Judge ponders where Bryan Kohberger’s quadruple murder trial will be held

Attorneys for the man accused of the 2022 stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students asked a judge to move the trial to a larger city during a hearing Thursday, citing widespread media coverage of the case and the impact that coverage may have on potential jury bias.

Bryan Kohberger’s defense team believes that the high emotions in the tight-knit community and the constant media coverage will make it impossible to seat an impartial jury in the college town of Moscow, Idaho. They want the trial, scheduled for June 2025, moved from Moscow to Boise or another major city. But prosecutors say any potential bias concerns can be addressed simply by calling more potential jurors and questioning them carefully.

Kohberger, a former criminal justice student at Washington State University across the border in Pullman, faces four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.

The four University of Idaho students were killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, in a rental home near campus.

Kohberger was arrested on December 30, 2022, at his parents’ home in Monroe County, where he planned to spend winter break. Kohberger had earned an associate’s degree in psychology from Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township in 2018 and a bachelor’s degree in 2020 from DeSales University in Upper Saucon Township, where he completed his graduate studies in June 2022.

The murders shocked students at both universities and deeply shook the small city of Moscow. The case also sparked heated media coverage, much of which Kohberger’s defense team said was inflammatory and left the community heavily biased against their client.

Defense attorney Elisa Massoth’s first witness was James “Todd” Murphy, president of the media monitoring company Truescope. Murphy testified that media coverage of the case has been more saturated in Latah County, where the college town is located, than in other parts of the state.

Latah County has about 3% of the state’s population, but media exposure to the case was measured at about 36%, Murphy said. By comparison, Ada County, where Boise is located, had about 34% exposure and about 26% of the state’s population.

Amani El-Alayli, a professor at Eastern Washington University who studies social cognition and bias, told the judge that studies have shown that people exposed to publicity about a case are more likely to reach a guilty verdict at trial because of the way the human brain processes information.

This is partly because people are less likely to think critically about information when they read it casually, she explained, and partly because of “classical conditioning,” a type of unconscious learning in which the brain creates associations between certain stimuli and responses. Conditioning can occur when people repeatedly see the name or photo of the accused next to words like “murder” or “students killed,” she explained, or when they hear a name associated with something that has elicited an emotional response, such as fear that another crime might happen, or sadness that a loved one has died.

“We’ve seen images with these ominous headlines – that connection can’t help but be made,” El-Alayli said. “People aren’t trying to be biased. It’s just that when we’re in the mood, that mood filters the information we absorb.”

Seeing authority figures like a police chief or even someone with a commanding presence say someone is suspicious can also create bias, she said, especially in smaller towns where potential jurors might personally know the authority figure making the claim.

There is no known method to undo this bias once it is created, El-Alayli said, and carefully questioning jurors or instructing them to ignore things they have already heard or read about the case is usually not very effective.

Defendants have a constitutional right to a fair trial, which requires finding impartial jurors who have not yet made up their minds about the defendant’s guilt or innocence. But when the defense team hired a firm to interview Latah County residents, 98 percent of those surveyed said they recognized the case, and 70 percent said they had already formed the opinion that Kohberger was guilty. More than half of those surveyed with that opinion also said nothing would change their minds, according to defense court filings.

Bryan Edelman, a trial consultant and co-founder of Trial Innovations, which conducted the study, also testified for the defense. He said that since November 2022, about 440 articles have appeared about the case in local Latah County media, including the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, the Lewiston Tribune and the University of Idaho’s student newspaper, the Argonaut. The local population is only about 40,000, he said.

Defense attorneys provided more details about Edelman’s investigation in a court document filed earlier this month. Some of the respondents made dire predictions, saying that if Kohberger were acquitted, “there would probably be a riot and he wouldn’t live long outside because somebody would do the good ol’ boy justice,” “they would burn the courthouse down” and “riots, the parents would take care of him.”

Prosecutors told the judge that the investigation did not provide strong enough evidence to justify delaying the trial. Special Assistant Attorney General Ingrid Batey said the investigation data showed that at times, Ada County actually had higher levels of media coverage than Latah County.

“The fact is, your honor, this case is covered by the media everywhere,” Batey said, suggesting that bias and pressure could be managed by calling larger juries and excluding the public from parts of the jury selection process and other hearings. The court can summon 1,800 potential jurors in Latah County as easily as it can in Ada County, Batey told the judge.

Moving the trial across the state would be costly and would require court staff, witnesses, experts, law enforcement and victims’ family members to make an inconvenient trip to the new location, she said.

But Taylor reminded the judge that Kohberger’s constitutional rights were at stake.

“His right to a fair trial is as important as our right to free speech, our right to bear arms, our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,” defense attorney Anne Taylor said, “and the right to a fair trial cannot exist in Latah County.”

The judge said he would consider the law and all the evidence before making his decision, saying it would likely be one of the most difficult professional decisions he would have to make. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “It’s a challenge.”

“There were some really important things that needed to be thought about on both sides,” he said, “and that’s what I’m going to do.”

By REBECCA BOONE

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