Defense and prosecution presented arguments about the location of accused murderer Bryan Kohberger's trial for over seven hours on Thursday, in a hearing that could be consequential for the future of proceedings.
Kohberger, 29, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. He is accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students in November of 2022. The victims were Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
The trial is set to begin on June 2 next year.
Judge John Judge, of Idaho's 2nd Judicial District in Latah County, did not make a final decision following the day of arguments, but he did say there were "important things to think about on both sides."
"I will say this is probably, professionally, the most difficult decision I've ever had to make," Judge said.
If he rules to move the case to a different county, he can decide to continue presiding over the proceedings or he can withdraw and the Supreme Court of Idaho will pick a new judge.
During the hearing, the defense called four witnesses, media tracking company owner James Todd Murphy, social psychologist Dr. Amani El-Alayli, trial consultant Dr. Bryan Edelman and research center director Dr. Veronica Dahir.
The experts showed a variety of charts, data and studies to show the effects of persistent media exposure on potential jurors.
The defense team conducted a phone survey of potential jurors to determine if they could remain impartial. They found that over 98% of people in the county were aware of the case, and around 67% of those respondents believe Kohberger is guilty.
Edelman, who conducted the phone survey for the defense, shared the results in court.
"In a high-profile case, where jurors have been exposed to a lot of coverage and they end up serving, they already have well-developed attitudes about the defendant, opinions of the defendant," Edelman said. "They have well-developed attitudes about guilt, for example, and they have key knowledge that they've already been exposed to."
Kohberger's lawyer, Anne Taylor, cited the phone survey in her argument for a change in venue.
"The amount of coverage is a huge amount of coverage. That kind of coverage is prejudicial coverage, and it's had an impact on the Latah County potential juror," Taylor said. "The court can see actual prejudice by understanding the results of that survey, reading the hundreds of comments from Latah County residents."
Taylor argued that the court should consider moving the trial to larger Ada County.
"Those are jurors that are not from this small, close-knit community," Taylor said.
Prosecutors opposed the defense's request for a venue change for the trial. Deputy Attorney General Ingrid Beatty rejected the idea that Latah County is considered a small county.
"Latah County is not a tiny little community," Beatty said. "Latah County might be close-knit, but it is not a tiny little community. Latah County is one of the top 25, in the top 25% of most populated counties in the state of Idaho. It's 11th out of 44 counties in Idaho."
Beatty added that the case has been covered on a national level.
"This case has media coverage everywhere," Beatty said. "That is something that was acknowledged by the defense, and that is something that is abundantly clear in these surveys."
Venue Change Impact On Trial
Dr. Jill Leibold, a Senior Jury Consulting Advisor with IMS Legal Strategies, previously spoke to Newsweek about how media coverage could affect jurors.
"We have unconscious attitudes and feelings about certain things and the more exposure that you have, it's additive, it builds up," Leibold said. "And so while they may not be able to consciously access their feelings on a particular case, that exposure still has an impact."
While the case has been reported on a national scale, Leibold explained that it impacts the local community on a more personal level.
"Nothing is going to exist in a vacuum and people will have heard about it, but without those personal connections to the community and that community knowledge, it will have less of an influence," Leibold said.
Recent Developments in the Case
At a pre-trial hearing in May, Kohberger's legal team accused prosecutors of withholding evidence during the discovery process, including video footage and cell phone records.
The defense called a witness during the hearing, Sy Ray, who owns a company specializing in cellular geo-location mapping, analysis and training. He claimed up to 3% of the cell phone data in the case is missing.
"Some of the most significant locations in the case are missing data," Ray said.
Latah County Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Jennings claimed the prosecution has given the defense a 50-terabyte hard drive, more than 13,000 photographs, more than 15,000 video clips from businesses and more than 8,000 video clips from residences. She said prosecutors have not received the evidence the defense is requesting yet.
"We can't give over what we don't have," Jennings said.
Another hearing that day, which was closed from the public, focused on DNA evidence in the case. Prosecutors have argued against turning over the evidence since it was not used obtain any warrants and it will not be presented at the trial. Kohberger's lawyer Anne Taylor has asked for access to the evidence anyway to better understand how police identified Kohberger as a suspect.
In April, prosecutors argued Kohberger's alibi does not meet state requirements to prove he was not at the crime scene.
The alibi states that Kohberger was driving around areas south of Pullman,
Washington and west of Moscow, Idaho including Wawawai Park, at the time of the murders.
"With the exception of the reference to Wawawai Park (which is new), the defendant is offering nothing new to his initial 'alibi' that he was simply driving around during the morning hours of November 13, 2022," Thompson wrote in a legal filing.
Prosecutors also raised objections to the phone survey conducted by the defense, but Judge ruled that the practice could continue.
"If defense counsel believes asking these survey questions, which arguably
contain prejudicial information or misinformation about [the] Defendant, is more beneficial than harmful, as [the] Defendant's expert testified, this Court does
not, at this juncture, have sufficient information or evidence to second guess
that strategic decision by trial counsel," Judge wrote.
Who is Bryan Kohberger?
Kohberger was a doctoral student in criminology at Washington State University, which is less than eight miles from Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho is located. He was also a teaching assistant at Washington State.
He was born in 1994 and grew up in Pennsylvania.
Kohberger was arrested at his parents' house in Pennsylvania in 2022. He was arrested after taking a cross-country trip with his father to go home for the holidays. The father and son were stopped by police in Indiana within a matter of minutes for following too closely. They were let off with a warning both times.
At the time, officials had not named Kohberger as a suspect yet. They had identified a Hyundai Elantra as a vehicle of interest, but they had not released a license plate number for the car.
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