, Now, I'm just a simple man, but I think that if you shoot somebody, even if it's through a scope from a rifle at a long distance, if that person is speaking in front of a crowd of thousands of people, I think that the shooter probably knew there's a high probability that somebody else could be killed. I would also submit, as did the state, that the multiple rounds in the chamber, each with engravings, indicate that Robinson knew he may have to shoot more than one shot, which would indicate the prior rounds missed were or missed Charlie Kirk. And if he had missed Charlie Kirk, what if somebody had spotted him up on that roof and the security rushes to get Charlie off of the stage just as Robinson fires, somebody gets shot. Ah, but in Utah. Because Kirk was the only one shot, nobody else was shot and not another round was fired. That means that you can't prove that Robinson knew there was a high probability of death to someone other than his target. That's what this is about, all right. For over a year now you've heard me talking about Create a Video. Great local company in mint Hill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS, tapes, film reels and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now creative videos helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. Introducing group travel videos perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destination weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams, I mean, really any gathering of people that you care about that's traveling together. Group travel Videos gives your traveling pack a private app where everyone can share photos during the trip, send messages, share schedules and important documents. Even a traveler safety locator feature that works only during the trip, and family members and friends back home can follow along and enjoy the experience in real time. No social media, no ads, it's totally private. No emails, phone numbers, account setups or hassles. With group travel videos, you'll capture today's moments on your special trip while they're happening. Then after the trip we're gathering, they'll professionally turn your shared moments into a beautiful storytelling video that your whole group can stream and download and treasure for years. Check out group travel Videos dot com. That's group travel Videos dot com. Or call seven oh four eight four six seventy eight seventy extension two o six. And when you do that, ask for Katie. But Pete, can I just email? Well, yes you can. You can email Katie Katie at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Fox News report by Michael Ruiz about this brief filed on behalf of Tyler Robinson, the assassin sorry alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk trying to get the death penalty taken off the table as a potential sentence. The state is According to the filing from Robinson's attorneys, the state had over ten months to investigate the shooting death of Charlie Kirk and to develop legally sufficient evidence that mister Robinson quote knowingly created a great risk of death to another other than Charlie Kirk and himself end quote. Okay, And that quote that's in quotes because that's from the law. Okay, knowingly created a great risk of death. That is the sole agg aggravator alleged in the information, which in theory exposes mister Robinson to the potential punishment of death. They say, however, all of the evidence presented in the one week pre trial hearing for probable cause, all of the evidence fails to prove that Robinson knew that there was this great risk of death for somebody besides Charlie Kirk. Robinson's lawyers noted there was only one shot fired and that it struck Kirk. Nobody else was hit. It didn't go through his body, because if it had gone through his body and somebody was standing behind Charlie Kirk behind that fabric scrim or whatever it's called under the tent. And they even addressed this in their filing too. They're like, there's no way he could have known if there was somebody back behind that wall, that fabric wall. He couldn't see behind there, So he didn't knowingly. Do this with the belief that there was somebody that could get killed. I mean, there's only thousands of people between him and Charlie Kirk. There are a whole bunch of people around Charlie Kirk, behind Charlie Kirk. But he didn't knowingly engage in anything that put anybody else at great risk. And the proof of this is that he had a rifle with a scope and he only fired one shot. Again, we don't know what. Would have happened had he missed the first shot, which he darn near did, right, but the other rounds in the chamber tell me that he that he was prepared in case he missed the first shot, with the implication there is that if he misses the first shot, he may hit somebody else. To me, that's knowingly putting people a great risk of death. They also argue that nobody else was in the line of fire. The state made a mention of this that in particular, there was a student who had come up to ask the question, and that student was on a microphone and that person or that Yeah, the person, I don't know if it was a student or not, but they were in the line of sight. They were in the line of fire. And that would mean that you knowingly put somebody a great risk of death. And so, see, this person is in the line of fire between the shooter and Charlie Kirk. And the defense says no, as proven by the fact that the questioning person at the microphone was not hit. See, so they weren't in the line of fire because Robinson was on an elevated position on the roof shooting down, so he wasn't in the line of fire. The questioner wasn't in the line of fire. Haha. Again, that is so basically they're saying, our client is such a good shot that he should be spared the death penalty. That's essentially what they're saying, don't put him to death. Now, if he was a terrible shot and murdered some other people in the process or hit some other people in the process, then I guess this would apply but maybe not, because then they would say, well, he didn't know. That other people would be put at great risk when he opened. Fire on a guy in the middle of a crowded bowl. He didn't know. The communications also that the state relies on admits the mister Robinson. This according to the defense attorneys, they say, look, you're using this text message where Robinson admits to Twigs quote, I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I took it. And the defense attorneys say, there's no mention of any threat or intended harm to any other individual. See so while he's admitting that he did it, he's saying that he didn't intend to kill anybody else. You see that. So this wasn't like a mass shooting events. See so you can't give him the death penalty. Now they will let trial say that they don't want these texts admitted or whatever, like, I don't know how they're going to get around this, but they're using it now. They're saying, now, yes, we have these texts where he says my target was only Charlie Kirk, which is an admission that he killed him. But because he did so in a text and didn't say I wanted to kill anybody else, then therefore we can't put him to death. Makes sense, I mean only to a lawyer, but yes, that's what that's their argument. I do have some text messages to get to, but first let's head over to the phones and chat with Mike. Hello, Mike, how are you, sir? Hello? P Happy Thursday. I hope you're will I am well for Thursday. Indeed, hope you are. To Indeed, indeed almost to the weekend, not quite. I was telling Bernie when you when you picked up, I said, you know, it's not every day that I, you know, very much agree with you. And I thought, well, if that's the case, let me call in and say how much I agree with doing this. If I were a judge in this case, I would have denied a definish motion. This is one where I think, you know, left the jury decide. Now. I'm speaking as someone who has virtual no virtually no knowledge of Utah criminal jurisprudence or tradition. Yeah, me neither. Yeah. So the way you described it, though, it's one where okay, I have the fast makes a good point. I think you deserve to make that point of the jury and we'll see it frop. Yeah. It's this weird process they've got of, like this probable cause hearing, which seems to be a substitute maybe for like a grand jury, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In many ways, it opens up a whole discussion on the effectiveness of having a death penalty either now a death penalty at all. Now, I, personally you don't want us to have a death penalty, not because I don't think that certain criminals deserve it. I definitely think that they do. But if you're going to have it, you need to have it fairly. And if you're going to have it fairly, that's going to require time and expense, and I think you can just take a lot of procedure and wasted time off the table by having, you know, other severe forms of punishment. That takes away the long boyder that you have to do. You have to interview juries for weeks on end to see how they feel about the death penalty, and then you have all these appeals and all that. So my my opposition to the death penalty is not because I don't think people deserve it. It's frankly from a from a taxpayer standpoint, and an efficiency standpoint, and you know, I guess I'm sure there's some victims that would want victims families that would want to have the satisfaction of seeing someone put to death. I get that. At the same time, I think there are families that want the closure and want to know that justice has been done, has in fact been done to the extent it can be done, and that you know, there's there's closure and not a long procedure where they have to worry for years on end what's going to happen. Yeah. Part of the problem with that with the death penalty issue. And I've gone back and forth on my own personal support of the death penalty because on the on the one side, like I get it as a as a punishment and maybe a deterrent in some cases, But on the other hand, the state gets stuff wrong, and I don't trust government to get stuff right. We've already seen too many innocent people released from prison, and so that means we've undoubtedly executed people that were innocent of the crime. So that's just my skepticism. Of government doing things well. So there's always a chance then that somebody who gets convicted for something they didn't do, maybe they could get out. You know, maybe if you put them to death they can't. Now, the part of the problem with all of this over the last you know, sixty seventy years, is that a lot of courts have turned a death penalty or sorry, a life sentence into a not life sentence where people would be in some states and legislative actions where you've got you know, life in North Carolina, right, we just recently within the last what fifteen years or twenty years had to go back and say life means life. When you get life, that means you don't ever get out. And so that was why the death penalty was sort of a way to guard against that kind of corruption. I would say, yeah, this is this is just the sort of the balance of interest that need to be weighed by you know, responsible adults and citizens to say, okay, they're trade offs, as your guy common Soul says, they're just trade offs. And you know, is it more Is it better to have to try and close up the certainty of as you say, life means life or to sort of drag things out and have the type of procedural byzantine paths that you have to take, like this probable cause airing out in Utah. But if you throw them in jail for life, you put them in prison for life, then they get to continue to exhaust all sorts of legal paths when they're not innocent, when they are in fact guilty of the crime they've been convicted. And if you leave them in jail for the rest of their life, then they're going to be a rain on taxpayer resources, which would go to your argument of why you oppose the death penalty. If you put them in prison for life, they got way more avenues to cost us more money. No, well, that's I see what you're saying, But I think in practice, you know, the doors are really pretty much closed. Unless you have something that new evidence comes up, like new DNA or something like that, you really don't have much chance of overturning that previous verdict. And even when you have that, it's really difficult. Or you have no you have legislative you have legislative changes. Right, you could have a state that said that basically commutes everybody from a life sentence down to I mean, and this is not that far fetched of an idea. You literally have people talking about decarceration, and so if they were to achieve their goals. You got people who have been sentenced to life in prison. They could turn around and pass some legislation that says, okay, now all life sentences are commuted to fifty year sentences. And that means people who have been in prison for fifty years now they're out. Well, I mean, they've been in prison for fifty years, AKA, like Charles Manson or somebody you know. You you you weigh the benefits or the justice or whatever about where they let them out, and you have decisions a half century from now. But I don't disagree with you, Pete, but I think again, all these things get weighed on the table, and in order to eliminate that possibility a half century from now, do you put the death penalty back on the table and say, okay, that's the way we ought to go. And I think this is an area where you know, intelligent, well meaning people can very much disagree. Yeah. I appreciate so, yeah, yeah, I appreciate the call, Mike, But now I'm reassessing my position if you agree with me on it. So okay, just go onto the text. There you go, that's. There, you go, all right, Mike, I appreciate it. Good to hear from you, sir. All right, take care. From the text line, A seven to one seven number says, is there a time in history we can point to say that this is when we started losing common sense. I'm just amazed at the absolutely stupid decisions that get made. Just curious love the show. Look, i mean we lived through very stupid times before. You know, people think they have this nostalgia for you know, growing up in the seventies. We were talking about this the other day, and they were cutting people loose all over the place in the seventies and eighties. I mean, I grew up watching New York Times Square as the crap hole that it was. So just Oh, by the way, I went in depth on the entire filing last night on the live stream. I'm not going to go into all of the arguments because there are a ton of things that I can go through with the with the fire, and I did go through with the filing, So I'm just keeping it high level for today. So this from Kevin on the t line. Kevin, again, if you're if the first message I see is you apologizing for typos. Like I don't. It's like I don't even want to go back now and read the text. But I will. I could never be an attorney. Could you imagine being a court appointed attorney attempting to get your clients set free on a technicality when you know for sure in your heart they are guilty. Yeah, I mean that's part of the gig. I couldn't do it, Stanley says, let me make sure I'm understanding this. With a high power rifle, niscope, I shoot one shot into a crowd and one individual dies as a result. The only way I can get the death penalty is if it can be proven that the individual who died was my intended target. Would that require you to know what I was thinking at the time, which, unless I'm really stupid, would be next to impossible to prove. Right, But Tyler Robinson has the text message that says, I took out Charlie Kirk. I'm tired of his hatred. I had enough of his hatred, which, by the way, that line right there plays into another ask from the defense team that they drop the enhancement of the charge that Kirk was targeted for his political expression, so that that enhances the charge, and they want that drop too, because just because Tyler Robinson was in a gay relationship with his intermittently transgender roommate lover. There's no way to know what kind of reason Robinson took the shot. We don't know. Even though Charlie Kirk was out talking of you know, he talks about Christian conservative values. He opposes the LGBT agenda and stuff, right talking about the trans procedures and all of this, we don't know no what Robinson was talking about specifically. You see, he was tired of Charlie Kirk's hatred. He had enough of the hatred. But we don't know what hatred. We have no records of Tyler Robinson ever like talking about Charlie Kirk's views. So it's a mystery. We just don't know. I mean, yes, he was in this relationship with a transgender person, but we don't know what that hatred was a reference to. Yeah, it's an enigma. The defense also is asking to strike two lesser charges, one witness tampering, the other is committing a violent defense in the presence of a child. Once again, they're saying here that despite the fact that there were literally thousands of people between him and the target, Robinson didn't know there's been no evidence to prove that he knew there was somebody under the age of fourteen in that crowd, so you got to drop that charge. And also the witness tampering, which is when Robinson texted Twiggs and said, you know, don't talk to the police, get a lawyer. And they say, the lawyers are saying, that's not him obstructing, that's him offering altruistic advice. You see. He's just remember you have a constitutional right to remain silent. That's the only reason he told Twigs not to talk to cops. So yeah, Rodney says, that's the problem with the law. Now, there are too many darn lawyers. Yeah, Bain says to me, the defense is saying, hey, look at all the people he didn't kill, right, Like, I mean, this could have been way worse, but he didn't know it could have been way worse. Jim says, your bumper music is the best. Thank you, Thank you. Nick. Producer, Nick, what about Fauci? What about Fauci? Hell must have frozen over. I have to agree with caller Mike. I say bring back hard labor as punishment. Hmm. Shane says, A sensible conversation with Mike shocking. I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day. Oh, no, need to guess about that, Shane. A broken clock is correct twice a day. Well, somebody says, Steve. Does not agree. Steve does not agree. What an outstanding call from Mike. We have found common ground. It was good to get a break from punching myself in the brain from his usual calls. Today. It really is a momentous day. Beth's favorite Russ says, is it still alleged assassin when the defense team is saying, yeah, he did all these things and that's him on the video, also on the shooting near other people. Idea, most jurisdictions will charge in otherwise legal gun owner acting in a legal capacity if that person has a negligent discharge or fires a warning shot at the ground or in the air. Yeah, so every state's different, and they sign a whole bunch of these other laws. It has actually pretty comical, like the steps that they have gone through based on three Utah Supreme Court rulings to get to this point where yeah, it says you have to require as a factual matter that where one or more firearm is used in a homicide, the defendant actually discharges multiple rounds, hitting and or killing individuals other than the murder victim. That's what you have to prove for the risk of grave danger to anybody else in the surrounding. So if you go into it, and this is one of the cases they cite, go into a convenience store, shoot and kill two people in the convenience store, but leave two other people alive, then that proves they were never in any risk of grave danger because you went there to kill these two people. You killed those two people, and you left the other two alive. They so you can't bump that up to capital murder. That's the Utah law. It's crazy. Mike's conversation was very interesting, says Sean. But let me point out that the killer of four young people in Idaho who accepted a plea bargain for life in prison, is now requesting a new trial and may get it. Precisely, that is part of the problem. TP suggests we just bring back Vlad the Impaler. That's definitely a. Crime deterrent, yes, but also it's going to attract a lot of buzzards and bugs. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Callner Show. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.