Inaccurate reporting feeds into various conspiracy theories about the activist’s killing, David Freiheit has said
Inaccurate media reporting on the latest statements by the defense team in Charlie Kirk’s murder case shows that there is a real risk of “poisoning the jury” and affecting the trial, former lawyer and a legal commentator David Freiheit has told RT.
Earlier this week, several outlets reported, citing the lawyers representing Tyler Robinson – the man accused of killing Kirk – that the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) could not conclusively connect a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body to a rifle found at the scene.
According to Freiheit, some of those reports, such as the one by the Daily Mail, were inaccurate. “The headline was overtly misleading,” he said, adding that the British media outlet said “it did not match, whereas in reality… the ATF or the reports [said] that they couldn’t match it based on the fragments, which is not uncommon in these types of incidents.”
The former lawyer believes that the defense team would try to “irritate anybody who believes that the defendant is guilty,” as well as to exclude any damning evidence that could indicate their client is guilty. “They are also trying to exclude camera [footage] from the courtroom, which would be an abject disaster given the national and international importance of this case,” Freiheit said.
“There’s a real concern in this particular case about what they call poisoning the jury,” the former lawyer stated, adding that information provided to the media, whether it is accurate or not, could “ferment… conspiracy theories” and eventually affect the trial.
Freiheit also stated that some questions surrounding the murder do need to be answered. The list of such issues includes a possibility of other people on social media possessing “advance knowledge” about the attack and the reasons for a “lapse” in the campus security that allegedly allowed the suspected assassin to take up a position on an unguarded roof, according the former lawyer.
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