An analysis from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF) could not conclusively connect a bullet fragment recovered during Charlie Kirk’s autopsy to the rifle found near the scene of the rightwing political activist’s killing – and the FBI is running additional tests, lawyers for Kirk’s accused murderer said in recent court filings.
In the court filings, Tyler Robinson’s defense team also asked for a delay to a preliminary hearing scheduled in May, saying they need time to review the bullet analysis as well as an enormous amount of other material that could contribute to the suspect’s defense.
The ATF’s bullet analysis report has been kept private, but attorneys have cited snippets in other public filings that say the results were inconclusive.
The defense said in its motion that it may try to use the analysis to clear Robinson of blame during the preliminary hearing while prosecutors aim to show they have enough evidence against him to proceed with a trial.
A disturbing number of people seem to be reading this as:
“The bullet does not match the gun.” i.e. that there is ‘proof’ that the bullet didn’t come from his gun
Instead of
“They can’t say if it is or is not from the gun due to being a small fragment and not an entire bullet”
It probably doesn’t help that there are a bunch of communities/subreddits who’ve editorialized the headlines to say ‘bullet does not match gun’ and the tendency of people to only read the headline.
Yes, and…
The way I understand the evolution of bullet science is that the days are gone when bullets can be used like finger prints because too many cases have been overturned.
The way we should be thinking about this type of forensics is that it can link a bullet to a family of guns ie “this could have been the weapon or this couldn’t have been the weapon” - it’s almost never definitive, in the affirmative.
The headline here could also be “bullet investigation does not rule out Robinson as the shooter”.
It’s a non-story.
The thing that happened is that the defense asked for more time before the trial. This is incredibly common and will likely happen in every criminal case multiple times.
From a legal point of view, nothing important is happening here. Reporting on this is about as relevant as writing an article stating the the judge called the court in session.
The only reason that it is getting traction is because the headlines can be crafted to attract the conspiratorial-minded people by focusing on one tiny part of that motion that is useless without the context of the full report.
It’s entirely clickbait/conspiracy nonsense.
What’s annoying is that it works. That’s the world we live in.
We have either boomers who are too plugged into crime shows or whathaveoyou eating up this nonsense…or conspiracy nuts all over the place looking for a fix.
Same shit (even if it’s different) is going on in the Luigi case. Just because they dropped the death penalty doesn’t mean he’s going free.
Ballistics analysis is mostly fake science, like a lot of so called “forensic science.”
Arson investigation is almost totally junk science.
OJ’s glove didn’t fit, therefore he’s innocent
Using this metaphor, OJ’s glove is shredded to pieces so determining if it fits or not is not possible.
Under the requirement to prove beyond reasonable doubt, “they can’t say if it is or is not from the gun” is huge, having a gun becomes circumstantial, and requires additional evidence, and depending on the strength of additional evidence, a good lawyer maybe able to get him off the hook.
There’s a lot of other evidence, I think you’re substantially grasping at straws with “a good lawyer may be able to get him off the hook.”