WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Charlie Kirk's killer has collapsed in court after receiving the death penalty.
OUR VERDICT
False. The story is fake and the images are AI-generated.
AAP FACTCHECK - Charlie Kirk's alleged killer has not collapsed in a US courtroom after receiving the death penalty, despite claims on social media.
Tyler Robinson has been charged with aggravated murder for shooting Kirk, a conservative activist, at a Utah university on September 10, 2025.
However, he has not been found guilty or sentenced. A trial date has not yet been set, and he is yet to enter a plea on the charges.
An image purporting to show the 22-year-old collapsing in court also shows signs of being generated with artificial intelligence (AI).
The claim appears in a Facebook post featuring three images of Robinson wearing an orange prison-issue jumpsuit.
These include a mugshot, an image of him slumping and another in which a defibrillator is being applied to his chest by court officials.
"Charlie Kirk Shooter COLLAPSES After Death Sentence Bombshell Rocks Court," the post caption reads.
Overlay text on the image reads: "Exclusive. Collapses after death sentence!"
While Utah prosecutors do plan to seek the death penalty against Robinson for allegedly shooting Kirk, his trial is yet to begin.
At a directions hearing, Judge Tony Graf ordered Robinson to appear for his first in-person public pre-trial hearing on January 16 , 2026, US-based ABC News reported.
The images of Robinson wearing a prison jumpsuit appear to be AI-generated.
Robinson hasn't appeared in person in court and a judge has ruled that he may wear civilian clothes when he does.
The post, which is spreading in Australia and the Pacific islands, is authored by an account being run primarily in North Macedonia.
The account frequently posts fake news stories, which appear to be an apparent attempt to drive clicks to an external website.
AAP FactCheck has previously reported that such engagement-bait operations use false claims to push people to websites laden with ads, scams, and viruses.
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