Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Bryan Kohberger Fights to Move Trial in Idaho Murders

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Brian Koberger officially asking the judge to move his trial to another county. He says he can't get a fair shake in Latah County, where he's accused of brutally stabbing four University of Idaho students. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. It's Monday, and this is Crime Fix. There's no doubt Brian Koberger's case has been covered extensively,

Starting point is 00:00:31 not only by mainstream media, but also on social media. Koberger faces the possibility of the death penalty if he's convicted of the brutal murders of Maddie Mogan,lee Gonsalves, Ethan Chapin, and Zanna Cronodal. They were killed in a home near campus on November 13, 2022. Coburger's lead defense attorney, Ann Taylor, had said during a recent hearing that she would file for a change of venue, meaning she wants the case tried in another county, with jurors who might not know as much about the case or potentially have connections to it or the people involved. In the motion she wrote, a fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County owing to the extensive inflammatory pre-trial publicity, allegations made about Mr. Koberger

Starting point is 00:01:17 to the public by media that will be inadmissible at his trial, the small size of the community, the salacious nature of the alleged crimes, and the severity of the charges Mr. Koberger faces. Understanding the state's concerns, if a trial were to happen in Latah County, we would suggest looking at summer of 2025. However, council and the court's aware that our intention is to file a motion for change of venue that hasn't been filed yet because we're not ready to have that heard yet. There's work that has to be done to present to the court and counsel in support of that. Now, Latah County has a pretty

Starting point is 00:01:55 small jury pool. The population is about 37,349. The prosecution is already signaling that they'll fight against this request. I have people, friends in this community who have traveled to Mexico and they say, people here were from Moscow and immediately they want to talk about this case. It's not Moscow. It's not Latah County. It's everywhere. So I don't think that a change of venue is going to solve any of these problems. And the state's position on venue is that the case should be held here. It's a Lake Tahoe County case. We believe that we can select an appropriate panel of jurors from Lake Tahoe County.

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Starting point is 00:03:10 for a link to BodyCam and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any new uploads. Mark Piedmeier has tried 50 death penalty cases in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Natalie Whittingham Burrell is a public defender. Mark, can Brian Koberger get a fair shake in Latah County? It comes down to whether the jury can base their decision just on what they hear in the courtroom and set aside anything they've heard outside of the courtroom.

Starting point is 00:03:40 And I have a couple examples I can mention. Back in the 80s, that's how long I've been doing this, there was a serial killer that went across the Midwest by the name of Alton Coleman. Killed 22-something women and children. He killed two different people in Cincinnati, a lady, and then later on a young girl within a couple days of each other. This was headlines when it happened, and the entire case was pretty much televised. He went to trial on the first case, was convicted and sentenced to death. I did not try that case, but then about a month later, he was tried on a second case that I tried. He killed a young girl

Starting point is 00:04:19 by the name of Tani Story. So here's a case where it was front page news for weeks, the first trial, and the jury in the courtroom had already heard that he'd not only been charged with these crimes, the earlier crime, but convicted and sentenced to death. And even then, we were able to get a jury that was able to say, despite everything I've heard, I can set it aside and hear this case fairly. I went to trial on the second case. He was convicted, sentenced to death and was ultimately executed. But the change of venue on the second case was a big issue on appeal. But all the way up the line, all the way up to the Supreme Court, they ruled that since the jury was asked about that and they said that they would base their decision solely on what they heard in the courtroom, the media attention to the case is not a problem.

Starting point is 00:05:12 That's probably the best example I can give. A second one was back in 1993, there was a prison riot in Lucasville, Ohio, the longest prison riot in the history of the country. Ten people were killed during that. It's a very small county, Scioto County. Everybody in that county somehow or another is connected to somebody at the Lucasville prison because that was the major employer. But despite that, we were able to try a couple of the inmates that participated in the riot in Scioto County. Because again, the people said, I knew about the riot. I followed when it happened, but I will promise you, I will base my decision solely on the courtroom testimony. And again, that was affirmed. So

Starting point is 00:05:58 that's kind of the best examples I can give where a lot of publicity surrounded a case, but we were still able to get a jury and the courts found that a change of venue, turned down a motion for a change of venue was not error. Natalie, do you think Brian Koberger can get a fair trial if the trial stays in LaToc County? I think there's a good argument that he won't be able to, mainly because of the interpersonal relationships of the amount of victims that are in this case. So I'm thinking about the fact that there are four people who were killed here, the students, and then kind of the ripple effect of their relatives, their classmates, anyone that might have seen them in the store, and then the people that knows those people.

Starting point is 00:06:45 You know, the concern for defense attorneys is not only the bias that jurors express when they are subject to voir dire, but also the implicit inherent biases that they may not realize that they have until they have to determine the facts of the case. And so in this particular circumstance, I think of examples that I can think of are where jurors will say, I have a bit of a quibble, I'm not quite sure. And then the judge goes and rehabilitates them and says, can you put that aside and follow my directions? That always gives defense attorneys pause because they want to tell the judge, yes, they want to believe that they are the type of person who can put things aside. But they're human beings. And so our concern is always that type of bias leeching into their decision making. And so you can correct for that or fix for that if you remove the case from where that ripple effect is taking place with the amount of victims, move it to somewhere where there aren't as many connections to the people that were killed.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Mark, this is a small county. It's a little more than 37,000 people. And Moscow is a college town. About 25,000 people live there. Then you get this big influx of college kids throughout the year. It really has a small town feel and a lot of people know each other, but a lot of time has passed. More time will pass by the time this trial comes about and people go on with their lives. They're not really paying attention to maybe every little development with this case, but there could be a lot of people in town who just know a little too much. Maybe they're hearing some talk in the bars and things like that. What do you think of that? I can understand the concern. And as a defense attorney, I would have the same qualms when I have someone, a jury that says, yes, I know about this. I've

Starting point is 00:08:35 heard about this. And then the judge says, well, wait a minute. I'm telling you right now and I'm instructing you as a matter of law and you can't consider that. Can you follow that instruction? And the jurors, like you say, normally will say yes. And I can understand a concern of a defense attorney when that comes up. I don't know how else you can do it though, but we expect the jurors to follow the law and follow the instructions and they take an oath to do that. And it's not perfect, but it's probably the best we can do. One other thing too, it surprises me how many times you go into one of these trials and you think every one of these jurors has heard everything about it. And it surprises me always how many people say, I don't follow the news. I don't watch the news. I remember something about it happening, but that's all I could tell you.

Starting point is 00:09:25 And it really I'm assuming they're being honest, but I'm always kind of surprised how many people have that reaction to the question about the media. And no offense, Angela, but some of them also say, I don't believe half that crap I hear in the news anyway. So that's what we certainly never like hearing that people aren't watching the news. I've covered quite a few trials where in jury selection, people are like, I don't watch the news. And it's always kind of like a knife to the heart. So Natalie, you know, there are people though, as Mark said, who don't really watch or follow the news. But this was really scary stuff gets dark out there at like four o'clock in the afternoon. I remember standing outside around 7 p.m. and thinking, this is really scary and telling my photographer we should really go back to our hotel rooms and hang out there. There was a killer on the loose. We didn't know who it was. People had brought their kids home for holiday break early because of this. But you don't have news coverage with a case like this.

Starting point is 00:10:26 You don't just have that news coverage. You have social media to contend with, things like Reddit threads, Facebook groups. And I've really never seen anything quite like it, what I saw with this case. And there were a lot of conspiracy theories also flying around out there. So do you think in Latah County, you can find those people who don't watch the news and aren't really paying attention to social media? You know, Anjanette, we always get people like that in these high profile cases. And it is always surprising, people that just are not plugged into what's going on. You know, on one hand, I kind of think, you know, good for them. Maybe it's a less stressful life. But you at the

Starting point is 00:11:05 beginning of your question, you touched on something that is one of our standard Gwadar questions here in my state of Maryland, which is, are you familiar with the area? And is the fact that this happened in this area impede your ability to be fair and impartial? And so the reason that question is so important is that you could have never heard about this case. You may not know tangentially any of the victims in the case, but maybe you know the area where this happened or your kid stayed in that apartment or attends the university. And so because of that, you might think, man, I don't want somebody to get away with doing this horrible offense. And here's this guy right here. Let's put him away. That's

Starting point is 00:11:53 bias because you have a bias about where you live because you feel protective of your neighborhood. And that's a normal human thing to feel. And so that's a type of bias that changing venue can correct for because there's no longer that emotional investment in the location of the crime, even if the people in the area are not familiar with the particular crime that you're talking about. Well, I do have to tell you both that I was a little surprised by the fact that this motion was only two pages long, and they haven't really gotten into arguing this yet. There's no brief attached to it, which also surprised me. And in the old days, the defense attorneys, you know, they'd bring in those bankers' boxes and sit them down and stack them up and kind of pound on them. They'd have scripts and newspapers and tapes with news coverage, and they'd kind of pound on the boxes and say, look how bad this is. Look at all this media coverage. You know, Ann Taylor says she needs to do more research on this issue. But I would think she could just log on to things like YouTube and Google and see how much coverage is out there.

Starting point is 00:12:55 For his part, the prosecutor, Bill Thompson, is saying that people in Latah County, the residents, they actually deserve to have the case tried there. But really, this is Brian Koberger's trial. I've never heard a prosecutor say something like that before. Yeah. And in a criminal trial, it's the in my case, it's the state of Ohio versus the defendant, the jury. I've never considered them a party to the case. And then as a result, I don't think I'd be comfortable saying they have a right to get their pound of flesh by hearing this case. I would not make that argument. Every death penalty case I've had, there's probably been a motion for change of venue.

Starting point is 00:13:33 But something else I wanted to say is that I've never had a judge rule on that pre-trial. They will, every case I've had, they say, well, let's, you know, we'll consider it. Let's see if we can get a jury. And we're always able to do it. So I know a lot of times they will have flood the court with all the stories have been on about it. The other thing too, you know, way back when we would try these death penalty cases within three or four months of the offense happening. Now you're lucky to go to trial within two years. And as a result, I think now it's probably easier to argue against the change of venue because there has been so much time has passed. We're talking

Starting point is 00:14:11 about a case that'll be, what, close to three years old. And people's memories, again, they'll remember, yes, I remember that horrible thing, that serial killer. That's going to be about it. So that's another thing I think that works in the favor of keeping it where it is now, as opposed to 30 years ago when I first started trying these cases. Actually, it's 40 years ago. I'm dating myself here. So yeah. That's okay. That's why we wanted you because you've been doing this for so long. Natalie, what do you think of the defense saying that they might be ready by the summer of 2025? They have 51 terabytes of discovery to go through. There is a gag order and there really haven't been any leaks in this case.

Starting point is 00:14:55 Right. So I think the further, I agree, the further you get away from the event itself, the more memories fade. And so the bias towards the particular defendant, the event itself, the more memories fade. And so the bias towards the particular defendant, the particular crime does kind of go down when you are talking about things being barter out. However, this is a case that is unique in that there is so much media attention around it, more than your average murder case, in a small location. So in essence, a tempest in a teapot. We've got this big media case that's drawing in people from outside the state, outside the county, to come and report on it. And you've

Starting point is 00:15:40 got this big defense team, and this big prosecution prosecution team and lots of police officers involved. And so it is drawing more attention than the average case to the area. And so that might kind of ameliorate at some, no matter how far out you get, because I don't see the public interest in this case dying down by summer of 2025. If I could just say one thing when she said, you know, she kind of shudders to say, I'll be ready summer of 2025. I handle life cases because Marilyn no longer has the death penalty. Thank goodness. So that's not something I have to deal with, but I take, you know, murder cases, which carry a maximum life without parole. And these cases always take a long time to prepare, even if you're giving it your best shot to be as diligent as

Starting point is 00:16:26 possible with time standards. It really is to the benefit of the defense to take as long as possible to prepare your defense because you don't want to leave any stones unturned. And so I can completely sympathize with her saying she shudders to hold herself to summer of 2025, even though that seems like such a long time to prepare for a case. Yeah, so they have about 9,000 tips to go through, 51 terabytes of discovery. That's a lot. Mark Pietmeyer, does this case stay in Latah County? What's your best guess? Yes, that's one of two answers. But I would say yes. I think if it goes to trial that late, I'm assuming the jury will answer like most jurors say is that I

Starting point is 00:17:06 do remember it. I might have even known someone that's involved in it, but that's not going to affect my verdict. I have one question too. Is this a case where they're contesting guilt or is it more of a penalty phase case? Well, he says he didn't do it. We've heard he may have said some things that weren't helpful to him right after his arrest, but we don't know what those things are. He actually said through his former attorney that he hopes to be exonerated. OK, so it's not a confession or a DNA case, anything like that. OK. So, Natalie, what's your guess? Does this stay in Latah County or will it be moved down to Ada County in Boise or another location. Right. So, you know, if it was not for the Lori Vallow Daybell case, I would say given the time between when the event happened and when it's going to go to trial,

Starting point is 00:17:52 no, it doesn't get moved. But even though it was a different county, the Rexburg, Idaho case was removed for Lori Vallow Daybell. So maybe the state of Idaho was a bit more cautious when it comes to guarding against potential bias from jurors. And also they have other courthouses that are bigger and more well equipped to handle such a case of this magnitude. It may just be a logistical thing where they end up moving it somewhere, keeping the same judge, same attorneys, but moving it somewhere where it's easier to conduct a trial of this size while still maintaining the rest of the docket. Because remember,

Starting point is 00:18:30 crime didn't just stop the moment that this thing happened. They still have cases coming on. So I'm going to say that my thoughts are probably the least likely, but I'm going to put my money on it gets moved. And that's it for Crime Fix on this Monday, February 5th, 2024. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight at 6 Eastern time on Law and Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabey is our audio editor.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Bryan Kohberger Fights to Move Trial in Idaho Murders

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Bryan Kohberger Fights to Move Trial in Idaho Murders

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