Move For The Hearing Audio The Court Already Ordered Released
:::caution Legal Disclaimer Tyler Robinson is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. Nothing on this page states as fact that any living person committed a crime, destroyed evidence, or acted improperly. Court filings in this case are subject to a gag order and sealing, so the public record is incomplete by design. :::
The One Thing We Would Do Differently
File a motion to enforce the Court's own December 29, 2025 order releasing the redacted audio of the October 24, 2025 sealed hearing — and a companion motion directing the certified court reporter to prepare and file the eight hearing transcripts that exist in no certified form outside the court, beginning with preliminary hearing Days 1, 2 and 3.
Almost every instrument in this section asks a court for something new. This one does not. On December 29, 2025, Judge Graf signed a Ruling and Order that ends with two operative paragraphs. The first orders a redacted transcript of the October 24, 2025 sealed hearing prepared and entered. The second orders this:
"The audio recording of the October 24, 2025, shall be unsealed for purposes of the court clerk identifying the timestamps corresponding to the redacted portions of the transcript which selected portions, once identified, shall be resealed. No copy of the unsealed audio shall be provided until the identified portions have been resealed."
That is a release order with a condition precedent. Reseal the identified timestamps; then copies may be provided. The transcript half of that order was performed — we hold the 97-page redacted transcript, and its blackouts fall exactly where the order put them, at page 4 lines 19-22, page 4 line 25 through page 5 line 1, page 5 lines 9-10, page 5 lines 18-19, and at pages 33 through 70. The audio half has never surfaced. Nine independent search lanes run against this case found descriptions of the order and no recording.
The second half of this instrument is cheaper and larger. Eight hearing dates in this case exist in no certified transcript anywhere outside the courthouse: December 11, 2025 (docket 253, private; the redacted version at docket 388, sealed), January 16, 2026 (329), February 3, 2026 (416), February 24, 2026 (489), March 13, 2026 (488), April 17, 2026 (509, which the docket itself marks ***Unavailable***), and preliminary hearing Days 1, 2 and 3 — July 6, 7 and 8, 2026. We hold certified Moorhead transcripts for Day 4 (278 pages) and Day 5 (97 pages) and nothing else. Days 1 to 3 exist here only as machine transcriptions of the pool feed, and a machine transcription of a broadcast is not the record.
There is one more reason to want the recording and not only the paper. A transcript is a clean sequential document produced by a skilled human from a messy simultaneous event. It does not carry overlapping speech, the length of a pause before an answer, an interruption that the reporter resolved into two orderly turns, or the difference between a statement and a question asked in a flat voice. In a case where the central live dispute is what a witness was and was not asked to look for, those things are evidence about the proceeding itself. They are also the only part of the record that cannot be reconstructed later at any price.
The economics are the argument. Court audio in the Fourth District costs fifteen dollars per half-day under Utah Rule of Judicial Administration 4-202.08. A certified transcript from the reporter of record costs six dollars per page at thirty-day service, roughly two hundred and fifty dollars per court hour. Day 4 alone, at 278 pages, is about $1,668 of transcription. Three preliminary hearing days of comparable length approach five thousand dollars. The same three days of audio, at two half-days each, is ninety dollars plus a ten-dollar-per-recording delivery fee. Audio is the cheapest route to the missing record by a factor of roughly fifty, and it is the only route that captures tone, interruption, and who was speaking when.
What The Defense Team Did Instead
On the visible record the defense has litigated this subject hard, and mostly in the opposite direction — which is a defensible capital-defense choice and needs to be said plainly. Counsel filed the November 3, 2025 stipulated motion to classify the October 24 transcript and audio as private (docket 152). Counsel filed the December 9, 2025 reply to the media's opposition (227). Counsel filed the December 17, 2025 motion to order and temporarily classify the December 11 transcript and audio (243). On February 10, 2026 counsel lodged a redacted December 11 transcript, and the Court sealed it, recording in its own order that the transcript "was not filed in accordance with Utah law and the redactor failed to redact portions of the index." That is a filing-mechanics point about who is permitted to redact a certified transcript, and the Court resolved it prospectively rather than as a fault. It produced the February 23, 2026 Standing Order on Redacting and Filing Transcripts (413), which now requires that transcripts in this case be filed by the certified court reporter who prepared them, and that any redaction of a certified transcript be performed by that reporter.
One thing the record does show, and it matters for everything below: this Court and these lawyers are already fluent in timestamp-level audio redaction. On the morning of Day 4 the Court read the cuts for the recorded Twiggs statement into the record to the second — "between 6 minutes and 57 seconds and 20 minutes and 29 seconds ... and then 32 minutes and 55 seconds to 35 minutes and 47 seconds, which is not to be played" — and asked both sides to confirm that the edited file matched. Mr. Novak reported that "the redactions of the audio were exactly as the Court ordered" but that the accompanying video had gone out of step, so the State prepared what he called "Version 2." Mr. Ballard's timestamp differed from the Court's by one second, and the Court remarked that "it's a good day when we are literally on the same page." Two further cuts were then dictated, at 27:18 to 27:25 and 28:11 to 28:18. Whatever else is true, nobody in that courtroom can call redacting a recording by timestamp burdensome or novel.
At the preliminary hearing the direction of travel held. On Day 5, after an exhibit appeared on the live stream for about three and a half seconds, Richard Novak renewed the motion to exclude all electronic media coverage from all future proceedings — "video cameras, still photography, and audio" — and told the Court, "This is the second time that the Court's orders concerning the scope of electronic media coverage have been violated." That is a fair-trial argument for less public audio, not more, and it is a good one.
What is not found in the material we hold is any filing that asks the Court to enforce the audio half of the December 29 order, any filing that asks the reporter of record to prepare and file certified transcripts of Days 1 to 3, or any filing that asks the clerk what ***Unavailable*** means on the April 17, 2026 entry. Meanwhile others did ask for audio and got it: docket 71 is a Request for Audio Recording of October 6, 2025 and docket 74 records the copy completed on October 8 — two days. Docket 649 is a June 26, 2026 request for a listen-only link and docket 664 records it completed on July 2 — six days. Dockets 596, 622 and 684 are three more audio requests across June and July 2026.
That absence is a fact about the public record, and it is the whole of what we assert. The filings in this case are gagged and partly sealed, the archive we work from holds 374 PDFs against 867 known docket entries, and only 258 of those entries ever carried a public PDF.
Where This Belongs In The Case
| Stage of the case | When that stage runs | Status of this step |
|---|---|---|
| Records request under UCJA 4-202.05 and 4-202.08 | Available from the first hearing onward; available now | Not visible on the public record |
| Motion to enforce the December 29, 2025 order | From the date of the order; available now | Not visible on the public record |
| Bind-over argument and any petition for review | September 1, 2026 argument; review window opens on a ruling | Not yet due — the case has not been bound over |
| Trial preparation and Rule 702 hearings | After bind-over; no trial date set | Still fully open |
Witness Or Discovery Target
| How it would be done | Target | Took the stand? | Status on the public record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motion to enforce a signed order, with a request for a compliance status conference | The Court — Judge Tony F. Graf, Jr., Fourth District | n/a | No enforcement motion found in the material we hold |
| Form 1100GE Request for Copy of Audio Recording, one per hearing date, citing case 251403576 | Fourth District Court recordings desk, Provo | n/a | Requests by others are on the docket at 71, 419, 596, 622, 649, 664 and 684 |
| Motion directing preparation and filing under the February 23, 2026 Standing Order (413) | Noteworthy Reporting, LLC — reporter of record Phoebe S. Moorhead, RDR, CRR | n/a | Certified transcripts filed for Days 4 and 5; Days 1 to 3 not held |
| Written Request for Court Record under UCJA 4-202.05, so a refusal becomes a citable record | Clerk of the Fourth Judicial District Court | n/a | No request and no denial found in the material we hold |
| Cross-examination on the completeness of the record | Chad Grunander and Christopher Ballard for the State | Counsel, not witnesses | Both argued the audio-redaction timestamps on Day 4 |
The records request is short enough to write out. One of these goes in per hearing date, and the eleven dates below are the whole ask:
RE: State of Utah v. Tyler James Robinson, Case No. 251403576
Fourth Judicial District Court, Utah County (Hon. Tony F. Graf, Jr.)
Request for Copy of Audio Recording - UCJA Rule 4-202.08 (Form 1100GE)
Requested hearing dates, one recording each:
2025-10-24 sealed motion hearing - REDACTED VERSION ONLY, as ordered
by this Court on 2025-12-29 (Dkt. 263)
2025-12-11 closure hearing
2026-01-16 motion hearing
2026-02-03 evidentiary hearing - PUBLIC VERSION, redacted per the
Court's Order on February 3, 2026, Hearing Transcript
2026-02-24 webex ruling hearing
2026-03-13 motion hearing
2026-04-17 motion hearing - the docket displays this entry as
***Unavailable***. If no recording can be produced,
a written statement to that effect is requested instead.
2026-07-06 preliminary hearing, Day 1
2026-07-07 preliminary hearing, Day 2
2026-07-08 preliminary hearing, Day 3
2026-09-01 bind-over oral argument
Format requested, in order of preference:
1. MP3 attachment by email - $15.00 per half day
2. For The Record listen-only link - $15.00 per half day
3. Electronic storage medium - $15.00 per half day plus personnel time
For 2025-10-24 the requestor seeks ONLY the version from which the
timestamps corresponding to the redacted transcript portions have been
resealed, as that order requires. No unsealed audio is sought.
If any recording is withheld in whole or in part, a written response
identifying the record and the basis for withholding is requested,
under UCJA Rule 4-202.05.
The transcript half is a proposed order, not a form, and it is three sentences:
Pursuant to the Standing Order on Redacting and Filing Transcripts
entered February 23, 2026, and Utah Code section 78A-2-408, the
certified court reporter of record is DIRECTED to prepare and file
certified transcripts of the proceedings held July 6, July 7 and
July 8, 2026.
The reporter is further DIRECTED to prepare and file a properly
redacted public transcript of the proceedings held December 11, 2025,
in place of the version lodged February 10, 2026 and sealed by this
Court.
Preparation shall proceed at the standard thirty-day rate unless a
party requests and pays for expedited service.
That second order asks for nothing the Court has not already decided. The Standing Order of February 23, 2026 exists precisely because a redacted transcript was lodged by a party instead of filed by the reporter; the fix it prescribes has simply never been applied to the transcript that caused it.
The Questions That Were Not Asked
These are questions this exercise would put on the record. Where a question is aimed at a party or the clerk rather than a sworn witness, it is written the way counsel would actually say it in open court.
- Your Honor, the Court's order of December 29, 2025 directs that the timestamps corresponding to the redacted transcript portions be identified and resealed, after which copies of the audio may be provided. Has that identification and resealing been completed?
- If it has been completed, on what date, and to whom has a copy of the redacted audio been provided since?
- If it has not been completed, does the Court wish the parties to submit an agreed timestamp list, in the same form the parties used for Exhibit 16 on July 9?
- Mr. Grunander, on July 9 the Court read audio-redaction timestamps into the record to the second and both sides confirmed them within one second. Is there any reason the same procedure cannot be applied to the October 24 recording?
- Mr. Ballard, the State's bind-over memorandum of July 28 relies on the preliminary hearing record. Which certified transcripts did the State have in hand when it drafted that memorandum, and on what date did the State receive them?
- To the clerk: on the docket entry for the April 17, 2026 motion hearing, the case management system displays
***Unavailable***. Does that mean no recording exists, that a recording exists but cannot be produced, or that the entry is classified? - To the clerk: what is the retention schedule for the electronic recording of a hearing in this court, and does any recording in this case fall inside a period after which it is routinely purged or migrated?
- Your Honor, the defense discovery status report of August 28, 2026 cites "Preliminary Hearing Transcript, July 7, 2026 at 172." Has a certified transcript of July 7 been filed with the court under the Standing Order of February 23, 2026, and if not, may one be ordered?
- Your Honor, the December 11, 2025 redacted transcript was sealed because it was lodged by a party rather than filed by the reporter. Under the Standing Order, may the Court direct the reporter of record to re-file a properly redacted version so the public record of that hearing exists in some form?
- Is there any objection from any party to the release of the audio for the hearings that were never closed at all — January 16, February 3, February 24, March 13 and April 17?
Why A Defense Attorney Would Want This
This is not procedural housekeeping, and the reason sits in the defense's own August 28, 2026 discovery status report. To show that the State resisted questioning its FBI DNA examiner about reliability, the report quotes the prosecutor at length and cites the source as "Preliminary Hearing Transcript, July 7, 2026 at 172." That page cite cannot be verified by anyone outside the parties, because no certified July 7 transcript exists outside the court. A record you cannot verify is a record you cannot appeal on. Utah appellate courts presume the regularity of proceedings below when the appellant fails to produce an adequate record; the burden of producing that record falls on the party seeking review. Preserving the record is the instrument.
It also matters at the current stage. The bind-over argument on September 1, 2026 rests on a briefing schedule the parties built on the transcript itself. On Day 4 the State told the Court the reporter could produce a transcript "as early as Monday of next week ... on an expedited request," and the schedule followed from it — State's brief July 28, defense response August 11, State's reply August 18, argument September 1. Mr. Robinson waived speedy-trial rights so that the preliminary hearing issues could be properly briefed on that transcript. Everyone arguing on September 1 is arguing from a document the public has never seen.
Then there is the honest, self-interested reason, and this section is worth nothing if it hides it. Obtaining the certified Days 1 to 3 transcripts would upgrade a large number of claims across this whole section from T3 to T1 in a single step. Chris Bagley on the roof, the screwdriver and the stopped body camera; David Hull on the surveillance identification and the autopsy foundation; Amanda Bakker on the mixture DNA — every one of those witnesses testified on a day for which we hold no certified transcript, and every claim we make about them is therefore capped at press tier. Our own verification tiers forbid us from writing "was not asked" about any of them. Three transcripts would lift that cap. We want them partly because they are the record and partly because they are good for us, and a reader is entitled to know which is which.
One smaller thing deserves a question rather than a theory. A docket entry the court itself marks ***Unavailable*** is a different and more interesting fact than an entry that is simply missing. Missing means nobody has fetched it. ***Unavailable*** is the system reporting a state. We do not know which state, and the correct response is to ask the clerk in writing, because a written answer either produces the recording or produces a denial that is itself a citable record under UCJA Rule 4-202.05.
This instrument serves Route 2 — the investigation and the process, not the mechanism of death. It needs no alternative perpetrator and no expert. It asks only whether the proceeding a jury will eventually be told was fair is a proceeding anyone outside the parties can actually inspect. The sentence counsel says in closing is short: "They asked you to trust a record you were never allowed to read, from hearings whose recordings a judge ordered released and nobody ever produced." A refusal is also an answer here. If the clerk writes back that a recording cannot be produced, that written refusal is a document, and it goes in the same binder as the recording would have.
Day-one date: 2025-09-16. Our attorney was retained on September 12, 2025 and would have filed a standing records request at the first appearance on September 16 — one Form 1100GE per hearing date, filed the day of each hearing, plus a standing request that the reporter of record prepare and file a certified transcript of every proceeding. Five of the eight missing dates were never closed hearings at all, so nothing would have had to be litigated for them: January 16, February 3, February 24, March 13 and April 17, 2026, each requestable the week it happened at fifteen dollars a half-day. The published turnaround supports it — the October 6, 2025 request on the docket was completed on October 8, and the June 26, 2026 listen-only request was completed on July 2. The form itself carries the perishability warning in its own text: "any physical records not picked up within 30 days will be destroyed." A standing request captures a recording while the request is routine. A request filed after a classification fight has started never is.
The Honest Counterargument
The strongest answer to this whole page is that our own client's lawyers have been arguing the other way for a year, and for a reason that outranks ours. A capital defendant facing a jury pool in Utah County has a concrete interest in less of this case being broadcast, not more. Counsel moved to classify the October 24 transcript and audio as private, opposed media intervention, and on Day 5 asked the Court to shut off electronic media coverage entirely after two violations of its orders. If the choice is between a verifiable public record and an untainted venire, competent capital counsel picks the venire every time, and no appellate court would fault them for it.
There is a second answer that is even simpler. Counsel of record already have these transcripts. The State collected the preliminary hearing transcript in mid-July and briefed from it. This is a public-access problem and a this-website problem far more than it is a defense problem, and it is not the job of a capital defense team to solve either. A motion that spends the Court's patience on records the movant already possesses is a motion that costs credibility for the next one.
Third, the October 24 audio may already be lawfully unavailable for a reason nobody has hidden. The Court found that closure of that hearing carried a presumptive seal under Utah Rule of Judicial Administration 4-202.02(3)(l), and its release order was conditioned on a resealing step by the clerk. If that step is unfinished, the cause is far more likely to be a busy clerk's office in a case generating 867 docket entries than anything else. An absence is not a finding. Finally, the April 17 ***Unavailable*** marker may mean nothing more than a routine system state, and publishing it as anything more would be exactly the error this section exists to avoid.
Sources On This Site
- The Preliminary Hearing
- Day 1 — July 6, 2026
- Day 2 — July 7, 2026
- Day 3 — July 8, 2026
- Bind-Over Argument — September 1, 2026
- The Court Document Archive
- Gag Orders And Sealing
- Court Gag Orders
- Discovery And Brady Disputes
- How This Section Verifies A Claim
- Gag Order And Publicity
- Brady Enforcement And Sanctions
:::danger Theoretical Exercise Only This page is a theoretical exercise. It is a written simulation of how an idealised defense attorney might approach this case. We make no claim that there is any problem with the current defense attorney, with any member of the defense team, or with any decision they have made.
Real capital defense is conducted under a gag order, with sealed filings, and on the basis of full discovery that the public has never seen. Counsel of record know facts we do not. A step described here as "not on the public record" may already have been taken privately, may have been considered and rejected for good reason, or may not yet be due at this stage of the case. Silence in the public record is not evidence of a failure.
Nothing here is legal advice, a criticism of any licensed attorney, or an allegation of professional misconduct. :::
This website's author is @HolonCitizen on X and YouTube/@HolonCitizen. Follow me there.