Bryan Kohberger the man charged last fall were postponed that their client’s out on

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Bryan Kohberger the man charged last fall were postponed that their client’s out on
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Transcript

00:00 Ryan Koberger murder case hearings to challenge grand jury indictment delayed.

00:04 Pre-trial hearings scheduled for Friday for Brian Koberger, the man charged with murdering

00:08 four University at Idaho students last fall, were postponed Thursday because of an illness.

00:13 Koberger's attorneys were set to argue that their client's indictment by a local grand

00:17 jury should be thrown out on several procedural grounds, with only one of the two to be debated

00:22 in public.

00:23 Those hearings are now scheduled for October 26 on account of the unspecified illness,

00:28 according to an Idaho state court spokesperson.

00:30 Koberger's defense filed the motion to delay the hearing, with prosecutors offering no

00:34 objection, according to court records.

00:36 The Lauda County District Court supervisor told the Idaho statesman by email that she

00:40 couldn't offer additional information about who became ill.

00:43 The defense team in July filed a request to dismiss the indictment for what they contend

00:47 was an error in the instructions given to the grand jurors.

00:50 A month later, they submitted another filing to the court that cites four more legal challenges

00:55 of the indictment that pushed the capital murder case to trial.

00:58 The procedural concerns Koberger's public defense raised last month include claims of

01:02 grand jury bias, as well as the use of improper evidence and a lack of sufficient evidence

01:07 to indect.

01:08 The defense also alleged misconduct by the prosecution over its withholding of evidence

01:12 from the grand jury that the defense says would disprove Koberger's guilt.

01:16 The defense filed those four follow-up challenges to the indictment under a court-approved seal,

01:20 which keeps the details of the arguments hidden from the public.

01:23 The prosecution's objection also was held under a court seal, as well the defense's

01:27 response ordered Thursday to be filed.

01:29 Already, the use of a grand jury by state prosecutors is an intentionally secretive

01:34 process.

01:35 Defendants, their attorneys, and the public are not permitted to attend.

01:38 In turn, the defense is unable to cross-examine witnesses or object to certain evidence.

01:43 Lauda County prosecutor Bill Thompson set the grand jury exclusively to review the Koberger

01:48 case, and it was presided over by retired Judge Jay Gaskill.

01:52 Previously at Idaho's 2nd Judicial District in Nez Perce County, according to court records,

01:57 under Idaho law, only 12 of the 16 selected grand jurors must support indicting a defendant.

02:02 The grand jury met over three days and indicted Koberger on May 16, the court records showed.

02:08 He was arraigned on May 22 when he stood silent and declined to enter a plea, leading Judge

02:12 John Judge of Idaho's 2nd Judicial District in Lauda County, who is overseeing the case,

02:17 to default to not guilty.

02:19 The indictment vacated Koberger's scheduled June preliminary hearing, where a judge otherwise

02:23 determines whether probable cause exists to move a case to trial.

02:27 If the grand jury challenge is successful, the case likely would revert to a preliminary

02:31 hearing, an alternative the defense offered in the challenge to the grand jury instructions.

02:36 Koberger, 28, is accused of stabbing to death the four UI students at an off-campus Moscow

02:41 home in November 2022.

02:43 The victims were seniors Kaylee Gonkows and Madison Mogen, both 21, and juniors Santa

02:48 Kernodle and freshman Ethan Chapin, both 20.

02:51 At the time, Koberger was a graduate student in Washington State University's Criminal

02:55 Justice and Criminology Department.

02:57 USU is located in Pullman, about nine miles west of Moscow.

03:01 Koberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.

03:06 Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if a jury convicts him.

03:10 Koberger's attorneys, in their argument against the instructions received by the grand

03:14 jurors, asserted that the standard of proof in the Idaho Constitution demands the same

03:18 level as a conviction at trial, beyond a reasonable doubt.

03:21 Historically, the language has been interpreted to require the lower legal threshold of being

03:25 more likely guilty than not, or what is known as probable cause.

03:29 The same legal threshold is required to obtain a search warrant or make an arrest.

03:33 Jay Logsdon, one of Koberger's public defenders, in the defense's filing implored Judge to

03:38 rule for his client, which would support Idaho's past efforts at adopting reforms to the grand

03:43 jury system intended to restore to that system its function as bulwark for freedom.

03:47 Edwina Elcox is a Boyce-based criminal defense attorney who formerly served as an Ada County

03:52 deputy prosecutor.

03:54 She commended the creativity of Koberger's public defenders in filing the legal threshold

03:58 challenge but voiced doubts it would succeed.

04:00 Obviously, it's thoroughly researched and is a novel legal argument.

04:04 Elcox told The Statesman in a phone interview, "But this is a loser motion before this

04:08 court and that's the reality of the situation."

04:10 The defense's argument was unlikely to prevail at least in part because it would overturn

04:15 the longstanding legal standard for an indictment.

04:18 Retired Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Jones previously told The Statesman, he

04:22 described the effort as "some kind of Hail Mary thing."

04:25 Judge was scheduled to hear those arguments Friday afternoon and now will wait until next

04:29 month.

04:30 The defense's other four legal claims aim at tossing the grand jury indictment, however,

04:34 will be debated during a morning session now on October 26 that is closed to the public.

04:39 At the defense's request, and with no objection from prosecutors, court records showed.

04:43 All grand jury records, including transcripts and the jury selection list, are typically

04:47 filed under court seal.

04:49 The day after the indictment, Thompson also obtained a court order from Magistrate Judge

04:53 Megan Marshall, who handled the Koberger case in its early stages, to seal the names of

04:57 the witnesses who testified before the grand jury.

05:00 At least two of the victims' families recently voiced frustration about how information about

05:04 the case has been released to the public as they advocated for maintaining cameras inside

05:08 the courtroom.

05:09 Judge has yet to issue his decision from a hearing on the matter last week.

05:13 Shannon Gray, attorney for the Gonkows family, issued a statement to the statesman on behalf

05:17 of his clients, as well as some members of the Kernadal family.

05:21 This case is surrounded by secrecy.

05:23 Everything is either sealed or redacted, which leads to speculation, the statement read.

05:28 That speculation is fueled by the secrecy surrounding everything that is filed and every

05:32 hearing that is closed off to the media and the public.

05:34 The inherently secretive nature of grand juries makes assessing the potential and successful

05:39 challenges difficult, Helcox said.

05:41 But she questioned the need to restrict public access for the entirety of the hearing on

05:45 the defense's four more recent claims, given some are legal arguments over process.

05:49 "If the challenges are to individual grand jurors, then I can see the need to protect

05:53 identities," she said.

05:54 "I can at least understand the theory behind that portion of it.

05:58 But if they're challenging irregularities like the prosecution did something wrong,

06:01 I don't know why you'd want that sealed."

06:03 Even so, the four arguments that the public won't get to watch, and not knowing the

06:07 specifics of the evidence-based challenges, Helcox said the defense's best possible

06:11 chance of overturning the indictment would be assertions of bias from the local grand

06:15 jury.

06:16 "That's where it's likely going to be because you're dealing with an extremely

06:19 small community, where a large portion of revenue and employment is literally centered

06:23 around that college," she said.

06:25 "Getting an unbiased, neutral grand jury in that county just on face value would be

06:29 extremely difficult.

06:30 So if I had to pick a horse to bet on, it would be that one."

06:33 Even if Judge ultimately rules in favor of the defense on any of its five arguments,

06:38 the state's prosecution of Koberger is not going away, Helcox said.

06:41 "Even if they were successful, all is not said and done here," she said.

06:45 Per the defense's own request, their alternative remedy is to remand it for a preliminary hearing,

06:50 which also is a probable cause hearing.

Bryan Kohberger the man charged last fall were postponed that their client’s out on

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