Taxpayers could end up shelling out more than $10M for lawyers to defend accused Charler Kirk killer Tyler Robinson
Utah taxpayers could end up shelling out more than a mind-boggling $10 million for Tyler Robinson’s lawyers to defend him in Charlie Kirk’s assassination, according to experts.The whopping potential cost is possible because of the nature of such a sensational capital-murder case — where the stakes are as high as it gets with a defendant’s life on the line and there are likely years of appeals upon conviction, they said.Robinson’s stonewalling lawyers “are litigating anything and everything to try to bring the prosecution to the table to offer a life-without-the-possibility-of-parole deal,” said Neama Rahmani, a prominent former prosecutor with no ties to the case, to The Post on Monday.“So yeah, it it is costing taxpayers,” he said of the drawn-out process, which most recently involved Robinson’s preliminary hearings.“But what do you expect the defense to do? They’re playing the hand that they’re dealt, right? And it’s not a good hand.”The 23-year-old lefty alleged murderer is accused of fatally shooting the charismatic conservative Turning Point USA co-founder, a married 31-year-old dad of two, as he was speaking in front of a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University in Orem in September.The Utah County Commission approved an initial $1 million in funding last year to pay the salaries of both Robinson’s high-powered lawyers and the prosecutors on the case, Fox News reported.A county lawmaker then said in February that an additional $1 million would be needed from the state for the lawyers, for a total of at least $2 million, after the county had already paid the defense team $349,000, KUTV reported at the time.Part of the reason for the high price tag is because Robinson — who’s been deemed too poor to pay for his own defense — is entitled under state law to be repped by a highly specialized team of lawyers who are experts in the appeals process.
They thus command a higher price — and taxpayers must foot the bill as the...