Real Lawyer Reacts: Idaho Victims Speak! New Info On Their Feelings About Kohberger Change Of Venue

what's up everybody Welcome in to another episode here breaking down what's going on in the Brian coburger case as his team is trying to force a change of venue based on the negative media attention based on people's prejudgment of him about his character about his guilt about what he has or hasn't done in this case based on what they say even the state agrees is some false facts and narratives put out there by the media we get to hear some cross-examine cross-examination from the state some expert witness testimony from the defense and then we get to hear the judge's thoughts at the very end of this hearing so hit that like button make sure you subscribe and let's get into [Music] it all right so we are going to pick up the video when we get to some charts but first let me introduce what's going on here right at the beginning of the video a couple of the uh experts for the defense have PowerPoints the judge is like hey some of these are over 100 slides they have very prejudicial stuff in them media reports I know it's already out there I don't want to put it out there again we don't want to make it worse we don't want to poison the jury pool a lot of people are watching they had multiple hearings multiple breaks in the day to deal with this it seems like they kept most of that out while still getting in the important factors of should they change venue and if they change venue where can they go and the big question is not is there media attention is there negative media attention we already all know there is even the state basically agreed there is but is it prejudicial to the point where we can't get a fair trial number one and then number two is there really a better County in Idaho for us to go to that makes sense that's possible that's not going to be exorbitantly expensive and cost preclusive for certain victims or Witnesses or certain things for the state to do all of those are a balancing act that we're going to kind of talk through and see how the defense presents the evidence today and how the state cross-examines and pokes holes in what the defense is trying to prove that they need to change venue from lto County to Ada County which is um where dbel and valow both had their cases transferred to and I'll give you my opinion at the end as to whether or not I think this is going to happen and I think they're going to change venue and I mentioned the valo and DeBell case because it's been the thing that's been on the top of my mind and the biggest decisionmaking Factor if I had to guess how this was going to tip that's what's really making me feel like I know which way it's going to go but I am not confident um I don't think the Judge is confident at this point sometimes judges make decisions before they show up I don't think judge judge did that in this case so the first witness they call is James Murphy who's the president of true scope true scope which is a media monitoring and Analysis service he doesn't know much of anything about the case he does that by Design um but he gets into the charts about how Leal county is specifically the worst in Ada counties better that's the big question to me we know this stuff is everywhere it's in clear waterer Florida Tampa Florida it's in Australia I I got people writing me emails like Sarah Boone saying we're watching this coburger case I got people in Kansas telling me not as much but these cases are big pretty much everywhere so why are we going to create the difficulty and problem it presents to take it out of LW County for the victims for the witnesses for the state for the judge for everybody even for Brian cober himself not necessarily his team but why are we going to create that mess if it's really no better in a county so that's one of the big focuses of this video that we're going to listen to How the experts explain the answer to that is there more saturation in Le County or more saturation with media coverage in a county yes a person in Le County would be exposed to far more media coverage Than People a community can we now switch to on the third slide what does this show this adds in two additional counties that we were asked to look at um it reflects me exposure specific to Bic and Canon counties and what what and we hear about these other smaller counties as well the defend puts them into her argument because I was starting to think like man the numbers kind of look better in those smaller counties but I understand wanting the bigger County for a million reasons the defense lays all that out in their argument that we're going to listen to later of why they picked Ada not one of the smaller counties and then there's also a great area leido you just want to explain what we see here sure so if you look at the volume of media cover for the same dat range that the first Le ad and then four counties out of all the made exposure for the state of Idaho Le received 36% ad at 27% banic 1.56 and Canan just over 3% idah just so outside those four counties the rest of the counties in Idaho but the rest of people that the rest of the regions in Idaho would have been exposed to approximately 31 53% of the you turn next to I believe it's page five what opportunities to be seen um are in the differences in the county sure so this P we you looking at the same deing um opportunities to be seen um are maybe best described relative to probability versus possibilties each person in any of these four counties or the rest of Idaho for that matter have have equal possibility to see a story um it's like flipping a coin you can flip a coin 100 times and the possibility of it coming up heads is equal every time the probability of it coming up heads every time is much different probability is a mathematical statement a a quantitative measure and so opportunities to be seen are um dependent on the media type so and the points of these charts which we're going to listen to another couple minutes of it but it's more likely that you see this stuff in L talk County we're going to find out throughout this hearing it's more likely that it's negative in L County it's more likely that you have a prejudgment of guilt it's more likely you've heard the inadmissible or incorrect facts that even the state agrees are incorrect if you're in L talk County it's more likely that you're going to be connected to this case if you're in L talk County more connected to the university more connected to the house have seen the house have walked by it connected to all this stuff is just so much more likely L talk County that's what they're trying to explain but I want to show you the charts because the state also has an argument against this and I found that to be very interesting as well it was a well done hearing I thought from both sides I I liked some of the arguments from both sides we measure opportunities to be seen for say newspapers based on their circulation these are paid um subscribers who you pay to receive that news they consume that news um television has neelon audience figures neon measures those is smaller markets quarterly and larger markets six times a year I believe any broadcast markets we're talking about and the DNA is affecting this pip chart would be measured quar uh so opportunities to be seen are the possibility that people in that county would see it um it's the volume of those opportunities that creates the potential opportunity um or probability that they've been exposed to X number of Articles or media mentions discret articles stories about this topic you have you're having this track the numbers reflected on the pie chart show that over half of those opportunities to be seen reside um within Leal County nearly 60% or 57.3% uh the opportunities to be seen per person in Ada County is 31.2% not not quite half but but nearly half the opportunities and that's a simple mathematical function of all the media exposure in that county divided by the population or in this case potentially age eligible for jury and in in terms of the the green sliver there Canyon County Canyon County is close to Ada and so if we um assume that Kenyon County residents might review Ada County news with its population of 180,000 is uh the dilution of lto County or the the the dilution of Canyon County still significantly um greater than the saturation in Leah County if I understand the question correctly how I may is Canyon and I would also say Bic unless you don't want me to mention Bic but the media exposure specific to those counties is St statistically insignificant relative to the rest of Idaho Le County in fact if you combine all those two and group them into uh either one of those it would change the inferences that we make on the data between dat and L can you change to turn to the um next slide now tell the court which line represents which county and so this just shows how the numbers kind of go up and down in each County and and that's interesting and I just wanted you to take a quick look at this because the state had some good cross-examination questions on it so we're going to jump to see how the state wants to ask about the differences between the counties because again does it make sense to change this venue so let's listen to a little bit AC cross be a mitigating factor that would decrease the amount of media coverage in this case uh I can't say yes or no on that I I would say it depends if those closed meetings were a public record then the media most likely that spot this would still um have a high probability of reporting on it they may just not have any um image or interviews or some of the elements that go into a more engaging news so the coverage might be less intense uh intense is a qualification that I'm not able to make I can't tell you how how intens impacts you as a as a viewer or a consumer sure thank you and I noticed in that chart of Lea County and adaa County coverage that in the last couple months those that coverage intensity in both of those counties has become pretty close again is that fair to say yeah yes and so so Leon and AA multiple times throughout his charts they get kind of close and they testify to certain error rates I think it's like 5% and in the state's argument at the end she says judge they even admit there's an error rate and these counties get so close that they are within the error rate of these surveys and these scientific tests so does it make sense to move your staff to move the state attorney's office to take a detective out of a small town to take law enforcement away for multiple days and sometimes weeks does that make sense if they're basically the same based on these charts it's really not beyond the realm of possibility that a accountant could again surpass L talk County in coverage at least at certain points correct again there's a equal chance of possibility the probability based on the data I would say is no in my profession I like that answer it's like everything is possible equally but probable no it's not probable it's probable that it's going to be worse in LW County than adaa County it's possible it's going to be worse in Clearwater Florida than it is in L County right we don't know what's anything is possible but what is probable and that's what he tests and I really like that answer we've already seen an uptick and it appears that in a County uh the news is much more focused in attentive even to what I might consider a less weighted story I think there was a story recently about a Memorial Garden or something that this County gar quite the exposure but that's logical well in July in June of 2024 it looks like they got so close that they were just two points apart is that correct L County just two points above yeah and you're not willing to testify that there's a possibility that Ada County could potentially surpass Le County in the future oh absolutely guarantee that possibilities are always equally available I think it's good question a good point by the state but also a really good answer by the expert uh the next witness is a social psychologist who testified at the non-d dissemination hearing already her job was to study how media could shape the minds of potential jurors she said most people assume when someone's arrested they like good they got the guy especially if they hear it from experts like cops or lawyers even though those people can be wrong so we here explain a little bit of that my issue with this Witnesses testimony which again the state did a good job of circling back in their argument is a lot of what she said let me make myself smaller so we can see the uh slides a lot of what she said I feel like could be applied to every case and almost argues that no potential juror could ever be fair throw off the jury system let judges or prosecutors or cops make the decision right it's like we have to defense attorneys don't want judges to make the decision so we've got to find a way to get the best and most Fair jury system but a lot of what she said I felt like could be applied to literally any jury in any case so I don't again understand why Ada County would be better than Lea County with a lot of what she's saying except when you look at the prior Witnesses and all these Witnesses build on each other that there's a higher percentage a higher probability that the people in Leah have seen this stuff and think this stuff once you think it it's really hard to undo it and I do agree with her there but a lot of the problems she talks about stem across all jurors and make sure you know I want to convince myself maybe that you know I've caught the right person and you know if I'm in that position doesn't make me less biased right we all have biases all humans survice and so and they also could be wrong you know like I said people can get arrested for a crime they didn't commit it and what we found in research very true absolutely accurate they're supposed to be presumed innocent and people don't do that I agree with you but that's what we have to deal with in literally criminal case over many many years decades is that if somebody has any kind of indicator of authority even if it's something as minor as height but certainly you know an occupational status title uh that people will take their words so far that they'll do things to contradict their own morals you know and they'll they'll be influenced in areas beyond the person's expertise like a doctor influencing you in your relationships or something that's totally irrelevant and so we take it a little bit too far um and in the case of Moscow and Le County it's really small community right and so the authority figures are often going to be people who are known and well trusted and you know so that makes this effect even potentially more problematic and um you know as you know Chief fry the chief the police at the time had said that he was certain that he arrested the right suspect and didn't have any doubts and so the community and that's why that type of stuff is annoying and I wish they wouldn't say they're certain I wish like the uh us attorney in the birchmore case said we're confident we have the right guy uh we're alleging these things we still have to prove them we think we can prove them but not you know certainty this is it it's over whatever that type of media coverage does create problems and again we're going to we're going to take the steps of what's the difference in this case what's the difference in Leah versus Ada more of that's coming would say okay well the chief of police is sure so then I can be sure too uh but like I said you know we can't assume and there's no trial that had taken place yet and so we can't assume that that's accurate information but we tend to take that a little bit um too much of the value the example that you gave of the police Chiefs speaking out and offering what he thinks of advoc case does that is that something that creates more bias in the minds that the late to County presidents that heard that yeah I mean they're familiar with him they know him to be an authority figure uh you know they may know him personally or trust him personally and and so yeah somebody outside of Le County they'll still be affected by his authority status but maybe not as much right and then he also has power over people in that community and that seems to carry some weight when it comes to this type of influence so similar in every case but even worse specifically for the PE people in Leon County uh then she says a majority of people will be biased against Brian cobber yeah that's how it works when you're a criminal defendant people automatically think you're guilty every criminal defendant has to deal with that that's why a huge part of every Vader when we try criminal cases that's what we try to hit on is please don't sit here and think he's guilty don't make us prove his innocence that's not how this process works and that's what we talk about a lot on this show um uh but how does it specifically relate to this case in Le County well there was a lot of pressure on law enforcement to keep the streets safe and the community safe so they better get him and then she explains confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance how um people may think that defendant is Innocent but they're so loyal to their local community that they're conflicted and they don't want to put an innocent guy back or to put even a maybe guilty guy back on their streets so are they going to just say no you know what we're not even going to think about that because if he even may be guilty we got to throw him in that's not how the law works it's beyond A Reasonable Doubt but this is how the law is and how we set up the jury system right it is juries jurors from the local community the people that live there the people that are affected the people whose tax tax dollars pay for law enforcement for state attorneys for judges they are the ones that sit in judgment they are the jurors in their local community and jurisdiction so a lot of these factors that she's bringing into to me are saying like should we just change the whole system and bring like New York City jurors here to Tampa Florida should we bring Kansas juries to New York City to make those decisions no the point is that's not a jury of your peers those aren't the people that live with you or with the victims and are around this case and understand how things work in New York versus Tampa versus Kansas you know like we talked about in the crumbly case a lot of guns a lot of shooting whatever it may be may be very different than New York city so that's why the system is set up we're balancing all this stuff and while there's some good with it being local there's some bad with it being Lo local it's imp perfect but that's why we get to question these jurors and that's why I hate some federal systems where the judges don't let lawyers ask questions this is showing how important it is how you really need to and you can't just have any random people that live locally be the jurors but a lot of what this witness is saying I do think could theoretically apply to just everybody and it doesn't make sense to completely flip the system on its head in my opinion um because a lot of work has gone into making it the best we can it's not perfect of course uh then we're going to get to let's hear her final conclusions specifically about uh how all of this will affect the jury pool here in Lew County even a little bit then discussions could actually make it worse and worse time it could get it could get polarized so I don't anticipate that discussions would fix the problem in fact I would expect it to exacerbate the problem and that might be why in that metap analysis I talked about the the effect of pre-trial publicity was Stronger when it came to group judgments verdicts versus individual judgments skills based on your years of teaching human bias and your extensive study of human bias do you have an opinion about whether the extensive pre-trial publicity has impacted the lot County jury pool I do I I think it would be it would be so hard to be a member of that community and be able to come in and be objective man arguably impossible you know so we don't have a known method for undoing things and the things have been done they've felt the emotions they've seen the publicity they had the discussions you know they've been to the the vigils and and even if they want to be as objective as possible and even if we disregard some of the limitations I talked about before uh you know there we we research has not uncovered a way to undo this after it's there and so the recommended best practice by the vast majority of researchers on this topic is find people who don't have that information you know restrict that information in the first place find people don't have that information and the same goes for that emotional experience and investment and so on you know utilizers whove had less exposure they have less reason for free judgment less motivation to find the defendant guilty it doesn't affect them they of safety the community do you really think somebody in a has less motivation to find him guilty I mean they're testifying they do so that's what the judge is going to have to consider at the end of the day but the state gets the opportunity to cross-examine this witness and they get into specifically what is different between lah and the other counties and I like that the state is focusing on that specifically so let's take a listen to some cross have not been exposed now that it's a high-profile case so we know the exposure is all over the state and the first department but if you can have less exposure of less five Po in a case like this where there's been so much exposure across all counties are there unique challenges in selecting a jury that would apply anywhere so well I mentioned some unique things about Lea County and emotional investment in the community concern for community members and you know having felt that that fear uh wanting you know the defendant to be guilty so that they could resolve the fear and anger so you know there are all those emotional and social connections and of course Dr elman's report which will come up later shows that a lot of people uh who live in L County are connected in some way to the university or the police involved in the case so they actually you know know people or or they lived in L count and so that those kinds of things make uh because it's such a small community make we to unique experience and so you've reviewed Dr edelman's uh survey I have so does it sound correct that 75% of folks in Le County are not affiliated with University I I don't recall percentages okay so off hand I have to see the report I could look at if you like okay and I should be more precise I believe the question was are you or a family member are you or a family member a student or employee at the University of Idaho in Moscow and the percentage of folks who responded know was 75% does that does that s right I I couldn't tell you without seeing it sorry remember 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 higher and they talk so is one strategy that the court could use in any jurisdiction whether the trial lives stays in Le County or moves to Ada County would bringing in a larger jury pool alleviate some of these concerns across any jurisdiction uh well if we're talking about Le County you know a lot of the things that I mentioned were not in the survey so you know there are emotions and that is a big thing the state argues in their argument that let's just bring in more jurors judge even from Lew County and that'll fix it because when we look at these percentages if we bring in 1,800 jurors 60% means a thousand people are going to be you know able to be fair and impartial those are big numbers a lot of jurors way more than most cases so again I think it's a good argument is it going to carry the day I don't know but I think it's a good argument I mentioned that weren't assessed during the survey impressions of Mr coworker 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's still could influence judgments 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' be a lot of things that I would miss too you know so I I I can't make that determination about you said if you can maybe you can restate it and I can I appreciate answer thank you now I guess the last question I'll ask you is 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 cger the highest percentage of prospective jurors that were surveyed who had no opinion of Mr goldberger were L County survey respondents so that surpris you um that they have no opinion about whether he is guilty I think the question is just do you have an opinion Mr CER um well it's a high-profile case that had a lot of coverage and the percentages are so high uh that people have an opinion I imagine I don't help those in front of me but in statistics we call that a cealing effect when all the percentages are high you can't really see differences not not really a great answer she kind of danced around that answer but I think it was a good question by the state again um the next witness is Dr Brian Edelman we've heard from him a lot already and prior hearings he's the one that was offended when they stopped them calling jurors in the state called it junk science or something or had a problem with what he did but he takes a shot at Nancy Grace and over sensationalizing media and uh focuses in again what we're going to focus in listening to is comparing the different counties so let's jump to that if you were to move it where would you move that's question to thek the if you were going to move counties where would move and how again he went through all the questions he asked the background questions have you heard seen or read anything about the case when you ask him just yes or no questions they always say just yes or no when you ask him specifically about facts you get to know a lot more information a lot of that we already saw he does a really good job I mean this survey really digs in it's crazy the amount you can get into in high-profile cases versus normal cases it would be so nice if we could do more of this in Vader we'd have a much better idea than what we normally have just like an hour or two with the jury but nonetheless we learn a lot from the way that he did it and how he compared to other counties which again is the focus of what we're going to talk about today we don't need to go through his full PowerPoint presentation again we did that on a prior video if you want to see it you can check it out on our playlist go ahead and hit the like button if you guys haven't already as well but this is how we're going to compare the counties and why are they picking Ada to County to make that request that's where this comes so you'll see recognition rates are high in these Three Counties we tested we we tested a the county because is the biggest county in the state it's about 406,000 people over the age of 18 and other high-profile cases have been moved before something um Canyon County we because I believe it's the second largest county and it is also um near Ada County so it's a big County we pick that and we picked B County because it's just far away and so and it had less immediate cover so we wanted to see if there was a possibility that people would have less case knowledge and you can see recognition rates vary from 90% to uh I'm sorry from 84% to 93% across those and um you can see that in terms of how closely they followed it is less than saw in Le County so a is 58 Canyon is 51 and banck is 46 compared to Lea County remember it was 68% much higher um the guilt rates are essentially the same or you know it's a little higher in D County um but because of when I was looking at these I was like these other counties look better but she'll answer that in the uh and I don't know where all this stuff is obviously right I'm not from Idaho um but the defense explains this later we're going to hear her argument population size there's a big difference so again you you'll find about 16 times more people in ha County who have not prejudged compared to here um and then similar in terms of the strength of opinion and um difficulty and convincing them that he's not guilty similar to what you see here and sentence FR similar as well so you're in that 49 to 57% so numbers are also High where do you start to see differences that matter you start to see differences when you talk about personal connection that's where the big differences come up so remember we said 79% of people in a county had talked about this case might wrong might been High um it's just % in Ada County 50% in Canyon and 51% Panic so it's much lower um you'll see whether or not um they've experienced high levels of stress county is just 177% and the other two counties is only 11% was 39% in County here and then whether or not they know soone you experienc higher levels of stress we had 45% here here we're down to 24 19 and 19 so we see big differences there in terms of the Community Connection the personal connection very what about the connections to Moscow that are DED to this area yes so do % um in Ada County know someone who lived in Moscow 15% in Canyon and 16% in banck 78% in L County whether or not they were a student or employee in L County that was 20 it was 25% and we're looking at 4% 3% much lower whether they visited a home or saw it l count is 40% here 8% 3% 2% much lower um whether or not they knew somebody who actually was involved in the investigation in late accounting that number was 22% I believe um and in ha county is just four Canyon it's two bicat to so much lower when it comes to those type of connections the personal connection personal investment case what about the recognition of media items yeah so we had I think it was 79% in May the county knew at least five of those media items and it Dro to 65% in Ada 52% in Canyon 59% in banck um if they do seven or more that was 52% in Le County it's just 42% in a 27% in Canyon and 29% in B so less case knowledge and we know case knowledge comes ECT of belief perseverance right so the more you know the more resistant your attitudes are to change the more likely you are to prend to and process creation consistent with what we know new information about the DNA evidence I already know about that that's grabble like it that way so you're much more likely to see that account fure all right um I think you told us a little bit about the population size and is that why you selected 0 was the population size so I'm not selecting anything I'm just pointing out some possibilities um so I selected a county in terms of to do the survey because it's the largest county in in the state and you know it was a dil case was moved there so you know that they can take this case in we know large counties it's it's less of a big deal when the case moves there it doesn't become the biggest story in that community so I wanted to test L County pick Canyon because it's the second largest county over you know 184,000 people and then I picked bck because it's um further away it's quite far away hundreds of miles from here just and it's in a different media Zone um it does have some the similarities of L County so for example there's a university there that's the second largest employer so there's a risk there but 18% of the population is connected to that University so there are those risks um and I think the problem there some of them really good explanation to me about how and why they're choosing these counties you always learn I always learn from experts I love learning from experts I like the idea it all makes sense why they pick it again the defense is going to connect some of these dots again later but you can see why and how they pick the counties that they do if they're asking for this change of venue numers um it'll become a huge deal of that cases there it's gonna you're have the media circus move from here to there and it's going to become again a huge story in that community so there is risk if you choose a smaller venue that something like that all right we are going to jump ahead a little bit more uh when he talks about people posting online and specifically what we can look at and learn from that oh oh I remember this I think yeah this is about um people posting online that they found in you know different groups about somebody that they think is super guilty glad we got him finally can't wait for this guy to get convicted and then when they ask them after asking the F the leadup questions it's like well do you think you could be fair and impartial and like 80% of them say yes it's wild and I'm like oh this freaks me out when I try cases that you know it's so hard to get jurors to dig down I don't think they're lying it's like I think they truly believe it but it's hard to explain them what truly fair and impartial means and this is just illustrative of that and to me it's it's a scary proposition here to listen to this but again this is something we deal with in every case even plaintiffs who file claims people are like oh you're an ambulance Chaser they're just want money it's a frivolous claim and you start so far behind the eightball it's so hard to get back to just the even playing field and this is kind of this this shows us that I explain the burden of proof and that the defendant's entitled to a fair and impartial trial um and that you a law requires that you set aside everything you know and only rely on the evidence common things you hear and all these people who Express all this public bias and all this vitri all and reported that he's guilty and you can't change your mind by just saying that to them magically report that they can be fair and impartial 81% said they could be fair and impartial after hearing that instruction and they gave open-ended responses as to why and so this is our who mentioned that they were Overjoyed by his arrests and they were physically ill thatt was a sociopath will they un a scale yes definitely to no definitely not they reported that they could definitely be fair and impartial and they reported that I could start from the beginning and listen to all the information presented and follow the directions and wipe out everything I know I would need to be convinced the a shadow of the doubt so the state does say in their argument as well at the end which I keep saying was good you can't just take all the jury instructions and everything we tell a jury and throw it out and throw it away and just assume every juror is going to be bad we can't do that either so we've got to have a balancing act and I think the defense does a good job of trying to balance that but also pointing out a lot of flaws in the system a lot of problems in the jury system and a lot of things that we as lawyers and as a society need to work towards making it better how can we educate jurors more beforehand and I really think the media is partially at fault for the negative education on the legal system and we have to try to undo so much of that at trial which again is one of the points of this YouTube channel the the small amount of people I can get to and talk to that might end up on juries that I hope can walk in there with an open mind and legitimately be fair and impartial and think as soon as somebody's arrested they're Presumed Innocent let's see what the evidence is let's see how it's pres how it's presented at trial and even in some cases like Sandra burchmore which just seems so bad and it's so frustrating and I get frustrated it took that long to make an arrest because they have enough for probable cause for an arrest I'm not saying we should just throw that guy in prison for the rest of his life without a trial absolutely not so that's hopefully what we're learning together and and hopefully something you get out of these videos answer if you see in a courtroom without knowing that this person was making public statements about the defendant being a sociopath probably considered rehabilitated as a fair and which demonstrates like a person like that should be answering that question no but they don't um and even kind of going back to the the Rau case which was a you know recorded confession um in the police station with the chief of police on one side and officers on the next played in the media with music on it it was highly prejudicial in a small town and the Supreme Court ruled that you know threw out the conviction because of it all the jurors in that case who saw that confession reported that they could be fair and impartial they all sat on that truck they all reported that they could be fair and the Supreme Court didn't take that b value because the content of the coverage was so question all right based on your years of experience your education all of the work that you do in general and then specifically the work that you've done in this case the survey the hundreds of comments do you have an opinion about this case and what conceed an impartial jury in Le County I do what is your opinion so my opinion again it's based on whether or not there's a reasonable likelihood so using that standard Which is less less than the prop of the evidence Lea county is a small venue and 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 frme um people here demonstrate there would they experienced fear and stress panic in this community um there's significant rumors and misin information that been spread and people have been exposed to in this community um there's a feeling pressure to convince 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 I think the pre-existing attitudes and opinions will influence how people process evidence so even if the same information is presented at trial there's a big difference in terms of jurors being exposed to that for the first time I don't know about the DNA evidence I don't know about the videos versus a juror being exposed to something that they already know or they're just confirming what they already know I already know about the DNA of it they'll hear it in the way that they have already heard it on the media right if they've already heard DNA is proven it's his DNA on the sheath or whatever they'll just assume that yes that's what it means even if the expert witness or somebody is testifying that that's not what it actually means that's the confirmation by stuff just triggering a memory of what I already recall and I'm processing this information through that filter that it's consistent with what I believe and I already know and it impacts how they see government Witnesses and how they will View and evaluate defense Witnesses and I don't think W year is an effective remedy given the research I've done my experience doing jury selections and the nature of how memory works so taking all that combined I think it's appropriate to to change thank you so he thinks it's appropriate to change venue no surprise there and no cross- examination they already kind of have what they need from him the judge has already heard it the judge can take all that into account when the judge is the decision maker you don't have to necessarily rehash things you just put things on the record and in front of the judge to consider he has that uh last witness is Dr dare uh tons of work in surveys especially in the legal field um and in her opinion Edelman survey and what was done in this case was valid and reliable uh we'll listen to just kind of her and what her um overall opinion is it sound like question you had a really thorough look before you had your opinion as to whether the survey was valid yes do you have an opinion about whether it was reliable yes um in terms of measurement reliability which includes things like um if you are are an interviewer and you are asking questions it could be it could be biasing if you're not trained properly and the motive the mode of survey that you're doing for change of venue surveys the typical mode is rgd surveys which is phone surveys versus paper or in person and so the interviewers must be trained and supervised my understanding is that research strategy has been around for 20 plus years so I'm assuming they're like our lab where they were trained properly and they have supervision where there's supervisors also I don't love her saying oh yeah it's it's valid and reliable and I'm assuming this and that she's probably not wrong but could have could have determined that probably before testifying I thinking the interv so that's another way to combat um non-response bias which includes refusal conversion training which is um I think Dr edman alluded to earlier things like stop refusals if someone calls up and says I'm making dinner I'm too busy I'm giving my kids a bath I'm running to the store whatever it is we we train the interviewers on how to handle those situations so that we don't get um only the first person that answers the phone or those people that are saying that they're busy so that's all part of the training to make sure that we get at not non response right I think that you have answered my questions really well and based on just to sum it up based on your look at the work done by Dr Edelman with this survey your opinion is that it's a a valid survey yes basically it's what I would have done or what we would have done in our survey lab thank you all right and that's the end of the testimony no cross there but then we get to the arguments for me each side starting with the defense where of course they're going to start with the fact that there's tons of media coverage it's all bad but she also gets into um comparing the counties I'm gonna play this part here because I was like oh I take offense to this she said there are no media shows talking about how he's presumed innocent and you know it's all he's guilty guilty guilty all bad bad bad I was like Hey an Taylor must not watch the show right she must not watch the show but we're going to hear some of her um argument here as to why the venue should change and why it should go from lah to Ada specifically and and some really good arguments here and then we're gonna kind of talk through the states I'm not going to play a lot of the states but we're going to talk through the states as well you heard a lot about that today you heard how bias is created and when you think about this little community and all of the people that spoke out early on about this case that's how the bias starts in this case people in this community have a lot of ownership in case as well they they're connected to the case by being related to or knowing people that conducted the investigation they're connected to the case by knowing the community leaders that have scoping out about the case they're connected to the case by the relationship with the University of Idaho that's a pretty tight connection and that is that is how you have to think about the human bias that exists and how it cannot be fixed if we get to jury selection you're on our house at the content and know the content of the media and know that there hasn't been positive stories about Brian cger it's negative stories there's not a media story talking about Brian cober's right to be Presumed Innocent there's not a media story talking about Brian cober yes there is there's a media channel that talks about his right to be Presumed Innocent come on an Taylor loved by his family nobody's talking about the good grades he achieved all through his undergraduate career and graduate programs nobody's talking about the dog that he loves and helps train it's all negative how many people know about that stuff right I mean that that's one of the problems as well but I get what she's saying it's false it's misleading it's stuff that's rumor and never coming in court there are things about his character that are just untrue that are out there when you have this much information surrounding a case it's an extreme case and it's all over the place I don't want the court to think all this social media happens and it's not centered in leop County I think that's okay because it's just not there's plenty this centered in L talk County I'm sure the court remembers where we started earlier today with the two pie charts that we were shown by Cru this morning one talks about how big the coverage is in Le County that projects into leot County compared to how small of a piece of a pie of the whole population in Idaho that L County so that's a lot of coverage directed into leop County and that's the stuff those are the the news stories the Nightly News that's coming into leop County residents TVs that's their newspaper that they're going to get in the morning but that's not all Le talk county has as much access to Prime Time news stories as much access to Facebook groups to different podcasts to watch things on YouTube to buy books containing this information they have as much access to do that as anybody else so you have to recognize how big the case is how much coverage there is and just how prejudicial the coverage is you understand that we understand that learning from from Dr L Ally this morning when she talked about bias so having that as a backdrop and thinking about the survey results that we just talked about you can see that there is a huge correlation to the vi media items that could be tested and prejudgment of guilt from Mr cobber and those are people in L him you can see the case connections that are bigger than the other the other counties and they just don't go away you also should be aware that the coverage doesn't drop off it's not going to stop it may peek and it may dip a little bit it comes right back up you can expect that will continue we have a pretty good schedule of hearings coming up for pre-trial motions the court issued a scheduling order a couple of months ago and so you can expect that the interest in the case is going to pop back up every single time we have one of those hearings and that's a lot of media coverage and people in L talk County are going to see it and read it and they're going to continue with their opinions so what do we do what do we do about that it's tough It's really tough in Idaho there is a lot of case recognition and there's prejudgment in Idaho but there's hope when you look at the survey and you recognize that in other parts of this state people don't recognize as many media items as they do in Lop couny that's good because that thinks right to prejudgment so that's good that's hope right there that we can find a jury somewhere in this state to give Mr cober his right to a fair tribe they also it's also a much larger population so the impact on people sitting on the jury would be much smaller imagine with me that we are here in June of 2025 and we're here and we've seated 16 or so people over here you're going to recognize some of them people that sit in the courtroom in our audience that want to come and listen to the trial are going to see them even if they don't listen to the trial people are going to know who but that happens in every case locally speaking so you can't possibly argue that you could never try a case locally where it happened because that's how it is I just had two people call me from a criminal trial that they sat one of them got on the jury one of them got close that they were like yeah we were talking because the state attorney knew you the judge knew you I put down there that you know my husband works with you you know all this stuff it's like that's just how it is locally a lot of people know each other that doesn't mean you can't have a trial there I get it creates issues and you deal with those those issues in Vader but it doesn't just automatically mean you can't have a trial there and I think we've got to we've got to make sure because it's like oh yeah that makes sense yeah we shouldn't know each other but it's like no we want trials to happen locally where the crime occurs the community that's affected that is the rule changing venue is the very limited exception to that rule and I'm not saying this case doesn't fit that exception I'm just saying some of the overarching themes and arguments make it seem like every case should go somewhere else whose car leaves their driveway every morning to get to the courthouse by 8:30 for three solid months and those jurors that sit over there are going to feel an immense amount of pressure to answer the call of the community to be safe you you can read those comments about what people in this community think about Mr coburger and what they think would happen if the jury found him innocent it's hard to imagine that one of those jurors who all of a sudden said you know what I'm not sure and listen to more evidence and said I'm really not sure I don't think he did it are they going to be brave enough to do that to write not guilty to say not guilty and to stand their ground that comes right to impartiality that the court has to be sure that that's not going to happen you can't be sure this that there's a way to pick an impartial jury in this community in adaa County we don't have them we don't K County we also don't have that those are jurors that are not from the small close-nit community those are jurors who aren't going to to run into a police officer that investigated the case at a grocery store or maybe somebody from the prosecutor's office at the jazz festival at the college there are people who don't have those connections the other difference that I think is really important to think about too is that the the location the connection to the house where this happened that has been a pretty big deal in the community and gler but in the community about whether the house should remain standing for trial or should be Waring and there's been an awful lot of publicity about that people in this community have an opinion one way or the other we aren't going to know what their opinion is but they're going to bring that into the again that happens in every case but I do agree with what she's saying because the Hy publicity and high-profile nature people want him to get convicted if he's not there could be out backlash in their own community and jobs and families I do understand that people in Ada County do not have and Ada why not Canyon or why not banic I think that's something that we should talk about the easiest one to talk about is banic the numbers look a little better there in a lot of regards but it's a smaller Community as well and so I think that there's a danger that if the court says I'm going to change venue and we're going to B County I think there's a danger with that small community there could be more interest all of a sudden and we may run run into so this is why she's saying the bigger counties better the small interest it just becomes the big story and everybody cares about it and then all of that's a a problem in the small County the new County that it goes to that's why the bigger County will be better and same reason the prosecutor makes the percentages arguments with a bigger uh group of potential jurors we can get a bigger percentage from a bigger population which is even better a bit of a problem so that's that's why I'm not here telling you B County but if you tell us B County I think we have a lot better shock at seting an impartial jury and we do here in Le Canyon County is the second largest and you're honestly if the court says let's change venue let's go to Canyon County or van County I think we have a better shot at getting so she like we want Ada but if you say one of those other counties we're game all of them are better than Leah County which I thought was actually a good move by her to show there's not some reason we want Ada it's not like we think we have some advantage in Ada County but Leah county is a no-o we'll take any other County basically is what she's saying is what it sounds like to me but specifically the ones that show in the survey that there are less bias less prejudgment of guilt against Brian cobber impartial jury but we picked a county specifically because we're aware of the the structure of that Courthouse the way it's set up we're aware that there's at least some State wide precedent for moving these big cases to adaa County and we're aware that it would be easier to get our jurs to and from that courthouse in a way that they wouldn't have to go through the media they would be kept private and in secret and sec here it makes sense to do to to focus on BET County for a lot of those reasons y we are we are mindful that that's a lot of miles away from here but and this is Again part of the argument the state makes at the end of the day the interest that we have is to protect Brian cober's constitutional rights his right to a fair trial is as important as our right to free speech our right to Fair arms our right right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and the right to a fair trial cannot happen in Le County there is way too much media coverage it is biased media coverage it has impacted the potential juror and it causes bias and the potential jur this is a tiny little community and and the state says it's not that tiny it's not that little it's on the higher upper 25% um and the state really makes a good argument about you can't throw out the whole system um it's there's bad media attention everywhere rounding error even the errors they talk about in the different communities get a bigger jury pool get 1,800 jurors from Lew County and we solve a lot of these problems I thought it was pretty good arguments but but before we end the video I do want to hear just a couple minutes of what the judge has to say at the end about his thoughts and when we can expect a decision and what he thinks about this decision specifically well nothing give you a decision now number one I would say this is probably Fally the mostal decision i' ever had to make um professionally the most difficult decision he's had to make it's interesting right he's not a young guy he's not an inexperienced judge both sides okay have made made really solid positions I agree that supported 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 gonna go through everything okay even I thought I got almost good everything but um that's going to take me a little bit of time um and go through go through the law again including the the rule itself and the interation B so um I'll do my best it's it's a challenge so that's probably all I should say at this point but uh I listen carefully all day and I thought there was there was some really important things to think about uh both sides and that's what I'm going to do so with that I will and take care all right so he's gonna take some time and that's not really a surprise a lot of judges do that in a lot of situations but specifically here I do feel like judge judge has tried to keep the ball rolling and Tred to keep it moving this isn't something that delays the other work they're doing it's not like a motion to compel Discovery where if you don't turn over that Discovery it creates issues and pushes back depos and now you make my job harder judge if we're going to change venue later for trial it doesn't necessarily uh make the case go faster for him to make the decision now so he's going to take it under advisement do some research make the best and right decision which I respect appreciate I'm glad he's gonna do um and so so that's not a surprise as far as the delay but what do I think he's gonna do okay I think there are really good arguments on both sides so either way he comes down I don't think it was a guaranteed you know this is gonna be a super easy winning app pellet argument for cerg if the judge denies this motion but I would lean on the side of granting it um and the reason I think he's going to Grant it is my the number one reason is the deel valow situation high-profile we know it works well in Ada County that's where they were moved to publicity was there they were able to pick juries there they were able to get to verdicts there they were both convicted but neither here nor there um so it's been decided by another judge and I think other cases have moved to Ada County in the past so it may be an Idaho thing but there's some precedent for it I don't think it would be an overly um controversial decision which judges don't like to do it would be kind of following suit uh not necessarily passing the buck but not making some crazy decision uh so I do think that's one of the main reasons I also do think the media attention is there and we know it's bad and if the defense is saying it'll be better in Ada County fine I don't know if it will be but fine let's go ahead and try a county it won't be the biggest news story there'll be other stuff going on better than moving it to a small County and a better chance a higher probability anything's possible and there's no guarantees in life but a higher probability of getting a less biased jury with less prejudgment of guilt more likely to give Brian koberger a fair trial to me I feel like there's enough pushing me in that direction especially balancing the negative part which is logistically it's difficult more difficult for the witnesses more difficult for the victims which you don't want to do but when balancing all that I feel like it does tip in favor of moving it to Ada County that's what I would guess but I am not at all confident in that please let me know what you think's going to happen in the comment section and I'll take a look at it later and kind of get the feel and the vibe of the community and what you guys think as well uh make sure you guys hit the like button and subscribe to our page and let me know when anything comes next in this case that you want to talk about but for now that's all I got till next time I'm out of here thanks for watching another episode of the lawyer you know if you enjoyed the episode please hit the thumbs up and share with your friends who may be interested here on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe you can also follow us on Instagram Twitter Facebook and Tik Tok and don't forget to check out the lawyer you know podcast with New Seasons dropping every quarter if you have a case you want to talk to us about if it's a personal injury case wrongful death catastrophic injury car accident or slip and fall case please email us at lawyer you know gmail.com and of course all these links I just mentioned are included in the description below on this episode and every episode so until next time this is Peter dros the lawyer you know