Law&Crime Sidebar - Bryan Kohberger Pushes Supreme Court to Throw Out Idaho Murders Indictment

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

The defense team for accused quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger wants the Idaho Supreme Court to toss out his grand jury indictment on four charges of murder. Kohberger is accused of brutally stabbing four college students to death in their off-campus home near the University of Idaho. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the defense’s novel claim with criminal defense attorney Andrea Burkhart.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Accused quadruple murderer Brian Kohlberger is taking his case now to the Idaho Supreme Court. Will the state's highest court hear the case and agree that his indictment should be tossed? We're breaking down the latest court filings and development. with criminal defense attorney Andrea Burkart. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

So we're following the case of Brian Coburger very, very closely here on Sidebar. And actually, most recently, all of the legal maneuvering by his attorneys. And there is an interesting update we want to get into with you. So Brian Coburger, of course, is the former Washington State University grad student accused of stabbing four college students to death at the nearby University of Idaho The victims, Madison Mogan, Kali Gonzalez, Xanacernodal, Ethan Chapin, they all died inside of an off-campus rental home in November of 2022. And around six weeks later, Moscow, Idaho police announced the arrest of their prime suspect,

Brian Coburger, he was at his parents' home in Pennsylvania where he was spending Christmas break. He was extradited back to Idaho. He's been locked up ever since. The judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Well, now his attorneys have been arguing for months that their client's indictment should be thrown out. They say that the grand jury didn't.

have the proper instructions. According to public defender Ann Taylor and her team, Idaho law actually requires the jury to return an indictment only if there is a finding of proof beyond a reasonable doubt rather than just a finding of probable cause, a much lower standard, a standard that Judge John Judge has said has been the standard law of Idaho and across the country and other jurisdictions as far back as we can tell. Now, there is one other point to make about this grand jury process, and that is in Idaho, the prosecutors here, they decided to to go with a grand jury indictment of Brian Coburger, as opposed to a preliminary hearing. That preliminary hearing would have allowed Coburger to hear and respond to the evidence against

him. As we know, the grand jury process is generally a closed-door secret proceeding. But the defense once again made their argument at one of Coburger's recent hearings in January saying that the issue needs to be addressed now because it's going to come up on appeal if Coburger is convicted. We believe this to be an important issue and one that is worth. getting a glance at least from a higher court rather than being tucked away and forgotten in the maelstrom that is to come. As the state undoubtedly knows, trial won't put an end to this

case. This case will go on for 28 years if they do actually achieving conviction. So the idea that somehow we're running towards something and that that's going to do anybody, any good from their standpoint, is I think false. What we're trying to do is make sure that the things that occur in this case are done correctly. And if you want to talk about how long things are going to take, get some stuff wrong, and then see how long it all takes. We're asking that the court would give us permission to go and see if the Idaho Supreme Court would be willing to weigh in on this particular subject. Whether or not the case makes its way to trial at some point is in our mind just part of what the court has to look at, particularly in a case where the states decided that it wants to try to kill someone.

But Judge John Judge once again disagreed with the defense's argument. And I'm very concerned about delay. And I think that if we send this to the court, that it's going to add delay. Mr. Logston is correct. I mean, this is a complicated case. It could take a long time, longer than any of us want. But I think that would add additional delay. So now, I mentioned there's an update.

The update is that the defense is appealing this issue to the Idaho Supreme Court. Do they have a shot? How does that affect the timing of the Brian Coburger trial? Let's talk about all of this and more with criminal defense attorney Andrea Burckhardt. You can check out her YouTube page at at a Burkhart Law. Her Twitter X profile is the same handle. Andrea, so good to see you. Thanks for coming on.

My pleasure, Jesse. Thanks for having me back. So before we even get into the Idaho Supreme Court, if anybody's just joining us for the first time. Can you briefly give a general synopsis, a general explanation for why Brian Coburger's team believes that the standard for a grand jury in Idaho is proof beyond a reasonable doubt? In other words, they can't return a grand jury indictment unless they have a finding of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Our highest standard in the law, why does Brian Coburger's team believe that? So Brian Coburger's team has made what I think is an extremely

clever argument and it appears to be pretty well grounded in Idaho law that covers statutory interpretation. How do we interpret the rules that have been adopted by legislatures and various lawmaking bodies? So in this particular case, what they're looking at is language from the Idaho Constitution that indicates that the right to a grand jury indictment was going to be preserved. And so their argument is that if this is being preserved, then this has to incorporate the right that existed at the time that this constitutional enactment was made. Otherwise, the legislature would just be able to sort of willy-nilly change what a grand jury proceeding was and, you know, take away people's rights without having those extra protections,

a supermajority requirement and things like that that typically go hand in hand with amending a constitutional right. So they look at the statute that's in effect, as far as I can tell, still in effect today, but it was the one that was in effect at the time that the Constitution was ratified. And the language of this statute says that the grand jury indictment should not be returned unless the jury finds that the evidence is such as would warrant a conviction at trial. And so their argument is fairly straightforward. You need proof beyond a reasonable doubt to warrant a conviction at trial. So the statute is clearly saying that's the level of evidence that the grand jury needs to rely upon to return an indictment. Now, Judge

judge, of course, indicated this was a clever argument, an interesting argument, but one that the Supreme Court was ultimately going to have to decide. So that's the explanation for what the argument is and kind of where it's gotten to where it is today. It's a unique argument. It's definitely unique argument. It's asking now to rethink the entire Idaho criminal law jurisprudence about grand jury indictments. And before we get into whether or not the Idaho Supreme Court will take up this issue. We should also note that they are saying that there were other problems with this grand jury indictment. A Coburger's team has cited a biased, biased grand jury, inadmissible evidence, prosecutorial misconduct. I imagine these are all issues that they will be throwing back up

to the Idaho Supreme Court to address as well. Any idea what they're talking about there? So these allegations are largely sealed from the public because they're dealing with grand jury proceedings, which are confidential. Most of those pleading have not been made public. And we only have just a small sense of what some of them might be. We do have a sense from some of the case law that has been cited that the defense is suggesting that the prosecutor has perhaps deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence or otherwise presented misleading information to the grand jury. But we don't know what the details of any of those specific arguments are, what information is being referred to, what evidence may have been left out. So those are things

that unfortunately we're probably not going to find out until the case is over. And just to put a wrap this up, put a bow on this before we talk about the Idaho Supreme Court, this is such a big deal because this could potentially throw the whole case out, right? And then they didn't have to start over again and either go to a preliminary hearing to present the evidence and a judge would determine if there's enough evidence to move forward or try to get another grand jury to come forward and indict Brian Coburger. This is a big deal. It is a big deal.

I don't know that it's really that big of a deal, as it may sound, if, if, you're we talk about, you know, throwing the case out, it doesn't mean that Brian Coburger would be released. It doesn't mean that he wouldn't still be prosecuted. It just means they would have to start over with this process of justifying the criminal charge against him. And so like you pointed out, they would either need to go back to the grand jury and present more evidence, which we already know from comments the defense made during one of the arguments on these motions that apparently the grand jury did not consider the evidence to be really all that voluminous. But they would also have the option that the defense seems to want, which is to take this to a preliminary

hearing, which does then have the lower probable cause standard of proof, but the defense has the opportunity to challenge that to present their own evidence to cross-examine the state's witnesses, and most importantly, it's a public process. The world would see whether this prosecution of Brian Coburger is justified. I know. Listening to this, the law can be very, very complicated and that is especially true in personal injury cases but do you know who simplifies it for their clients who makes it super easy for them morgan and morgan our sponsor here on sidebar and america's largest injury law firm one of the reasons i like talking about them so much is because they have completely modernized the process for their clients you submit your claim signed documents

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Because they win a lot. I get this. There's no upfront fee with Morgan and Morgan. The fee is absolutely free unless you win. So to start your claim now with Morgan and Morgan, go to for the people.com slash LC. Sidebar or click the link in the description and pinned in the comments. My question is, will this Idaho Supreme Court take this issue up? Because if they do, this is not only a significant issue for Brian Koberger prosecution,

I imagine it would be a significant matter for other cases in Idaho, but also it could delay. It could further delay or trip up the prosecution of Brian Kohlberg. Coburger, which is an issue. When you think about how long there's no trial they'd set, there's a possibility we may not even get a trial until 2025, but now if the Idaho Supreme Court takes it up, that could throw it into flux. But let's first talk about what do you think the Idaho Supreme Court will do? Do you think this is an issue they will take up and hear this case? Well, I think there is a decent likelihood that they will. And so let me explain that.

First off, the context here, the defense is asking for what's called discretionary review. This is not a situation where the Supreme Court has to take up the question, and they certainly don't have to take it up right now. It's very unusual for issues to be appealed while a case is still ongoing because they don't want it coming back and forth for mistakes that people are complaining about throughout the process. So the general rule is you wait until everything is done, and then you go ahead and make your arguments at the end if you still need to make them. So they have to show exceptional circumstances justifying why this particular issue needs to be decided at this stage of the case. May I just, may I, let me just stick with that for one second. The argument I would say is take it up now, because if you go through the full prosecution of Brian Coeberg, you take this trial, he's found guilty, and then it appeals, and then they realize, oh, there was a mistake with the grand jury, we're going to reverse his conviction. How much pain and trauma does that put the family?

through, having to now relive this, how time and expense of now prosecuting this a second time? Why not resolve this issue now before even taking it to a trial? That would be the other argument. So it's definitely a consideration. Nobody wants this case to be tried twice. I guarantee you the defense really doesn't want that any more than the prosecution does, and certainly not more than the victims do. In this particular case, I have not looked up this particular legal issue in Idaho.

The problem is that with these types of procedural issues, the argument would be, well, if the jury didn't have enough information to be able to decide the grand jury indictment, it doesn't matter because we already had a trial where they had sufficient evidence, you know, or not, to decide whether he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So those preliminary procedural issues can often then escape the court's review because you can't appeal until your case is over. You have to have lost, you know, in order to appeal. And so your issue is always going to be moot. So the reason why I think there's a decent likelihood that they would take up the issue in this case at this time, there's a couple reasons. First, obviously, this is a very high profile case. It's getting a lot of attention. It's an important case. It's a death penalty case. There aren't many of those that are going on in Idaho. And like you pointed out, this is an issue that can affect other cases. A comment that was made during the hearing on this as well is that this argument has apparently been circulating. among some other courts in the state. The prosecution had filed some decisions from other courts in the state on the same particular issue, you know, urging Judge Judge to adopt the same reasoning as those courts. So this isn't a situation where there's a split in the trial courts about how to interpret it. That would ordinarily, like, be a fast track into getting the Supreme Court to

decide the issue. But as you pointed out, this can also affect other cases in the state. Any case that goes to a grand jury is potentially going to be affected by this decision. The prosecution had filed copies of decisions that courts in other parts of the state had made on this same issue. So it's clearly circulating. And it's an issue that the Supreme Court is going to have to put to rest. The trial courts really don't have the authority to do it because to the extent there is a conflict in the law, it's a conflict that the Supreme Court has created because they're the ones that adopted the court rule that says you need to instruct the grand jury on a probable cause standard. So if they got that wrong, they're the only ones who are in a position

to correct that. And to be clear, not this exact Idaho Supreme Court, not these justices, but years and years and years ago. So let me ask you this. If they decide to take it up, how does the timing affect the trial? I mean, because remember, the prosecution would like to go sooner rather than later. The defense has said they're looking forward to start no soon. sooner than summer 2025. There's a big issue about having this trial take place during the summer recess. So, you know, the students don't have to see what's going on with this case. There's a traumatic effect to it. But if the Idaho Supreme Court gets involved, what do you think? When would we have a trial of Brian Coburger? Whether or not they come back and say, you know, they,

like, we want to hear arguments on it. We're going to issue an opinion six months down the road if that's a possibility. And even if they say, no, the standard was correct. The Brian Coburger case should move forward? What are we looking at in terms of potential trial now? Well, I think that's a good question. To my eye, this isn't the type of issue that necessarily requires the Supreme Court to stay what is happening in the trial court process. In other words, to say, no, everybody needs to hold off and not take any further action until we get this issue decided. It seems to me like something that can be decided and still run parallel with the trial being prepared, the case being investigated, and so forth. So it's not necessarily going to result in any delay,

but it is also ultimately up to the Supreme Court, whether they're going to decide we need to put a halt to the lower court proceedings or not. So we don't really know what they would do. And the problem is Supreme Court proceedings, in the best of circumstances, they just take a lot of time. Appellate proceedings are very slow. These are not rapid off-the-cuff decisions. that are made. There is a lot of in-depth research that goes in to making these types of decisions, especially an issue like this that depends on all this kind of historical context and what was going on at the time of the ratification of the Constitution and so forth. So I don't see this being a situation where they can necessarily just snap their fingers and turn around a quick decision in the time frame that everybody would probably prefer. Andrew, while I have you,

I mean, one of the other issues is whether or not this trial is going to be moved. There's been a motion for a change of venue being put forth by the defense. A hearing on that is scheduled in April. I personally don't see that having much success, particularly with Judge John Judge, because he has really been resistant to trying to delay this case even further. And I can understand, you know, this is an incredibly high-profile case, particularly in that community. It is very sensitive. Can you find a fair and impartial jury in that community who's been affected by this so much?

or do you have to move it to a different location? Do you have to actually have jury members taken from another county and brought in? What do you think in terms of whether or not there is going to be a motion for a change of venue granted here? I think it's going to depend a lot on what the exact reasons are for wanting the venue to be changed. I tend to be pretty skeptical of media-based arguments. You know, the media has tainted the trial or the jury pool or something like that for the simple reason that the media coverage is everywhere. I mean, it has pervaded every market. It's all over the world.

So you don't solve that problem just by moving it to Boise. Where I do think there is a risk of not being able to select a jury here is simply because this is a small community and there are likely to be lots of connections between witnesses in the case, people who have knowledge, people who, you know, have some relationship to parties involved. And so simply being unable to weed out enough of those people that are a little bit too close to the case to properly serve on a jury. Ann Taylor had mentioned at the last hearing, I believe, or the one before, that there are approximately 400 witnesses that the defense is having to follow up on to interview as part of their preparation. I mean, that's a massive potential network.

If you start playing, you know, the 12 degrees of separation from all of those people, It doesn't take you very long to. Jurors who might know one of those 400 witnesses or multiple of those witnesses, yeah. Exactly. Or have had conversations with them or anything like that. So that's the issue where I think this could be a challenging community to be able to find an edjury that is impartial that doesn't have those connections. That's a really, really good point, the witnesses. And look, you know, when you talk about this and you think about all these legal maneuverings, it's the issue of delay.

and the families of two of the victims, Kaylee Gansavas and Xanacernodal, they issued a statement saying, quote, we want to start healing. We do. We want to find justice and try to move on from this horrible tragedy. So please, please start making some decisions,

get to work and quit playing the delay game. I wonder if that's mostly focused on Brian Koberger's team because we also know that they filed a motion requesting all these additional deadlines in the case. They want the state to list out their expert disclosures by October. They want to be allowed. to respond to that by January of 2025. Then more disclosures, more rebuttals, March of 2025.

They want an additional deadline for an alibi disclosure, meaning where was Brian Coburg or what was he actually doing and not committing the crimes. And then this is a death penalty case, so they have other deadlines. It seems that they're trying to push this off as well. What's your response to that? Well, I think the defense wants to be prepared. And part of the problem we've seen here is that the state has had issues with getting them discovery. I don't attribute that to necessarily malice or anything like that on the state's part.

The reality is there's a lot of different law enforcement agencies involved here. There's federal law enforcement involved getting discovery from federal law enforcement agencies is an entire different ball of wax than it is getting it from your own local police department or something like that. So these things aren't necessarily the state's fault, but they still impair the defense's ability to be prepared. And they do have that right. We don't do trial by ambush in the United States, they have a right to know what evidence the state's going to rely on, who they're going to use to present their case, and to be able to prepare their own response to it. So I don't necessarily think the defense is really trying to delay

either, at least not unreasonably. The reality is simply that with cases like this, they are complicated. They do take a lot of time to prepare. And I think what the defense is trying to do is to just make that process organized, to have some ground rules that everybody is going to have to follow to make sure that this thing can get to the finish line without having to be, you know, continually reset, reconsidered, or rethought. They want to be able to set the date. No, that's when they're going forward and go. And to be clear, Brian Colberger is entitled to a defense. I mean, a lot of people, you can look at the evidence in the media and our point of view and say, oh, it looks like he definitely did this. It looks like he's guilty. But remember, he has to go to

trial. He has to be convicted or plead guilty. And clearly, he has a right in every way to defend himself. And so you're 100% correct on that. And it's just interesting. I mean, from a human point of view, I feel terrible for the family that they have to keep, you know, be living this. And there is no sense of closure, but there is a legal process that we have to go through. Andrew Burckhardt. Thank you so much for coming on. You can check out her YouTube page at a Burckhart law. Her Twitter X profile is the same. Andrew, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, Jesse. All right. That's all we have for here on sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spot.

YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.