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PROVO, Utah (AP) -- A Utah judge was set to rule Tuesday about whether there's enough evidence to put the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk on trial for aggravated murder, which could make him eligible for the death penalty.
The hearing in state court came after prosecutors in July spent five days presenting what they said was "overwhelming" evidence that Tyler Robinson killed the conservative activist while he was speaking at an open-air event on a college campus.
The 23-year-old defendant turned himself in a day after the shooting at Utah Valley University last September. He has not yet entered a plea, and his lawyers have not offered alternative theories for Kirk's death. They've focused instead on blocking the case from proceeding to trial and trying to get the death penalty taken off the table.
A few local members of Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, arrived with signs expressing their support for Erika Kirk but were told by security that they could not have them on the court property.
District Judge Tony Graf has the option to send the case to trial on a lesser charge of murder, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of life in prison, said Steve Burton, director of the Utah Defense Attorney Association. Graf could also dismiss the charges against Robinson, in which case prosecutors could refile them.
A key factor in charging aggravated murder is whether the shooter knowingly created a risk of death to anyone else as he carried out the killing.
"Tyler James Robinson shot and killed Charlie Kirk because he disagreed with him, and he did it by firing a high-powered rifle into a crowd of over 3,000 people, which created a great risk of death that anyone would know about," Ryan McBride, a prosecutor with the Utah County Attorney's Office, told the court. He noted that the bullet could have gone astray, ricocheted or passed through Kirk and struck someone else.
Robinson had no visible reaction to the arguments. His mother, Amber Robinson, watched from the courtroom gallery and his father, Matt Robinson, listened with his head bowed.
A "mountain of evidence" shows that Robinson was the killer, including DNA, messages with his romantic partner and posts Robinson made on the communications platform Discord, McBride said.
One of Robinson's attorneys, Staci Visser, argued that the state was trying to "shoehorn" the case into Utah's aggravated murder statute. Prior case law requires prosecutors to show that there was a high probability -- not merely a possibility -- that other people could have been killed, she said.
The judge said he would rule from the bench at 5 p.m. local time.
Robinson also faces potential sentencing enhancements if prosecutors can show he targeted Kirk for his political beliefs.