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00:02:12.000Well, we've reached the day set for those closing arguments.
00:02:15.000We'll be going to that hearing as soon as it is visible to the media, open to the public.
00:02:22.000For the time being, my understanding is the hearing either has started or is about to start.
00:02:27.000They'll be hashing out a defense motion related to what specific evidence is able to be viewed by the public.
00:02:34.000Hopefully, that will only go about 45 minutes to an hour, and then we'll be able to get inside the courtroom.
00:02:41.000Talking about, I'd say, I think Danny, we should talk about what's happened in the last two months.
00:02:46.000So, we remember if you haven't been following every maneuver of this case, back in July, we had a week of preliminary hearings that was primarily the prosecution making its probable cause case.
00:02:58.000So, we got a lot of evidence that we'd heard about but had not seen yet was finally presented to the public.
00:03:04.000We saw surveillance footage from UVU, which showed the suspect, who we believe was Tyler Robinson, walking around campus.
00:03:15.000In one of them, the person appears to be limping in a strange way, like they have something hidden under their clothes that is believed to be the rifle.
00:03:23.000We saw footage of them on the rooftop going into position and then fleeing the scene after the fatal shot.
00:03:44.000And one of the things that happened about three weeks ago was we got a filing from the defense that was in text form, their final briefing of the case they are making prior to the bind over hearing.
00:03:57.000And what we highlighted and is worth highlighting is both what they talk about and what they didn't talk about.
00:04:07.000And in this 41 page filing, they never really debunked any of the core attacks or any of the core claims from the prosecution that Tyler Robinson engaged in the shooting.
00:04:19.000Instead, it was entirely focused on trying to undercut the case for the death penalty.
00:04:25.000As we've discussed, in Utah, actually in every state, to get the death penalty in a murder case, you need.
00:04:33.000You can't just have it as the default penalty for first degree murder.
00:04:37.000So they need aggravations such as many people were in danger, that children were in danger, that there was a political or like a hate based motive for the crime.
00:04:46.000And so they offered evidence for that.
00:04:48.000And the defense did try to push back on that.
00:04:51.000They tried to argue, quite literally, in this 41 page filing, they argued that the defendant was basically a good shot, that he hit his intended target, and so therefore he was not.
00:05:03.000Putting other people's lives recklessly in danger at UVU.
00:05:07.000That was part of their 41 page filing.
00:05:11.000But what that filing did do is it did admit that it was a rifle shot that killed Tyler at, or that killed Charlie at UVU.
00:05:21.000They did not introduce any of these other theories.
00:05:26.000And they also argued, for example, there was one of the secondary charges against Tyler Robinson that he was engaging in witness tampering, that he was telling Lance Twiggs.
00:05:37.000Not to talk to police, and there as a result, the defense offers all this evidence that actually the defendant was, you know, just offering genuine, uh, good advice like that he was just looking out for his friends' well being.
00:05:53.000So that happened in the meantime since then.
00:05:55.000There's 41 pages in this, and only a single page dealt with what we would say is conventional guilt or innocence.
00:06:03.000They argued, uh, for it being impermissible hearsay that they'd introduced all of the Lance Twiggs footage.
00:06:09.000Without having Lance Twiggs personally there, but the court had already ruled on that.
00:06:13.000That's the only argument they made in 41 pages, Danny, about actual guilt or innocence.
00:06:19.000Yeah, and we also learned that they have over 1 million communications from Discord and other messages that they recovered.
00:06:52.000So they basically have every cell phone ping ever made by Tyler Robinson's phone so they can track every place he was going.
00:07:01.000Now, what prosecutors claim and what I suspect evidence will show is that Tyler Robinson, who lived in southwest Utah in St. George, made this journey all the way up to Orem, Utah.
00:07:15.000On that day, that he was in the vicinity of the campus.
00:07:17.000I'm not sure how precisely they can pinpoint it, but they'll certainly be able to show, I suspect, that he was in that city when the shooting occurred and then that he journeys home.
00:07:27.000And we had testimony at the trial from Lance, at the preliminary hearing of Lance Twiggs, confirming that he left mysteriously to go somewhere on the day that the shooting occurred.
00:07:41.000In fact, I think we have this queued up.
00:07:43.000So let's remind people of some of the stuff that we saw.
00:08:24.000I would have thought it was 5 a.m. because that's when an early work day was for him, but it was probably more like 4.
00:08:32.000So now they've sent all the cell phone records that we hope, we believe, will confirm that account of when he left his home, where he journeyed up.
00:08:43.000It's all about tons of different pieces coming together.
00:08:47.000And I guess the upside of Utah's very cumbersome process compared to, it seems, other states, we've talked to prosecutors who've said in some other states, we would have gotten an arraignment.
00:08:58.000The following day, we would hopefully be in trial right now.
00:09:01.000Here, it's taken us a year to get through this entire process.
00:09:44.000And what's good about at least these briefs that have come out is it kind of quells and puts away a lot of these theories, like with the cell phone data.
00:09:52.000Why the people that have made these theories didn't think that they would ever have cell phone data to prove them wrong is kind of absurd to begin with.
00:09:59.000So people have just been running wild with whatever they want with really no critical thinking.
00:10:06.000We're in a critical thinking depression right now.
00:10:09.000It seems that everybody's just so on edge, especially with this case, but about really everything going on, that they're just deciding to make up whatever they want.
00:10:17.000We are hoping that after some testimony today, some final arguments, we will get a decision from Judge Graf on bind over.
00:10:25.000That is the legal term, whether this will proceed to trial.
00:10:27.000But for more expertise on this, because I am not a lawyer and Danny is not a lawyer, we made different choices in our lives, we're joined by a legal expert who's helped us a lot.
00:10:36.000Throughout this case, that is Jay Town.
00:10:39.000He's a former prosecutor from Alabama, and he joins us now.
00:11:21.000It feels like a trial in so many ways, but it's not.
00:11:24.000What should we expect to see today from each side?
00:11:27.000Well, I don't believe that the prosecution should use more than 20 minutes.
00:11:32.000I mean, the evidence is overwhelming, it speaks for itself.
00:11:35.000If you have to really argue at this point that there is probable cause, Right.
00:11:41.000So better than a coin toss chance that Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk, then you've lost already.
00:11:49.000You don't have any faith in your case.
00:11:51.000I mean, I'm not involved in the case whatsoever.
00:11:54.000I've talked about it more on your program than I have anywhere.
00:11:58.000And I can tell you, I can list 20 or 25 pieces of evidence that are very damning independently.
00:12:04.000And then certainly when taken together against Tyler Robinson, to include the multitude of confessions from Tyler Robinson that he admitted he killed Charlie Kirk.
00:12:14.000So I don't think there's any question for the judge.
00:12:18.000And the prosecution should stand up and sit down.
00:12:55.000They've allowed the jury pool for the actual trial that will take place to be infected with the tinfoil hack crowd that does exist and is out there and has millions of people putting eyeballs on it.
00:13:09.000And that was just, I think, a mistake by Utah prosecutors in this particular case.
00:13:43.000Yeah, Jay, it feels to me that if we were to take a policy prescription from this high profile case and a few other ones, it actually should be a priority.
00:13:56.000We should maybe reform our system to encourage cases to go more briskly from.
00:14:02.000Arrest to indictment to trial to verdict.
00:14:06.000That, as you say, if the process is dragging out, you're introducing more room for weird theories to come in, for stuff to go awry.
00:14:16.000And I guess at this point, you might even say witnesses, like important witnesses, might die or become incapacitated.
00:14:22.000There are so many ways that a case can go wrong when it goes on and on and on like this.
00:14:28.000You've been a professional in this sphere.
00:14:31.000It feels to me like things have been just getting longer across the board in the court system.
00:14:36.000Is that the case from your experience?
00:14:38.000Does it take longer to complete a trial than it once did as a general matter across the states?
00:14:44.000I think so, because delay is always the best tactic when you're guilty, right?
00:14:48.000Like you said, memories fade, people die.
00:14:51.000Maybe those people get scuffed up with a charge, and so they're not, you know, the veracity of their testimony isn't as heavy as it once was prior to a grand jury indictment or, in this case, a probable cause hearing.
00:15:05.000And that's sort of the hope is that the state's evidence will not get better.
00:15:11.000After the arrest, typically not much better, but the defense's defense does get better oftentimes.
00:15:18.000And I've had capital murder cases where, you know, I wanted, I sought to put people on death row for capital punishment for murder.
00:15:27.000And, you know, those cases, one of them went five years before we got to a trial.
00:15:33.000It was absolute absurdity to the point where we actually changed the law here in the state of Alabama.
00:15:38.000So allowing this preliminary phase to go on for a year.
00:15:42.000Is absurd, and who knows when he's going to rule?
00:15:44.000He might take his sweet time and rule sometime around Thanksgiving.
00:15:48.000I mean, we don't know that he's going to rule today or anytime this week.
00:15:53.000It's just that the hearing and the preliminary phase will be over with, and then a trial will be scheduled.
00:15:57.000Well, there's a whole other batch of rights that Tyler Robinson has at that point, other experts that have to come in and aid with his defense.
00:16:06.000And, you know, we need six months for them to complete their report.
00:16:10.000And then the state needs six months for their expert to evaluate the report and create their own.
00:16:19.000This judge is, in my view, a disservice to the Kirk family and to Charlie by letting this prelim circus get way out of control for way too long.
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00:19:25.000We have a Turning Point Frontlines reporter on the scene in Utah.
00:19:53.000You had Katherine Nester, Robinson's defense attorney, get here about 30 minutes before they actually opened anything up.
00:19:59.000Robinson arrives in the Bearcat security truck right around, I'd say two and a half hours prior to the actual hearing.
00:20:07.000Andrew Colvett is, of course, here on scene with Charlie's parents.
00:20:10.000So it's looking very similar to what we've already seen.
00:20:15.000You had, I would say, multiple people camp out overnight, just like we had seen prior.
00:20:20.000That are kind of more in the Candace camp, you know, her social media posters and things along those lines.
00:20:27.000But I'd say virtually the exact same scene we've seen time and time again.
00:20:31.000I've spoken to multiple people out here on the grounds.
00:20:34.000They all, or I'd say about 95% of them, if I had to give a rough number, do believe that we'll be seeing a decision get made and ultimately the case will go to trial.
00:20:44.000But the Judge Graff technically does not have to issue an official ruling as of today.
00:20:51.000And as we mentioned, there are a few of the, Weird theory supporters there.
00:20:55.000Several of them were posting about it last night.
00:20:58.000They apparently lined up 20 hours in advance, which shows commitment to the bid at least.
00:21:06.000Did you interact at all or see those people?
00:21:08.000Are there other supporters of Tyler Robinson there?
00:21:12.000How numerous do you think that those people are overall?
00:21:15.000I would say about half the people, roughly, that actually went in to attend the public hearing today are in support of Robinson or believe that he didn't do it in some shape, form, or capacity.
00:21:27.000You know, the usual two, you have Brandy and Billy sitting out front.
00:21:31.000They're kind of the more outspoken ones.
00:21:32.000I believe I saw Diligent Denizen as well, which he's, you know, the number one propaganda poster on Twitter right now.
00:21:40.000So it's there, there is a decent amount of them out here, but you also have students from UVU in attendance, you know, people involved in the Turning Point chapters here supporting Erica and Charlie.
00:21:50.000Are there any, besides the ones who went into the hearing itself, are there any others there?
00:21:55.000Is there any seeing people waving signs, people chanting stuff, people trolling everyone?
00:22:02.000I'm just trying to get a picture of the overall scene.
00:22:05.000Yeah, no, everybody that is on kind of the other side of the aisle believing that Robinson did not do it or supporting Robinson, they're actually all inside the hearing at this moment in time.
00:22:15.000We don't have anybody just kind of lingering outside.
00:22:18.000No Antifa types, no left wing types holding signs of any sorts.
00:22:22.000The only people you have lingering outside right now are media and some UVU studios.
00:22:27.000And Taylor, do you know how many people from the public are in the hearing today?
00:22:54.000I imagine the actual trial will have a bigger event.
00:22:58.000Have you talked much to people around the Orem area how it feels seeing this case?
00:23:04.000Play out and it becoming such a long running discussion point due to how long the trial is and how much discussion it's inspired online?
00:23:13.000Yeah, so I actually live fairly close to this area, so I've spoken to a decent amount of people that are local to the area, and they pretty much all just have said the same thing when I talk to them about it it feels surreal that this trial is taking place in the state of Utah.
00:23:28.000That's kind of what I get the most out of when I have conversations with Utahans, they just can't believe that.
00:23:35.000Charlie was killed in the first place, but the fact that he was killed in the state of Utah out of anywhere that he could be murdered.
00:23:41.000And that's kind of mind boggling to them, every Utah resident that I've spoken to, because it's Utah.
00:24:02.000We've had the chapter leader of that school on the show before, but.
00:24:07.000If there's others who are from the school, have they talked at all about the experience of being, I guess, being the turning point chapter that Charlie had his last event at?
00:24:19.000I know that's probably something that must loom over all of them to some extent.
00:24:24.000I mean, not even just them, but every student at UVU.
00:24:27.000And, you know, you can talk to a left wing student on the campus or a right wing student on the campus.
00:24:32.000And for the most part, they're going to be in large agreement this should have never happened and this is a horrible thing and it's going to be a stain, you know, on our college campus for.
00:24:41.000Essentially, the rest of American history.
00:24:43.000So, for the most part, everyone's kind of on the same page in regards to that.
00:24:48.000But you do have a lot of students that witnessed it at UVU that are now directly involved with Turning Point chapters, whether it's on UVU or a different campus.
00:24:57.000So, it seems like overall it's led more people to Turning Point in a way.
00:25:09.000It's going to be happening at that facility that's either on UVU or near it in a week.
00:25:15.000Have people talked about attending that, having plans for it?
00:25:19.000Are they planning their own memorials?
00:25:21.000Do you know anything or can speak to that?
00:25:23.000Yeah, I spoke to one of the UVU reps today outside of the preliminary hearing.
00:25:28.000And at first, they had floated this idea of hosting on the one year anniversary on the 10th the UVU memorial.
00:25:36.000And at first, UVU had been in agreement with it, been coordinating with the turning point chapters.
00:25:41.000And they all of a sudden just stopped responding to them and kind of ghosting them.
00:25:44.000So there were plans made just in case.
00:25:47.000It was canceled for basically an alternate venue, but it seems that they have things sorted with UVU and that they will be hosting that event on campus like expected.
00:25:58.000I mean, that's, I think ultimately we just, we know, I would say we know it's tough for UVU.
00:26:04.000They're a school, they don't want to be forever identified by what a person who wasn't even really a student there heinously did, but we want to be able to honor Charlie.
00:27:02.000Did you see any in the lead up before they opened the doors?
00:27:05.000Was there any, I guess, discussion, confrontation between the people who are Tyler Robinson supporters and anyone else?
00:27:15.000No, I hadn't seen any confrontations of any sort between the two.
00:27:20.000Neither really were there any, you know, the original week of preliminary hearings where you did kind of have more of an audience on both sides in attendance.
00:27:28.000They just kind of tend to stay in their own lane, is what I've noticed.
00:27:32.000They don't really talk to anybody, and if they do, they'll be friendly to you and not actually tell you why they're explicitly there.
00:27:38.000But there hasn't been any issues as of yet.
00:27:41.000Honestly, that surprises me a little because so many of these people are very confrontational, very aggressive, very performative on X.
00:27:50.000I mean, certainly one of those guys who's there yesterday was posting, like, can't wait to see you, Miss Franzva.
00:27:57.000They're posting a lot of menacing stuff online.
00:28:16.000It also just makes it very easy to dehumanize someone at a distance.
00:28:21.000It's like they're not a real person when you're just harassing a person on X. We've seen this with so many of the personnel at Turning Point when they go after our camera guys or our security guys or Charlie's team.
00:28:43.000But it does speak to the nature of modern conspiracy theory culture, if you will.
00:28:54.000Taylor, if you have any final thoughts, we've got a couple minutes left and then we'll probably move on back to just summarizing the evidence as we wait for this hearing to actually be open to the public.
00:29:03.000You know, I guess I'll just add a point to what you had just stated about their behavior.
00:29:07.000I've always found it really interesting, you know, my six plus years of reporting.
00:29:12.000This is usually how it tends to go the people that are most vocal online are, you know, the loudest.
00:29:18.000When you actually are around them in person, they're never actually going to say anything.
00:29:23.000It'll act like they're on your side or have the same opinions that you have.
00:29:27.000So I'd say it definitely is a benefit, but it speaks to the volume of their character and their beliefs, or if they actually even do believe the things that they post.
00:29:36.000Is, you know, Twitter specifically has turned into, A monetization fight back and forth endlessly.
00:29:43.000It doesn't matter what you post, but you're getting paid as long as someone engages with it.
00:29:47.000And that's kind of what you see here on the ground you see all these Twitter super soldiers that want to pose as reporters, but they've never actually reported on anything in their whole life.
00:29:57.000And then the minute you try to talk to them about differing opinions, they'll turn tail and run away, or they'll just run away before they even see you.
00:30:04.000So these aren't the mightiest soldiers, I'll tell you that much.
00:30:09.000They definitely are just here to, I imagine we'll see posts from them later on saying that.
00:30:14.000You know, it was a huge win for Tyler Robinson somehow, but they are not serious people, nor should they be taken any serious.
00:31:24.000He said he expects the prosecution to be as brief as possible because the case is strong.
00:31:28.000And if you're talking forever, you're just signaling that the case is weak.
00:31:32.000So, why don't we just take a step back and remind our viewers what is the full scope of different evidence that has already been brought forth, even though we haven't gone to trial yet, even though we've really only had a preliminary probable cause hearing?
00:31:48.000Well, and I actually caught some of your conversation with Taylor there.
00:31:53.000And of course, I attended the opening, the original initial part of the preliminary hearings.
00:31:59.000And for the week that I was there, it was very similar to what he described, not confrontational.
00:32:04.000Yes, there were people on both sides who got into the courtroom from the public, as well as both Charlie's family and Tyler Robinson's family in attendance.
00:32:16.000And what's significant, I think, too, though, is he asked that question about what are people locally talking about.
00:32:22.000And, you know, when I spent the week out there just, you know, going to restaurants or, you know, I got a haircut when I was out there and different things like that, and we're talking to locals, and a lot of them, They were actually asking that they couldn't believe that the trial hadn't concluded yet.
00:32:38.000They actually thought that the trial had taken place, had concluded, was over.
00:32:43.000They didn't realize how, you know, it's seemingly laborious and lengthy the process is to go from a crime being committed to the hearing and then eventually to the trial.
00:32:56.000Most people, of course, you know, get that, you know, their sense of these things from TV shows and podcasts, and that's just not how the real world works.
00:33:04.000But what was interesting is, you know, most of the people that I talked to were genuinely sympathetic to Charlie, couldn't believe that something like that would happen, wouldn't believe that it happened there.
00:33:17.000And they said, oh, I, you know, most of the people were saying, oh, I thought they found that guy guilty already.
00:33:27.000When we're doing get out the vote, that we run into the routine problem that individuals who are registered Republicans think they voted because they voted in the primary, they think they voted.
00:33:38.000Because they attended this rally or filled out this survey.
00:33:41.000They think they voted because they voted in the last election and their mind blurs it.
00:33:46.000And it seems like this as well that there's been so much process, there's been these hearings, they've seen this evidence.
00:33:52.000So surely the trial has already happened.
00:33:54.000But in fact, we might be a year out from this trial.
00:33:58.000But Jack, I think this is a good opportunity for us to just, because this was such a drawn out preliminary, we can remind people the sheer scope of how much evidence has been in this case.
00:34:11.000People make fun of the fact that they use the word overwhelming, but I've genuinely found myself thinking, has there been a case that has more different types of evidence introduced into it, pointing towards the defendant's guilt?
00:34:26.000And, Jack, I'm not sure I really easily can.
00:34:28.000I think basically every type of evidence that could be offered in a murder case of this nature has already appeared in the pretrial, correct?
00:34:47.000This wasn't something that took place at a, in an office or a parking lot or something like that.
00:34:53.000This was, and it was, it was designed by the killer to be public.
00:34:57.000It was designed to get that maximum media attention.
00:35:01.000So we should actually expect in the 21st century with the technology that we have, with cameras like we have now, with cell phones and everything else, that we should start seeing more of this level of evidence again in these cases and in these situations.
00:35:17.000I think back to President Trump's assassination attempt.
00:35:20.000At Butler, where there were all sorts of videos that were coming out of Thomas Matthew Crooks almost immediately, similar as well with Cole Thomas Allen at the Washington Correspondents' Dinner, where he ran in firing at Secret Service.
00:35:37.000You had videos, including some police cameras, which caught his car driving away and things like that.
00:35:42.000So it partially is because of the way that technology is moving that we do have more ubiquitous cameras up and are able to catch people better and recreate their moments.
00:35:52.000I'll always go back to the Kyle Rittenhouse case a couple of years ago, which took place in 2020.
00:35:58.000But when the case happened in 2021, I remember that there was so much cell phone footage of that event that you could actually follow each individual, both Kyle Rittenhouse as well as the assailants, through almost the entire evening if you just pulled together live streams from either supporters or different citizen journalists who were there, people like Brendan Gudenschwager, people like you know,
00:36:24.000just the other folks from Twitter, Drew Hernandez was there that were documenting the entire thing.
00:36:30.000And it was incredible to think that, you know, in the past, we would have to go on witness recollections or have to go.
00:36:37.000In the Michael Brown case, I remember the autopsy was the only real evidence we had of where the people were standing because there was no video.
00:36:47.000So the technology is moving very quickly, as you say.
00:36:50.000And in fact, our justice system is really rapidly catching up to that because we don't have videos.
00:36:56.000Like we do now of some of the most high profile assassinations that took place in our history, but now we do.
00:37:02.000Yeah, we're very fortunate because I think the nature of Charlie's death means the conspiracy theories would be inevitable.
00:37:08.000I think these arguments would have happened no matter what.
00:37:11.000And imagine if it was the case, for example, that the only evidence we had was maybe one photo of Tyler Robinson somewhere on campus, or if it was just the footage from the top of the building, because people have nitpicked those endlessly, but it's worth reminding people everything fits together.
00:37:28.000So we have Many videos from the campus of this individual walking around in multiple changes of outfit.
00:37:35.000We have footage of this car, which is clear enough to say this resembles the car that is registered to Tyler Robinson.
00:38:04.000So if you can nitpick one thing, I don't think you can nitpick all of it.
00:38:08.000And I think we're blessed in that regard.
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00:39:43.000Just visit charlieforhillsdale.com to start learning today.
00:40:17.000We had an hour of closed door deliberation over a motion from the defense, but then it really was remarkable.
00:40:26.000Judge Graff is very, I think the most kind term is methodical with his handling.
00:40:33.000He has a, I think you noticed what he'll tend to do on any subject is he'll describe at length what the defense's claim is, what the prosecution's counter is before issuing his own ruling on it.
00:40:45.000And so that's what a lot of last hour was.
00:40:47.000Defense argues that the following would be prejudicial to the defendant if media is able to see this, if there is this or that media circus around it.
00:40:57.000But then there's this Supreme Court precedent, here's this Utah Constitution part that goes against this.
00:41:02.000And he would do all this setup to then say defense's motion is thereby denied.
00:41:08.000And so there was a lot of song and dance for a lot of denied motions.
00:41:12.000But I do think one thing that was very interesting.
00:41:18.000There was some back and forth, which, if you were paying attention to the hearing, you may have noticed.
00:41:23.000There was back and forth about whether to redact the name of a website in their discussion.
00:41:29.000That originally there had been a website named, and then the defense wanted to remove the name of the website.
00:41:35.000And then that ended up being denied, so it was voiced.
00:41:39.000The website turned out to be Polymarket.
00:41:43.000There was reference to the fact that on Polymarket, which is one of these betting websites, prediction markets, as they call them, There is a market for Will Tyler Robinson be?
00:41:56.000I think we can even check what's up there right now.
00:41:59.000I think there's one for Will he be convicted?
00:42:37.000It's practically a guess, I suspect, as to whether there will be a very accelerated trial or he might plead guilty as well.
00:42:44.000And they mentioned this, and you can actually, if you open this market, guys, maybe you guys want to check on this, you can see it fluctuate over the course of the weeks.
00:42:53.000It goes up above 55%, as high as almost 60%, drops down.
00:42:59.000And the defense brought up that there's almost, it's contributing to a circus like atmosphere around the case that people are betting money on whether Tyler Robinson will be convicted.
00:43:13.000And it gets me thinking about the bigger picture of whether these markets are potentially harmful because we just want justice for Charlie in this case.
00:43:23.000But you can imagine what if someone on the prosecution team decided.
00:43:29.000They wanted to, you know, they could make a bet on this.
00:43:31.000Someone on the defense team could make money off of this.
00:43:34.000Someone in a jury could make money off of this.
00:43:38.000That's a massive concern because one juror, one juror, and this is a market with $316,000 volume, so non negligible amount of money in this.
00:43:49.000One person anywhere in the case can gum up the entire process, can throw a case in order to make money.
00:43:56.000And we've never really had a possibility like that before.
00:44:03.000I think this case, it's become almost a test run for so many things that were unprecedented.
00:44:10.000So it's the first big criminal trial, it feels, in the prediction market era where that's possible to happen.
00:44:17.000It's the first big criminal trial, first big, frankly, conspiracy theory in the AI era where people can get fooled by AI deepfakes.
00:44:25.000We saw that, for example, with the Tyler Robinson footage that people would post an AI enhanced image of the security footage and then go, This doesn't look anything like Tyler Robinson.
00:44:36.000Well, yeah, it's an AI generated image, effectively.
00:44:38.000And so it's filling in details that aren't actually there.
00:44:42.000And so that's what I found myself thinking about because, as we mentioned, basically nothing happened in the last hour.
00:44:51.000So, what we are looking towards after lunch, they'll come back and there was supposed to be about 45 minutes of prosecution argument.
00:45:00.000I'm not sure if we're going to be able to get Jay back in.
00:45:04.000I invited him, but I was texting with him.
00:45:07.000During the hearing, because he'd said they shouldn't take more than 15 or 20 minutes.
00:45:17.000But he said they anticipated 45 minutes, and then we promptly got 20, 25 minutes of back and forth over whether they can show an image that's of the shooting and all of that.
00:45:28.000And I believe when they come back from lunch, they're going to be arguing that again.
00:46:48.000How much capacity does he have to extend it into the mid or late evening?
00:46:53.000I don't know all of the rules on that, but he did at least, Judge Graff did voice his commitment to issuing a ruling today.
00:47:01.000I think that is what we care about most.
00:47:03.000So if it drags out for an extra half hour or hour here and there, I'm fine with that as long as we finally get that ruling, because that is what we've been waiting for for a year at this point.
00:47:14.000Is there anything else you noticed in that very uneventful one hour?
00:47:18.000No, it's a whole lot of just lawyers like to hear themselves talk.
00:47:24.000It really shows you, especially the nature of a case this high profile.
00:47:28.000It's a capital case, how they are objecting to everything.
00:47:31.000I think another part that was very memorable the judge mentioned the defense objected to the number of possible cameras that they could have in the courtroom, with the note that the tripods, the sound of them opening or jangling about, would be distracting to the court and to the proceedings.
00:47:51.000I've never heard an objection of that nature before in court.
00:47:57.000And yeah, the judge, you know, he treated it seriously.
00:47:59.000He actually did say he is capping the amount.
00:48:02.000I think he vetoed a request for a second photographer.
00:48:05.000He said Salt Lake Tribune gets their photographer.
00:48:09.000There's going to be like one camera, one photographer.
00:48:13.000And I think that's all there's going to be.
00:48:14.000And so he effectively ruled a bit in their favor on that one.
00:48:18.000But the fact that they're objecting to the sound of a tripod, they're objecting to the publication of the name of a website and had to get overruled on that, it really shows.
00:48:30.000Why has this case been taking as long as it has?
00:48:32.000Because every single thing is subject to a possible objection, and this judge does like to litigate those at length, even if he does rule in the prosecution's favor ultimately.
00:49:01.000So, about probably an hour and a half for the prosecution.
00:49:03.000And two to two and a half hours for the defense, and then an hour recess for the judge to decide, and then hopefully he comes back and makes his decision.
00:49:13.000I'm trying to see if we can get Jay even briefly here to talk about what we saw.
00:49:19.000Otherwise, we can go for a few more minutes here.
00:49:21.000If you have any questions, email them in and we can try to answer those.
00:49:26.000I also thought now it could be a good chance.
00:49:29.000We'll go over this at the end of today when I think it's pretty likely that after all this song and dance, we will get the bind over ruling.
00:50:17.000Even though there's no trial, you create a jury just for the penalty phase.
00:50:20.000They would have to be selected for whether they're open to imposing the death penalty.
00:50:27.000And you would need unanimity to impose that in this case.
00:50:31.000You'd need all 12 jurors to say that they want that.
00:50:33.000And another thing, and this raised my eyebrow a bit, you need 10 out of 12 jurors just to impose life without parole.
00:50:40.000So, three holdouts in a jury of 12 could block a life without parole sentence in this case.
00:50:50.000And I will say, as someone who I think the evidence is very strong against Tyler Robinson, and I think the nature of this crime is so heinous, if we were to fall short of even that, I think it would be a severe indictment of our justice system as it currently stands.
00:51:05.000We're looking at other news, too, and the only other news going on today is another court case, which is the Lindsey Clancy case is deadlocked.
00:51:14.000And so that's just another example of, I think, what we're all thinking about is.
00:51:22.000It's an important facet of our Anglo Saxon common law going back centuries.
00:51:29.000But it does have the strength and the weak point that it is not a tool of the powerful, it is a tool of ordinary people.
00:51:38.000And we see in that Lindsey Clancy case, a woman who's very clearly guilty, but you insert 12 normal people and you can mess it up and you can get people who say, Actually, I emphatically will not convict this woman.
00:53:08.000And here's the best part To celebrate America's 250th, just mention the Charlie Kirk Show when you call Noble Gold, and they'll send you a free 10 ounce silver bar when you open a new qualified account.
00:53:34.000It sort of falls in line with the last 12 months, right?
00:53:39.000I mean, there's a lot of bloviating, a lot of talk, a lot of sort of hearings and motions, and this judge loves to see himself on television.
00:53:49.000But at the same time, I was proud the prosecution took 40, 45 minutes.
00:55:23.000We were discussing at the start of this recess something that really stood out to me, and it's not something that I feel has ever been a part of a major criminal trial before.
00:55:33.000They talked about the fact that there is a poly market betting market on this case.
00:55:40.000Will Tyler Robinson be convicted of homicide?
00:55:43.000We were checking it, and it's will he be convicted by the end of next July?
00:55:49.000You're basically betting on two things the outcome of the case and the speed of the case.
00:55:55.000Has anything like this ever existed in criminal justice in the United States before?
00:56:00.000And how worried should we be about it when we debate whether sports gambling is good?
00:56:06.000Should we just have a ban on having a betting market on a criminal justice proceeding like this?
00:56:12.000Something feels very worrisome to me that any person, a judge, a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, a member of the jury, any one of them. Could use this market as a way to profiteer.
00:56:24.000Or a cousin or a friend or a former roommate, right?
00:56:28.000I mean, it's exponential, the number of people that could be influenced, especially if I find myself on that jury and it's a June trial and I'm the load to hold out, right?
00:57:08.000And I just think there's our justice system cannot afford any fingers on the scale from anyone.
00:57:19.000And to induce people, especially financially, to do so is already illegal.
00:57:26.000And so they need to extend that to the.
00:57:28.000I mean, it would be illegal if a juror conspired with somebody to put money on PolyMarket, got on the jury, and then hung up just so they could win the bet.
00:57:39.000But there shouldn't be any PolyMarket on any type of trial or court case anywhere in the United States of America.
00:57:47.000Yeah, it's not so much that it creates new possibilities for illegality.
00:57:53.000As you say, it's almost certainly already a crime to do those things.
00:57:57.000But it makes it so much easier, so much more straightforward to do.
00:58:02.000And so, if we have a good takeaway from this sort of thing, I don't really think any public good is served by having gambling markets on whether Tyler Robinson is convicted or any criminal trial, as you say.
00:58:16.000Jay, is there any way during jury selection, if you're the prosecution, to kind of filter some of that out, or is it basically impossible?
00:58:23.000Well, in the first person, it's very possible, right?
00:58:27.000Have you ever wagered on PolyMarket or CalSheer or any of these other.
00:59:43.000And on Polymarket, it shows you the total amount of money bet on each specific thing.
00:59:48.000So, let's say during the trial, when this If it goes to trial, if it has a lot more publicity and this is going on and we see a sudden spike in how much the total market is, could that be used for an appeal down the line or anything as a reason it could have been influenced because suddenly so much more money came into the market out of nowhere?
01:00:08.000It could, but that would have to be there'd have to be one more step, right?
01:00:12.000It's, I mean, look, if you have the evidence that is, you know, all of a sudden the DNA evidence and all the confessions, and, you know, he told his mother, his mother testifies against him.
01:00:24.000The market's going to go up that he's going to get convicted.
01:00:27.000More people are going to bet at that point that, yeah, this guy's toast.
01:00:32.000But if it goes the other way, then I would be looking into people to place those large wagers and see if they knew anybody in and around the trial.
01:00:43.000And that could serve as an appellate issue, I think, for sure.
01:00:48.000We're basically a half hour out from hopefully finally getting the final arguments in.
01:00:56.000Do you have any predictions about what we'll see?
01:01:00.000Apparently, the prosecution is planning to take 45 minutes, then the defense will go, then there will be a prosecution wrap up, it sounds like.
01:01:08.000What are they going to fill that time with?
01:01:10.000Is it going to be a methodical reciting of all the evidence?
01:01:35.000Well, you know, I mean, they're going to say whatever a defense lawyer, a good defense lawyer should say.
01:01:40.000But so I think that you meet the elements with the facts.
01:01:43.000And so when I prosecuted a case, you know, a statute says person did X, person did Y, person intended to do Z, therefore they're guilty.
01:01:53.000And so I think that at the same time, you just put two Facts next to each element, and you move on to the next charge.
01:02:03.000And hopefully, that's all the prosecution does.
01:02:05.000Hopefully, they don't need the whole 45 minutes, but I'm glad they're keeping it limited to that amount of time.
01:02:10.000The only other thing that came up that I feel like could become relevant during the trial is they said witnesses were being threatened.
01:02:16.000We saw this that were in the preliminary hearings in the past.
01:02:22.000How do you foresee that changing the trial in the future, or how would the judge rule on that or go about protecting witnesses?
01:02:30.000Yeah, I mean, look, it might even come down to having to offer them physical protection, police protection.
01:02:36.000And herein lies the woeful judgment of allowing this to continue for a year so that circus tents can be set up in Utah and the tinfoil hack crowd can continue on with their conspiracies that all of these witnesses are just liars.
01:02:52.000All of these witnesses are part of the federal government and some conspiracy with Israel or whatever it is, right?
01:02:59.000Whatever ridiculous tinfoil hack conspiracy they're coming up with.
01:03:04.000And people take it seriously, they trust the people that are saying it, mostly online.
01:03:13.000And this doesn't help the system at large because witnesses don't want to come forward.
01:03:18.000If my life is going to be threatened because I did the right thing and I came forward because I saw a thing, a guy at the place, I don't want to be a part of it because I don't want to die.
01:03:29.000I don't want someone to burn my house down or key my car or so much as harass me in the mall.
01:03:36.000And so this is why these things should move and progress quickly.
01:03:40.000Instead of taking a year to get past a preliminary hearing, gentlemen, this is better than a coin toss.
01:04:50.000I have the cop, the arresting officer comes in, reads the police report, reads the medical examiner report, and that's the end of the prelim.
01:05:05.000Now you have all these witnesses on record with sworn statements that if they said in the prelim, I saw a small dog, and they say in the trial, they saw a puppy, Then the defense could try to create reasonable doubt out of that.
01:05:49.000Or what would be his reasoning for trying to make this so slow and laborious?
01:05:54.000Yeah, I can't think of one because if there's a trial and he's convicted beyond a reasonable doubt, it's that record that is appealed, right?
01:06:01.000I mean, the preliminary hearing is meaningless because it's such a low standard.
01:06:06.000Once it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt, it's what happened in that trial that matters.
01:06:10.000That's where there's a sentence, that's where there's a punishment.
01:06:12.000So, you know, there's no reason for this to have gone at this pace.
01:06:18.000Um, I have to run, but I gotta tell you, you guys are covering this.
01:06:22.000No, and I just want to say anybody with a functioning limbic system would bound this over for trial, but also America's hearts are still broken coming up on the one year anniversary of Charlie's murder.
01:06:35.000And thank you guys for continuing to shine a light on this.
01:08:44.000Another thing that actually comes into play.
01:08:47.000We don't know if Judge Graff will oversee the trial or not.
01:08:49.000That seems the most likely one, but there have been petitions for change of venue because they say it's caused too much of a circus in the Provo area, so they would move it to another county in Utah.
01:08:59.000I don't feel like that would be terribly useful or desirable, and people I've talked to don't think it will happen.
01:09:07.000We could move it to a different judge even within the county.
01:09:10.000Again, Andrea seemed to think that was unlikely, but these are all possibilities that come into play.
01:09:14.000There's so many ways that this can be.
01:09:40.000We like to look at those betting markets because they can cut through a lot of BS.
01:09:44.000But when there's so much room for corruption in this, the fact that our criminal justice system requires.
01:09:52.000So many honest, good faith actors throughout, and making it so much easier to engage in corruption by your friend bets on the outcome of this, and you just tell them, hey, I'm going to throw it this way or that.
01:10:08.000I think I don't see what the value added is.
01:10:11.000And that's in addition to all the threats against potential jurors in the future that will come that could influence the outcome of stuff, whether they're also threatened, like witnesses have been to.
01:10:43.000Utah legislators, please go make it a criminal offense to bet on one of these markets in your state or even to have it hosted on one of your websites.
01:10:52.000I think we just need to say absolutely not.
01:10:56.000But beyond that, I think we're ready for our own mini lunch break.
01:11:00.000I think he said they'll be coming back at one their time.