7 Big Moments in Bryan Kohberger's Fight To Move Trial: 'Burn Down The Courthouse'

I would say this is probably professionally the most difficult decision I've ever Mak Brian coburger back in court for a marathon hearing where he's fighting to move his trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students out of Leah County it's every day social media books have been written Prime Time television shows have happened in this case it just doesn't stop prosecutors are fighting back on the request I have the top moments from the hearing your honor at the end of the day these surveys have given the court a factual basis to deny this motion to change venue and we hope that's what the Court decides to do thank you welcome to Crime fix I'm aninat Levy Brian coburger wants his quadruple murder trial moved out of lah County he says he simply can't get a fair Shake there cober's attorneys have said when they conducted a survey of people in lto County they found that the jury pool was Tanked Ed and biased against coburger with one person saying they'd burn down the courthouse if he wasn't found guilty cobg is accused of murdering four University of Idaho students Mattie Mogan kayy gonalves Zanna kodal and Ethan shapen on November 13th of 20122 Judge John judge entered a not- guilty plea on cober's behalf last year the now former PhD student faces the possibility of the death penalty if he's convicted prosecutors want the trial held in lah County and so to the victim's families the murders happened there in Moscow in the now demolished home on King Road everyone involved in this case concedes that it has had a tremendous amount of media coverage and it's not just on TV news it's been all over social media and sites like Reddit and also on YouTube Moscow is in lah County and it's a small County with a population of nearly 41,000 people and the defense says their survey of the county revealed that most people there believe that Brian coburger is guilty as charged you'll hear more on that in just a moment the defense started the hearing by discussing the standard for being granted a change of venue the standard here is whether there's a reasonable likelihood that pre-trial publicity has affected the impartiality of prospective jurors to establish uh the quantity of pre-trial publicity we will call James Todd Murphy with true scope to establish effect on partiality we will call Dr El Aly to discuss the social science behind your decision making then we will call Dr Brian Edelman about the survey and what it means and finally we will call Dr dare about the validity of the survey methodology we are not calling today Scott sunbe but as you listen to testimony today please keep his sworn affidavit in mind with his 39 years of stud studying Capital juries and teaching at the national judicial College he is considered by the United States Supreme Court an expert in this area he has published this book it's called a life and death decision a jury weighs the death death penalty and this book uh is a culmination of interviews of over 1,200 Capital jurors and how Capital juries make decisions research showed that when a small community creates pressure to impose death an Eighth Amendment violation may occur through these Witnesses today we want to avoid beginning a trial with as Mr sunby States quote a thumb on death side of the scale I want to thank upside for sponsoring today's law and crime YouTube takeover upside is a free app that gets you cash back on gas and groceries why not get cash back when you fill up your tank and yes this is actually real cashback it's money that appears in your upside app you can transfer it straight into your bank account once you have the upside app claim an offer for whatever you're buying on upside you pay as usual using a debit or credit card and follow the steps on the app and get paid you can use upside at places like shell Exon Mobile 7-Eleven Taco Bell and many many more to find out how much you could earn click the link in the description to download upside or scan the QR code on your screen and use use our promo code LC takeover to get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas that's promo code LC takeover for an extra 25 cents back on your first gallon of gas now back to that survey that I mentioned that the defense conducted Dr Brian Adelman spoke with jurors in four counties including lah so I think high level you can see case recognition is very high and it's pretty much it's also high in Ada account it's 93% there it's almost everyone in L talk count 98% which is similar to what I saw in the George Floyd case where it was 99% so this is extremely high they're pretty much the same so Dr Adelman is saying that basically everyone in lah county has heard about this case that's not a surprise back in the spring Dr adelman's survey caused some major heartburn for prosecutors who were Furious when they found out about it because they said it violated the Court's non-dissemination order but judge judge allowed the survey to continue Dr Adelman talked about how many people in Leah County felt Brian cobber was guilty and should be put to death you can see people in Le County reported that they follow the case somewhat or very closely almost 70% are closely following this case again that means they're actively looking for information passively consuming information talking about it so it's a big deal in this community um and there's a presumption of guilt the burden has shifted so 607 7% believe Brian cober is guilty of murder and 25% reported that they definitely he's definitely guilty so these are strong opinions um and 51% reported what I call a fixed opinion where they reported that cger would have a difficult time convincing them that he's not guilty so the burden of proof is shifted on the defendant to prove his innocence and that's undermines due process that's not how our system is designed to work and also on the question of of sentence you can see that 52% believe that he should be sentenced to death now the defense has made no secret of the fact that they want the trial moved to adaa County that's in the Boise area the population there according to 2022 numbers 58,7 it's the largest county in the state both daybell trials were moved to adaa County and the trials went off without a hitch and both were convicted but you have a much larger jury pool in Ada County Dr Adelman talked about some of the things that respective jurors in lah County said about Brian koberger how would the community react if if he's not convicted if he's s not guilty and there was quite a bit of strong comments there on a range of themes from um people would basically kill him um to they burn the courthouse down or assume that the jury failed um or that he would have to prove that he was not guilty again shifting the burden so it's like I can't imagine that happening because they have so much evid against evidence against him we would be dumbfounded like it's how could he not be guilty given the amount of evidence um SE would be on the hunt for him to make sure he gets what's coming to him and then just emotional stuff about it would be devastating to the community other people talked about the fear if he didn't do it well who did like that means this person's still Among Us who creates the same stress of fear and anxiety that people had before so this community needs closure sir Dr adelman's survey revealed that emotions are still very raw in lah County and you can imagine that they would be four college kids Maddie Kaylee Zanna and Ethan were slaughtered in that home off campus for no reason at all they should still be here but the issue at hand is whether Brian coburger can get a fair trial in Leah County the prosecution says yes and the defense says no Dr Adelman discussed what he found when talking with residents in Leah County about things that they had online there's a lot of references to things that you know the defendant committed a murder in Oregon like speculation no evidence of that just something they heard um that he talked about committing the perfect murder on a paper um or that he hates women and he had trouble at the University he goes to with women and people who worked with him had problems um he stopped her because he didn't she didn't respond to him um people were looking at Reddit comments or Reddit posts he had made and from years back all that kind of stuff and then references to him you know having obsession with some of the victims um ritual animal killings and these are just a couple examples like you'll see that stuff everywhere but the amount you see in Lea county is much higher like you know if you go through commment Ada County you'll see you'll find some too you could find examples and I'm sure if you go to vanic Canyon you're going to see them the case has gotten so much attention but not to the degree you have here and given the size of the community is much more significant Dr Brian Adelman summed up why he's recommending a change of venue based on his survey results the crime has been seared in the community's Consciousness people have been saturated with prejudicial coverage many people here have direct and indirect connections to this crime um people here demonstrate there would being experienced fear and stress panic in this community um there's significant rumors and misin information that have spread and people have been exposed to in this community um there's a feeling pressure to convict I think given the reaction that people think a community would have if he's acquitted that's particularly concerning um we know from the data that jurors have closely followed the case they talked about it they're familiar with prejudicial details I think that the presumption of innocence has been undermined and a presumption of guilt prevails in this community um and and I think the pre-existing attitudes and opinions will influence how people process the evidence interestingly enough the state said it had everything it needed from Dr Adelman and didn't cross-examine him but special prosecutor Ingram batty made some points through questioning another defense witness um would it surprise you to find out that 60% of Lea County residents who were surveyed reported that they did not feel higher levels of stress or anxiety uh during the hunt for the killer in this case uh I don't know I don't know what percentage I would have estimated I just would have estimated it to be higher in L batty also asked about Dr adelman's survey results about opinions of Brian koberger would you be surprised to find out that in the survey when jurors were asked potential jurors who were responding to the survey were asked what their opinion is of Brian coburger the highest percentage of prospective jurors that were survey who had no opinion of Mr coburger were Le County survey respondents so that's surprise you uh that they have no opinion about whether he is guilty I think the question is just do you have an opinion of Mr cker uh um well it's a high-profile case that had a lot of coverage and the percentages are so high uh that of people who have an opinion I imagine I don't have those in front of me but in statistics we call that a ceiling effect when uh all the percentages are high and you can't really see differences uh so I don't know if if if we're talking I don't know what numbers you're looking at but I don't know if that applies or not in this particular casebook in high-profile cases one way a jury can be seated in a smaller venue is to bring in a bigger jury pool the state has suggested possibly summoning 1,800 jurors whether the trial lives that stays in Leah County or moves to adaa County would bringing in a larger jury pool alleviate some of these concerns across any jurisdiction uh well if we're talking about Lea County you know lot of the things that I mentioned were not in the survey so you know there are emotions I mentioned that weren't assessed during the survey impressions of Mr cober that weren't in the survey so it could be that uh 90% of people think he's a bad guy but they don't think he's guilty and then that still could influence judgment so it's really hard to to answer that question without you know I I didn't make the survey and even if I did there'd be a lot of things that I would miss too you know so I I I can't make that termination now I mentioned earlier that this case has received a lot of news coverage everywhere even nationally but another defense expert testified that the amount of coverage would be magnified in a small County like lah is there more saturation in lah County or more saturation with media coverage in a county yes a person in L talk County would be exposed to far more media coverage Than People a community in dat count a story you may have heard the phrase uh this story has legs a story that is Extreme unique atypical has greater legs than say high school football scores you're here on the 10 o'clock news on a Friday night those would have a very um fast decay of memory on consuming viewers this type of story will remain on the mind and be of interest up to and Beyond the conclusion of of this case however that might be finally both sides made their final pitches to the judge the court can also presume Prejudice by looking at this case as it is it's an extreme case that comes out of the Haden case in Idaho and you can presume Prejudice in an extreme case you have heard all day long how much coverage this case spers it's leop County it's bigger it's a state of Idaho it's Nationwide it's outside of the nation it's continuous it's every day social media books have been written Prime Time television shows have happened in this case it just doesn't stop despite some of the findings in the survey the state says that the trial should be held locally your honor the case law in this case just does not support a change of venue given the evidence that the court has before it the state does not disagree with Council on what the appr apprpriate standard is the appropriate standard is that the defense has the burden of showing a reasonable likelihood that the defendant ability to get a fair trial is going to be diminished as opposed to some other County or put in another way a reasonable likelihood that pre-trial publicity will deprive him of a fair trial so in looking at the evidence the court has before it we can start with Exhibit C those were the charts presented by Tru scope and we can see in the charts that for at least six months on one of those line graphs that compared Ada County and Lea County Ada County had significantly more coverage than Leah County and that more recently in the past couple of months they that that that line graph comes together again and they're just a couple points off the fact is your honor this case has media coverage everywhere that is something that was acknowledged by the defense and that is something that is abundantly clear in these surveys and the victim's families want the trial held in Leah County most of the victim's families not all of them but most of them live closer to Lea County than they do to boisey that means that for them traveling to this trial which they will have a constitutional right to attend and again we're only asking the court to consider this in the convenience prom will be much easier for them and more convenient for them than it would be for them to have to travel hundreds of miles to Bo seed I think the court can and should consider that factor as well I would say this is probably professionally the most difficult decision I've ever had to make um both both sides okay have made made really solid positions support of that um I know there are a lot of considerations practical you know in terms of logistics and prejudicial media um so I have I have some work to do I'm GNA go through everything okay even I thought I got most of everything but um that's going to take me a little bit of time um and uh go through go through the log again through including the the rule itself and the interpretation that so um I'll do my best it's it's a challenge so that's probably all I should say at this point judge judge did not issue a ruling that will come at a later date Brian koberger remains in the lah County Jail where he is being held without bond and at this point his trial is scheduled for June of 2025 that does it for this episode of crime fix I'm Anette levie thanks so much for being with me I'll see you back here next time