Lawyers for the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk are expected to keep questioning the reliability of DNA testing used to link the defendant to the suspected murder weapon when a weeklong hearing resumes Wednesday.
A member of Tyler Robinson’s defense team interrogated a DNA analyst from the FBI on Tuesday about the techniques she used to connect Robinson to a towel wrapped around a rifle found at Utah Valley University, where Kirk was shot in September while speaking to a large crowd.
Defense lawyer Michael Burt cast doubt on the analyst’s conclusions — a theme likely to recur during the five-day preliminary hearing.
“She can’t match Mr. Robinson to the questioned samples,” Burt argued.
Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride countered that the reliability of the DNA testing could be examined if the case goes to trial. He suggested the preliminary hearing — where prosecutors have a lower burden of proof compared with a trial — was not the time to take up the matter.
“The point is there are explanations that are susceptible to different interpretations and arguments,” McBride said. “Ultimately, we’re going to have an expert hearing where all the literature is going to be before the court and the court is going to determine if it meets the threshold of reliability for admission to trial.”
Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. State District Judge Tony Graf will decide at the conclusion of this week’s hearing if they have enough evidence to bring Robinson to trial on an aggravated murder charge.
Robinson has not yet entered a plea and his attorneys have not commented on his guilt or innocence. They have, however, sought to get the death penalty taken off the table, so far unsuccessfully.
Prosecutors must show they have enough evidence for a trial
FBI analyst Amanda Bakker said after Robinson’s roommate, Lance Twiggs, provided a DNA sample for comparison, she was able to rerun her tests and attribute all of the DNA to two people.
Investigators found the towel and suspected murder weapon — a bolt-action rifle with one spent round — in a wooded area near where Kirk was shot.
I mean I’ve not… seen or watched every guntuber, but uh, no, that theory is wrong.
You could see his nipples through his shirt.
He was not wearing plate armor.
If he was wearing magic flexi titanium armor under that shirt… well then the bullet would have had some kind of destructive effect on the shirt, where it would have bounced/richochet’d from.
It did not.
If he was wearing armor, and took a round to the upper chest, that ricocheted into his neck… he would have bruising at that part of his chest, potentially fractured ribs. Actually, definitely fractured ribs, for a 30-06.
By all information I’ve been able to find, nope, none of that was ever indicated either.
Also, if a 30-06 hit him in the chest, with him seated, and that plate fully bounced the round (into his neck, or anywhere else)?
He’d have been noticably kicked backward.
At 150 yards, a 30-06 will be travelling ~2400 ft/s.
A 150 - 180 grain round… ~1900 to ~2300 foot-pounds of force.
For a (perfectly armored) person standing upright, on concrete (friction coefficient of 0.5) that would kick you backward something like several inches to a foot.
It would be roughly comparable to taking a well executed mma/karate front kick, to the chest.
For a (perfectly armored) person sitting down, in a 4 legged chair? Who then immediately goes limp?
He’d likely have been hit with enough force that him and the chair would topple over backward or to the side… not the in place tensing and then slumping that was seen.
You could posit ceramic plates, that dissipate some of the energy by breaking, but then we just circle back to ‘you would have been very obviously able to see he was wearing that, and not able to see his nipples’.