{"id":286435,"date":"2026-05-27T17:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/286435\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T17:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T17:55:13","slug":"the-accused-gunman-in-last-years-fsu-shooting-made-his-first-in-person-court-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/286435\/","title":{"rendered":"The accused gunman in last year’s FSU shooting made his first in-person court appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The accused gunman in last year\u2019s mass shooting <\/a>near the Florida State University Student Union was in court yesterday. It was the first physical appearance in court for Phoenix Ikner.<\/p>\n

During a case management conference, Ikner\u2019s lawyer, Blake Johnson, and State Attorney Jack Campbell discussed a timeline for the defense team to disclose witnesses. Campbell says he needs that information so he can be prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need him to make a move so I can make a counter move and we can meaningfully prepare for trial,” Campbell says. “I don\u2019t want to waste the court\u2019s time. I certainly don\u2019t want to string along the victims\u2019 families and witnesses with unrealistic dates, but at the same time, I\u2019m not going to not be prepared for trial.”<\/p>\n

Campbell says if Ikner\u2019s defense team uses expert witnesses, like mental health professionals, he\u2019ll need time to find his own expert witnesses with similar areas of expertise. But Ikner\u2019s lawyer says the volume of discovery, including Ikner\u2019s alleged conversations with an AI chatbot and the Attorney General\u2019s criminal investigation <\/a>against the artificial intelligence company have made the case complicated. And Johnson says meeting the proposed deadlines would be \u201cvirtually impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could not be ready to list our experts by the state\u2019s proposed dates simply because our investigation is not complete,” Johnson says.<\/p>\n

Judge Lance Neff pushed back. He says he doesn\u2019t agree that the case is complicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a death penalty case. It is very important. But you don\u2019t get to have an unlimited amount of time to prepare a perfect case,” Neff says. “I think there is a lot of case law out there that says your client is entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect trial. So you need to use your resources and deploy your resources in a way that you\u2019re spending your time wisely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff said he would take the arguments under consideration. The trial is currently set to take place in October.<\/p>\n

Ikner is facing two first-degree murder charges and additional attempted murder charges. The state attorney is seeking the death penalty in the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The accused gunman in last year\u2019s mass shooting near the Florida State University Student Union was in court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-286435","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\/286435","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=286435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}