BOISE, Idaho – Prosecutors in the Bryan Kohberger capital murder case say it is time to try the case and urged the judge to request the defense team’s motion to put the upcoming trial on hold.
Kohberger is charged with killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022.
The case was moved from Latah County to Ada County and is scheduled to begin in August.
Defense attorneys, though, want the trial to be delayed. In addition to needing more time to go through the evidence, defense attorneys specifically to a recent episode of Dateline where information that should have been subject to a gag order was released and broadcast.
Prosecutors called the request an “eleventh-hour motion” and said the judge should deny it.
“Defendant has not shown – and cannot show – that continuing this trial will make things any easier,” prosecutor Bill Thompson wrote in his objection. “It is just as likely that delay will make it harder to seat a jury.”
While the defense argues that denying a delay violates Kohberger’s rights, the prosecution says the victims’ families have rights, too.
He points to the Idaho victims’ rights amendment, saying that the families of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle have waited long enough and “their desire for justice weigh in favor [of] of proceeding to trial as scheduled.”
As for the publicity and the alleged Dateline leak, the prosecution says “there is no doubt” it poses challenges for both parties.
However, Thompson says the scrutiny planned for potential jurors will eliminate many of those concerns.
“Suffice it to say, if an individual has been so impacted by the Dateline episode (or any other publicity) that they cannot be impartial, they will not be seated as a juror,” Thompson writes.
The judge is scheduled to hear these arguments in court on June 18.
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