MOSCOW, Idaho — Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students in 2022, is heading back to court Thursday to potentially find out if the trial will stay in Latah County.
Kohberger’s attorney Anne Taylor will try to convince the judge to move the trial to Ada County while prosecutors will try to keep the trial in Moscow.
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Taylor said an impartial jury does not exist in Moscow since there is a mob mentality surrounding the case. She said that “is the exact reason that statutory grounds prior to selecting the jury exist to move the venue.”
Taylor shared responses from a survey conducted by the defense, asking potential jurors about the case.
“The pressure to convict Kohberger is so severe that Latah County survey respondents said if he wasn’t convicted, ‘they’d burn the courthouse down,’ ‘they would probably find and kill him’ and ‘riots (and) parents would take care of him,” Taylor wrote.
Taylor further argued the Latah County atmosphere has been “utterly corrupted” by the media coverage of the case.
Prosecutor Bill Thompson, however, is fiercely fighting to keep the case local.
In response to the defense’s survey, Thompson said Ada County received the second-highest amount of media coverage and received a statistically greater number of survey respondents familiar with the case who believe Kohberger is guilty.
Thompson also said “the mere fact that crimes reported by the media are gruesome or memorable does not render the publicity inflammatory to the extent of requiring a change of venue.”
Thompson argued the defense’s survey lacked crucial data: failing to include the number of individuals who were contacted that chose not to respond to the survey. He said non-participation bias can change the outcome of the survey.
On Tuesday, Latah County approved a budget that includes $150,000 for the Kohberger trial, significantly more than the $3,000 typically set aside for trials.
There is a chance Judge John Judge, who is overseeing the trial, may not make a decision whether to move the trial Thursday.
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Kohberger’s trial is set for June of 2025.
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