A suspect has been charged in the 2025 killing of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University.

PROVO — Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray says his decisions about how to proceed in the case against Tyler Robinson — including announcing on the day charges were filed his intent to seek the death penalty — were in no way influenced by the daughter of one of his senior prosecutors who was at the Turning Point USA rally when Charlie Kirk was shot and killed.

“This is somebody who happened to be there. What (my office is) concerned about is the evidence supporting the charges,” Gray testified Tuesday, while adding that the daughter being at the rally is “quite frankly … irrelevant to anything that matters in the case.

“I do not believe that there is any conflict whatsoever,” Gray said. “I stand by that.”

But defense attorney Richard Novak argued that Gray approached the issue — that a key prosecutor had a family member at the rally where Kirk was killed — in “an incredibly casual way.”

Utah prosecutors say they intend to seek the death penalty in the aggravated murder case

“Mr. Gray should have implemented a firewall and he didn’t. And that has created this problem,” Novak said Tuesday. “The issue here is that the most experienced and most senior prosecutor in the office, other than the elected county attorney, should have been walled off from this prosecution until this court had an opportunity to consider whether disqualification is necessary … but now it’s too late.”

Fourth District Judge Tony Graf heard arguments Tuesday from both sides about whether the Utah County Attorney’s Office should be disqualified from prosecuting Robinson on his capital murder charge because a daughter of Chad Grunander — the chief deputy in the Utah County Attorney’s Office — was at the event where Kirk was assassinated. Graf says he will issue his decision on Feb. 24.

Gray on Tuesday completed his testimony before Grunander and his adult daughter — a student at UVU — were called to the stand. The judge declined requests from the defense and prosecution to close the hearing for the two witnesses, except for a short portion where the woman identified herself. But Graf ordered a media camera and microphone to be turned off during the daughter’s testimony and instructed that all laptops being used by members of the media be closed.

Much of Tuesday’s four-hour hearing centered around the question of whether any of the decisions made by prosecutors since Robinson was arrested were based on emotional reactions because Grunander’s daughter had attended Kirk’s rally.

The woman testified she had watched videos of Kirk’s debates and was a fan. She was about 85 feet away from Kirk near the back of the amphitheater when he was shot and did not see him get injured or carried away. She said she didn’t even know it was Kirk who was shot until she was told by someone else.

The student said she sent a text message in a family group chat that “someone” had been shot at UVU almost immediately. Grunander called his daughter to make sure she was OK, but after learning that she was safe and out of danger, he said his attention shifted to the murder investigation.