TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Phoenix Ikner, the former Florida State University student accused of carrying out last year\u2019s deadly mass shooting on campus, appeared in person Tuesday in a Leon County courtroom for the first time since his arrest as attorneys argued over whether the case can realistically stay on track for an October trial.<\/p>\n
Ikner, 21, faces two counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of attempted first-degree murder in connection with the April 17, 2025, shooting at Florida State University. Investigators say Ikner opened fire inside and around the student union, killing two people and injuring several others before police shot and arrested him minutes later. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.<\/p>\n
Much of Tuesday\u2019s hearing centered on the volume of evidence and the time needed to review it. Defense attorneys told the court they are still working through more than 800 gigabytes of video evidence, 239 separate 9-1-1 recordings, more than 120 Tallahassee police reports, and thousands of pages of digital records, including ChatGPT conversations.<\/p>\n
Blake Johnson, an attorney representing Ikner, asked for more time to prepare, saying, \u201cI’m not asking for anything unreasonable. All I’m asking for is the ability to do this case effectively and thoroughly, and I think that is the way that justice is best served.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Lance Neff questioned why the defense could not be ready by the current October trial date, telling the court, \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of case law out there that says your client is entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
State Attorney Jack Campbell acknowledged the case has generated a large amount of evidence but argued the central issue remains clear. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a straightforward homicide,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n
The criminal case is also unfolding alongside pending and threatened civil lawsuits against OpenAI, Florida State University and law enforcement agencies over what warning signs may have existed before the attack.<\/p>\n
Former Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr., who presided over the Casey Anthony murder trial, said major criminal cases are increasingly shaped by the demands of reviewing digital evidence. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey need a reasonable time to go through all of this evidence. It may not be a year and a half. It may not be two years. But October, it’s just not going to happen,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n
Neff did not move the October trial date Tuesday but indicated the court expects the case to continue moving forward. The next major hearing is expected later this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Phoenix Ikner, the former Florida State University student accused of carrying out last year\u2019s deadly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-285913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}