Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Idaho High Court Rejects Bryan Kohberger Demand to Toss Indictment

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. The Idaho Supreme Court slams the door on accused murderer Brian Koberger's attempt to get the indictment against him thrown out. We have all of the details. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Starting point is 00:00:23 This was Brian Koberger's last-ditch effort to get the case against him thrown out for the murders of Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Gonsalves, Zanna Cronodal, and Ethan Chapin. Koberger went to the Idaho Supreme Court and asked the court to basically take his case and hear him out. Koberger argued a number of things, including that the grand jury was given the wrong standard of proof. Grand juries look at whether there's probable cause that a person committed a crime. That's the lowest legal standard. Koberger's lawyers had argued that the grand jury should have been told to consider beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the highest possible legal standard and the standard used at trial. They did that because of some archaic language in the Idaho state constitution,

Starting point is 00:01:06 but it didn't fly. Judge John Judge called it a creative argument and denied the request. And the Idaho Supreme Court said, we're not even going to hear what you're asking us. We're not even going to take it. I think I had actually called this a creative argument when they first made it and it wasn't going to go anywhere. Jonna Spielbohr is a criminal defense attorney and also a host here at Law & Crime. Jonna, are you surprised at all by this ruling by the Supreme Court? They didn't even take the case. They said, you know what? We're not even going to listen to this. Not even a little bit surprised. I mean, look look this was a long shot to begin with but it's not

Starting point is 00:01:46 uncommon for these higher courts to say we're going to leave the lower courts ruling alone especially in a case like this where I personally I think the defense was asking for something very lofty in the sense that they want wanted a different standard applied to this particular defendant in his indictment and you know that requires basically an act of the you know state legislature not of the supreme court so i i don't i of the state i don't i'm not surprised at all that they said no we're not even going to hear it you go go on back to where you came from. Yeah. I'm always kind of amused. And when I say that it's not a ha ha type of thing, but whenever I see these motions to dismiss indictments, I'm kind of like, that's very, it's very creative because I've never seen a judge toss an indictment. I mean, typically it

Starting point is 00:02:42 just goes through the process and they say, this is for a jury to decide a grand jury. I mean, typically it just goes through the process and they say this is for a jury to decide. A grand jury, you know, it's the lowest standard of proof, probable cause. It goes through the process. It goes to trial or you resolve the case otherwise through some type of plea agreement. This one was interesting and I thought that it was a creative argument because they said, look, the Idaho Constitution that was written, you know, 100 million years ago or whatever, a couple hundred years ago, says the standard of proof should be beyond a reasonable doubt. But since then, we've had, you know, all of these rulings throughout other courts and really the legal standard and everybody knows it is probable cause. And so they

Starting point is 00:03:21 wanted the Idaho Supreme Court, this archaic language, they wanted them to consider the Idaho Constitution rather than what everybody's been using for like 60 years. So I don't know. I mean, does that really make a good appellate record when you're just kind of throwing out this argument that you know it's not going to fly? I'm sorry. They had to have known it was not going to fly. Well, it was a novel argument. And, you know, oftentimes defense attorneys do have to think outside the box. And yes, sometimes we do things because we are creating a record for the appeal that we know is going to follow. And in a death penalty case, if he's convicted of anything, if Kober is convicted of anything anything we know there's going to be

Starting point is 00:04:05 uh an appeal so they could have been pandering to the uh appellate court but look i don't i don't blame them for thinking outside the box could you imagine the avalanche of other cases that would have come if if this court said you know what i think you're right i think the standard's been wrong all these years let's uh i'll give it to you goodbye all these other cases that have applied the same probable cause standard at that level at the indictment level would there would be if you wouldn't be able to handle them all so i just we we knew i think as watchers we knew it wasn't gonna fly yeah we definitely knew and even judge judge's funny, he called it creative. And I think, you know, Jesse Weber and I were on TV calling it creative even before Judge Judge did as well. So, you know, I gave them an A for effort. That's for sure. The world can be a scary, scary place. This case makes that very clear. And you can't be too careful when it comes

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Starting point is 00:06:04 that had the Idaho Supreme Court taken this, had they even said, yeah, we'll hear it, you know, because they basically said they didn't even deny, you know, I think we need to be clear. They didn't deny the appeal. They said, we're not even going to listen to your appeal. We're not even going to take it. So I think that we need to be really clear on what happened here. But this would have bought the defense some time. And the defense has continually said, we're not going to be ready. We're not going to be ready. I don't even think we can be ready by June of 2025 to try this case. Had the Idaho Supreme Court taken the case, this would have stayed the case. This

Starting point is 00:06:42 would have stayed the proceedings at the trial court level. So this could have bought the defense possibly many, many, many more months before trial possibly and stayed the entire case. And they would have had even more time for this case to get possibly stale, for maybe a witness or two to not be available, what have you. Well, you raise a couple of good points, because with my criminal defense hat on, I keep saying to myself, what is the big deal if the defendant wants to drag this out a little longer? And I only say that because there are some novel concepts that are part and parcel of this defense. First and foremost, this genetic genealogy,

Starting point is 00:07:24 which I'm sure the defense is going to argue is junk science. And without that, Ann Jeanette, if somehow they get that evidence, either thrown out or discounted, it, I mean, I hate to say this, it could be game over for the prosecution because that is the thing, that genetic genealogy is the reason, the main reason. I know there are others. I know there are cell phone towers, but in terms of forensic DNA evidence, That is the thing, that genetic genealogy is the reason, the main reason. I know there are others. I know there are cell phone towers. But in terms of forensic DNA evidence, that is the thing that connects Koberger to the crime scene. And it barely does that at this point.

Starting point is 00:07:57 And I only say barely because we know that there was DNA on the sheath of the knife. So we're not talking about a ton of blood evidence where you would think there would be a ton of blood evidence or other DNA transfer evidence or what have you. So if the defense wants to take a long time and go through all that discovery and go through the science and get their experts, and he's behind bars this whole time, it is the defendant's right to a public and speedy trial. And if he's willing to wa with it. And they were able to get that through the genetic genealogy. Yes, they had the Hyundai Elantra. They had the white Elantra on camera. They had this, but that genetic genealogy is what led them to his parents' doorstep in Pennsylvania. That is what made it all come together in December. I want to say it was happening around December 20th. They may have had these pieces floating

Starting point is 00:09:12 around in the investigation, but they didn't have that name connected to that DNA profile until probably nine days or so, maybe even eight days before they arrested him in Pennsylvania. So, Jonna, as a lawyer, could they say, yeah, you might have had the DNA. You may have had it, but you didn't have the name to go with it. And if you screwed up that genetic genealogy, if that wasn't sound the way you figured that out, could that get thrown out and the whole thing collapses? Yes, it could get thrown out and the whole thing collapses yes it could get thrown out will the whole case collapse if that gets thrown out is there enough other evidence there that can't rely on that it can't be fruit of the poisonous tree right

Starting point is 00:09:57 is there enough there there to continue with the prosecution and successfully well let's put it this way right now we don't know maybe maybe there's some information in the discovery that hasn't been made public yet but based on what we know publicly i would bet my money on the fact that if that dna goes away so does this case unless there's more that we just haven't heard about yet and that's possible but we don't know yeah and it could be one of these things where they say well you know let's say there was an issue with the we're speaking hypothetically now what if there was an issue with the genetic genealogy and how that came to be and we don't know that there was we're just speaking hypothetically and speculating of course um you know they may say you know they would have eventually gotten there so it may not it may not

Starting point is 00:10:49 matter we just don't know uh jonna you know this case there's going to be a change of venue motion argued and heard on march 14th or may 14th rather pardon me do you still see it going to trial you know judge judge wants this thing going to trial. Like, he wants it this year. It's not happening. More than likely, it's going to happen next summer, 2025. I just don't think that that's that slow. I've seen other cases that are big cases. I know for the families, it's horrible and it's painful.

Starting point is 00:11:17 And I feel for them. But this is a big case. I mean, it's a big case with a lot going on, a lot of discovery to wade through. Do you think it does indeed go in June of 2025? I won't be surprised if it doesn't, because I do think the main issue is going to be this testing and this science and whether it's junk science or not junk science. And you're right. A lot of other cases that are not death penalty cases, but are murder cases, take years and years to get to trial for a variety of reasons. And typically with the defendant locked up, like, you know, he let's stand in his shoes for a minute.

Starting point is 00:11:54 I know that's hard for us to do. Right. But if you have a guy who says, I did not do this, I wasn't there, I didn't know them them i didn't do this and you have an attorney who's sitting you down and says okay listen this is going to take us a really long time years to to be able to prove that you didn't do it and the entire time that we're taking to prove you innocent even though that's not what we're supposed to have to do you're going to sit in the clink with three hots in a cot and it could be five years six years but you're innocent guy. Are you going to be okay with that? He's got to say, okay, do what you got to do. Right? As opposed to, because one of the other things I thought of very early on, sometimes when you're representing somebody and there's not a whole lot of evidence or the evidence is

Starting point is 00:12:36 unreliable, you want to rush it to trial. Because if the DA can't get their hands on the evidence it's going to take to prove, you might be able to win because they weren't able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. This could have gone that way, but quickly we ascertained that no, the defense attorneys in this case are going to go exactly the opposite. Comb through this evidence with a fine-tooth comb and see what can be thrown out in order for the prosecution not to be successful. That's a lot. It's a big case. It's a lot.

Starting point is 00:13:08 Janice Bobor, thanks as always. We appreciate it. Always happy to be with you. Thanks, Anjanette. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here next time.

Starting point is 00:13:18 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. 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.

Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Idaho High Court Rejects Bryan Kohberger Demand to Toss Indictment

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