Latest / The Moscow Murders and More / Tyler Robinson Preliminary Hearing (Day 6 Part 8) (10/31/26)

Transcript

Tyler Robinson Preliminary Hearing (Day 6 Part 8) (10/31/26) · The Moscow Murders and More

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the program. In
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to pick up where we left
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: off with the transcript from day number six of the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Tyler Robinson prelim hearing. Once again, it's the defense making
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: their case. So turning to the aggravator, there's a tendency
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: that we talk about the aggravator to kind of use
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: synonyms and maybe get caught up in semantics. So I'm
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: going to start with the standard and I'm going to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: end with the standard. And the standard is the actor
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: knowingly created a great risk of death to another individual
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: other than the deceased individual here, Mr. Kirk, and the actor.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: The question before the court is whether Utah's aggravator, as
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: interpreted by the Utah Supreme Court, applies to the circumstances
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: as presented to the state. And as we've argued in
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: our brief, it does not. So I'm going to address
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: this in three kind of bleeding into four parts. The
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: first is the constitutional framework. That is the fundamental issue
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: here that's going to follow this case. Frankly, discussing how
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Utah has defined the aggravator and how the state's trying
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to shoehorn this case into that aggravator by discussing some
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of the evidence that it relies on, particularly as to knowledge.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So the constitutional base that we're talking about here is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: going back to the case we cited in our brief,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Gregg and Proffitt. These cases looked at the statutory schemes
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: in Georgia and Florida to determine if they met the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: requirement to be constitutional after Furman. And they looked specifically
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: at the aggravator, knowing created great risk of death to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: more than one person. And in Gregg, United States Supreme
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Court said explicitly, while such a phrase might be susceptible
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to an overly broad interpretation, the Supreme Court of Georgia
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: has not so construed it. So the state's claim, in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: its brief, that the legislature narrowed the circumstances adequately just
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: by adding knowing to this aggravator is simply not true.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: This is a phrase that is susceptible to overly broad interpretation,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and we know that because the state is trying to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: apply it here. Similarly, in profit, the United States Supreme
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Court found the Florida Supreme Court properly construed the aggravator narrowly.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: The statute also had a knowing requirement. It was still reviewed,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't upheld based off of the knowing requirement.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It was based off of how the courts construed it narrowly.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So that's the foundation. That's the floor for the aggravator.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Now we look at how Utah courts have applied it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: There are three cases that are really on point and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: that we have to take a look at. We look
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: at Pierre. We look at Johnson. We look at Sosa-Hurtado.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: And in these cases, there is discussion of three factors.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Those are well spelled out in the brief. but I
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: will again state them here. This is from paragraph 2,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: which is where the court will find the actual finding
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: ruling from Sosa Hurtado. The temporal relationship between the murderous
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: act and any acts endangering a third person, the spatial
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: relationship between the third party, the murder victim, and the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: defendant at the time of the acts constituting the murder,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and whether, and to what extent, the third party was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: actually threatened by the assailant. These are the three factors
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that inform the question that was identified in Johnson, which
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: is zone of danger. So examining these three factors here,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: they're clearly not met. There is no temporal relationship for
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the court to evaluate because there is one act. There
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: is one shot. There is one bullet. There is one victim.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: There's no temporal relationship for this court to evaluate. This
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: factor is not met. There were no actual threats by
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the assailant to the third party. there was no evidence
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that would suggest that anyone else was threatened. In other cases,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: talking about threats to the third party, we're looking at
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: multiple gunshots, we're looking at verbal threats, we're looking at
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: pointing a firearm at someone, we're looking at using a
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: device that is more likely to cause injury to multiple people.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: For example, in Florida, there was a case involving a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: sawed-off shotgun that was found to be more likely to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: cause injury to people in surrounding areas. Bombs, those are
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the types of weapons that that would cause injury to
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: more people than the actual victim. We acknowledge that Sosa-Hurtado
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: court was careful to say that these are not a checklist, right?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: These are factors for the court to consider in deciding
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: whether or not to conduct here falls within the statute.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And the fact that maybe one of these factors is met,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: but the other two are not, should be something that
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the court weighs. It's interesting in Sosa-Hurtado, when I was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: rereading it in preparation, they described Johnson itself, the Johnson case,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: as a single-act case. So, although most of the cases
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: talk about the series of events and the issues in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Sosa Hurtado was essentially whether or not Johnson overruled Pierre.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: That's one of the issues that it raised. And the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: court explicitly found no because Johnson was a single-act case.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So the court looked closely at the factors examining whether
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: in that single-act case the statue was met. And that's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: why we spent quite a bit of time in the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: briefing talking about the cases that were relied upon in
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the Johnson decision. These cases are Cheneau v. State, a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Georgia case. This is a case of a mass shooting
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: in a church. State v. McMurdy in Arizona. Multiple shots
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: fired in a bar full of patrons. State v. Saunier, Louisiana.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Victims made to lie down side by side on the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: ground and shot them rapid fire with a rifle. State v. Doss, Arizona.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Defendant fired multiple shots into a crowded auditorium, killing the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: victim and hitting another. State v. Price. A case relied
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: on heavily by the court in Johnson. The defendant unloaded
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: six rounds of his Colt. 38 revolver at the intended
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: murder victim while the other person was sitting close to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the victim on the couch. Several of the bullets struck
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the victim on the side next to which the other
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: person was sitting. The Utah Supreme Court in Johnson emphasized
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the language from State v. Price And Price is an
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: interesting case because it actually grapples with the constitutional question
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of how do we construe this aggravator. And they state
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the facts must include a knowing or purposeful state of
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: mind vis-a-vis the creation of a great risk of death,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and that there be a likelihood of high probability of
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: great risk of death created, not just a mere possibility,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and that there be at least one person within the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: zone of danger created by the defendant's conduct. Price goes
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: on to talk about the various circumstances under which this
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: may apply, and it specifically states, Certainly constitutional concern would
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: arise where the aggravating factor construed to apply where only
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: one person, the murder victim, is murdered. And that's what
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: we have here. That's the crux of the issue, right?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Expanding the aggravator to conduct involving one person, the murder victim,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: and no other conduct is alleged endangering anyone. And that's
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: why the court cannot adopt the state's interpretation without running
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: afoul of the Constitution. And what's interesting about the state's
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: position on this is if the state really believed that
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Sosa-Hurtado was enough, if these factors were enough, it wouldn't
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: need to pull case law from another jurisdiction and ask
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: this court to adopt language that no Utah court has
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: ever adopted before. The anyone-near argument similarly relies on only
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: one factor, right? Spatial proximity. Now we can get into
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the nitty-gritty of spatial proximity issue. Here, the state didn't
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: really provide a lot of evidence about the spatial proximity issue,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to get into this tit-for-tat about feet,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: about measurements that don't exist in the record. I think
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the videos speak for themselves. I think the state's reliance
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: on some videos over other videos is a little misleading.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: For example, the state's emphasis on Exhibit 8, which is
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: a camera angle pointed downward, is perhaps not appropriate when
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: calculating distance or estimating distance for the purpose. But the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: fundamental idea that the state is propounding here is that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the presence alone is enough. But if the court adopts
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: that reasoning, the court is unconstitutionally expanding the aggravator. This
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: is how we run into the 8th Amendment in Utah
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Constitution Article 1, Section 7 issue. I do want to
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: briefly mention the issues in the evidence about the state speculating.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: The state asked the court to draw inferences from evidence
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that appear to have been admitted primarily for the purpose
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of establishing identity, but is now trying to construe it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: in such a way that it shows knowledge, for example,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the screwdriver on the roof. The screwdriver on the roof,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: according to the state's evidence, has a DNA that's similar
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to Mr. Robinson's. I would imagine that it's intended to
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: show that it was allegedly Mr. Robinson on the roof.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Now we're going to deal with that evidence in the future.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: We're going to have hearings about that DNA evidence for sure.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: But the state goes on to ask this court to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: infer that the rifle was taken apart and put back
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: together with the screwdriver. The state didn't show actually how
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: that would happen with the screwdriver. The rifle wasn't even here.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: This is just speculation. But on top of the speculation,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the state is also asking the court to speculate that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: this configuration of gun that would impact the reliability of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the shot, the accuracy of the shot, and then speculate
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: that this individual, the shooter, knew about that. These aren't inferences.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: This is speculation. This is a prime example of speculation.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: The same is true of the targets. The state provided
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: very little evidence about the targets other than they were
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: found in Mr. Robinson's shared apartment in a closet on
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the first floor. They provided evidence through testimonies that the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: perforations in the targets are from a gun. They didn't
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: say what kind of gun. We don't know when those
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: were shot. We don't know who shot them. And we
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: don't know the conditions under which those were shot at.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: They're just targets. The state didn't provide any other evidence
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: from this court to draw an inference that Anything else
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: is just speculation. The four bullets in the gun is
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: an interesting argument that I think ultimately cuts against the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: state's position because we know this was a bolt-action rifle.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: In order to reload it, the spent cartridge had to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: be removed. It wasn't. So it actually cuts against the
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: idea that maybe other people were in danger, that there
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: was an intent or knowledge that other people might be killed.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: There is zero evidence that there was any action taken
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: towards other people. Zero evidence. When we talk about spatial
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: proximity issue, I think it's important to look at what
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that means in other contexts. For example, the State v.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Price case, where it talks about how this individual was
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: next to the victim on the couch. The bullets were
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: fired on the same side. So when the court evaluates
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the evidence here, examining who was present in the presence
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of Mr. Kirk when he was shot, the court should
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: pay attention to that. The bullet entered the left side
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of the neck at a downward angle. That's what the
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: state just told you. The only other individual you really
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: see is the individual to Mr. Kirk's right, not the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: same side. But even if spatial proximity, even if presence
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: is established again, that is simply not enough because enveloping
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: all these factors, all of this analysis that we see
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: from the Utah Supreme Court is the issue of intent.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, we're going to wrap up right here.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And in the next episode, we're going to pick back
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: up with the defense making their case. All the information
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that goes with this episode can be found in the
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: description box.