Law&Crime Sidebar - 'They Have Nothing’: Bryan Kohberger to Give Alibi from Night of Idaho Student Murders

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

The attorneys representing Bryan Kohberger notified the state the accused killer will provide an alibi from the night of the Idaho student murders. The 28-year-old’s defense claims evidence will corroborate that Kohberger was at another location when four University of Idaho students were brutally stabbed to death in their off-campus King Road home. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy discusses the latest development in the case with Fred Perri, a founding partner of the McMonagle Perri law firm.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&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. Do you understand the charge and count two, murder in the first degree? Yes. Brian Coburger's quadruple murder trial is scheduled to begin in less than three months. will he provide an alibi at trial? Newly filed court documents reveal the answer. Welcome to Sidebar here on Law and Crime. I'm Ann Janette Levy.

Prosecutors in Brian Coburger's case want to know if he plans to present an alibi defense at trial. If he does, they say they have a right to know about it. Koberger faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of the murders of Maddie Mogan, Kela Gonzalez, Zana Kornodal and Ethan Chapin in Moscow last November.

According to the probable cause affidavit and other court documents, a K-bar knife sheath was found under Maddie Mogan's body on her bed, and testing revealed Coburger's DNA was on the sheath. Law enforcement used genetic genealogy to locate a possible suspect and came up with a child related to Michael Coburger. That's Brian's father. According to the probable cause affidavit, detectives believe the four students were murdered sometime between 4 a.m. and 4.25 a.m. The affidavit claims a white Hyundai Alontra was seen in the area

of the King Road home beginning around 3.26 a.m. Around 4 a.m. investigators say Zana Kurnodal received a door-dash delivery. At 412, the affidavit says records show Zana was likely logged on to her TikTok account. The detective also wrote that Koberger's phone was not accessing cell towers for a two-hour time period that morning when the homicides would have been. been committed. Koberger's defense attorneys have responded to prosecutors demand that he tell them if he plans to use an alibi at trial. They write that the defense team is still investigating and preparing his case. Evidence corroborating Mr. Koberger being at a location other than the King Road address will be disclosed pursuant to discovery and evidentiary rules as well as

statutory requirements. It is anticipated this evidence may be offered by way of cross-examination of witnesses produced by the state, as well as calling expert witnesses. Joining me to discuss this latest development in Brian Koberger's case is Fred Perry. He is a high-profile criminal defense attorney from Philadelphia. He has represented rappers in serious criminal matters, and he's here back with us. Welcome back to Sidebar, Fred. Thanks for coming on. Thank you.

It's great to be here. Let's talk about the filing from the defense. When you read it, it's very brief, less than two pages. They're basically saying we're reserving the rate to provide an alibi at a later date, maybe. Maybe we'll do it. Maybe we won't. But we'll cross-examine witnesses and maybe it'll come out that way. What is your read on that?

Well, let me start by saying that the presentation of an alibi defense from a criminal defense attorney's standpoint is extremely difficult. Once you start the process of trying to have to prove something, the burden kind of shifts because in a criminal trial, a defendant is a presumed to be innocent and has no burden of proof as the government has to you know prove their case once you start trying to prove an alibi you better be able to prove that your client was in a spaceship circling Mars at the time of the incident otherwise the government's going to punch a lot of holes in your case it's it's a very very difficult process and from what I've seen in these filings it's clear to me that they simply don't have an alibi but they're

complying with the rules of criminal procedure for that jurisdiction. And they're saying, hey, listen, at this point, we don't have anything. But during the course of our trial, if we cross-examine someone and that person happens to say, well, you know, maybe it wasn't the defendant. He was, in fact, on Mars, you know, just landed on a Mars mission. Then the judge is going to say, okay, we'll let that come in out of an abundance of caution. But I don't think. think they have anything. And when you add that to the fact that it looks like his cell phone was either turned off or put in some type of a mode so that he couldn't be tracked by the cell towers related to the cell phone, you know, I think that's problematic. I don't think an alibi is going

to be an issue here in this case. So you do not expect an alibi defense because, I mean, this was the middle of the night. I mean, this is, you know, four in the morning, 3.30 in the morning we're talking about. And we've also got the white Alantra. And I think the defense is trying to suggest that that identification was faulty as well. At first, they said they were looking for a 2015 Hyundai Alantra. They didn't tell that to the public. They told other law enforcement that. And then by the time they released it to the public on December 5th, the photograph and the vehicle description, it was 2011 to 2013. Again, I think that's going to be damaging testimony. And I don't think an alibi is going to cure that at all. I think you also have the problem of the DNA at the scene

of the crime matching the defendant in this case. The defense is now going to start to focus on the DNA evidence has been planted. DNA evidence was taken in a way that is not appropriate under the circumstances. And again, they're going to have to present expert testimony from the defense standpoint to prove that. Fred, the circumstantial evidence in this case appears, you know, to look damaging. Sometimes, though, when you dig into the discovery and into the guts of the case, you find things that weren't done properly. And we just don't simply have, we simply don't have enough information at this point to know that. We know what we've read in court filings. How do you tackle something like this? This is a quadruple homicide. You mentioned the DNA.

We don't know if there is other DNA of Brian Coburgers in the crime scene. We just know about the sheath. I think without being part of the investigation from the government, perspective or having the information that's been provided to the defense at this point, we're not really in a position to know exactly how the evidence was, how it was prepared, how it was inspected, how it was tested. And I think what the defense will need to do is have their own expert take a look at everything and then come to certain conclusions as to whether or not, as you say, you can kind of punch some holes into the government's case.

but without knowing everything that there is to know, I think it's kind of premature at this point. Brian Koberger has asserted his right to a speedy trial. The grand jury materials in this case are being prepared to be turned over to the defense. I mean, it just seems like a voluminous amount of information. We know a minimum of 51 terabytes of information have been turned over to the defense. And they say they are working on this every day. They've said that in court. Trial is scheduled for October 2nd.

that's when jury selection will start. What are the advantages to asserting your right to a speedy trial in a case like this where your defense team has to really dig in and figure out what's what in this case and wade through all of that evidence? Well, there's two ways to look at it. Again, you want to preserve your right to a speedy trial, which kind of, you know, keeps the government at their pace is that they have to present this information in a timely fashion

because if the government is causing a delay in the presentation of the evidence to the defense, you can use that and to try to argue that your rights have been violated to a speedy trial. But practically speaking, I've been involved in dozens and dozens of cases where this type of voluminous discovery is provided, and the trial will take, you know, two, three, four weeks, maybe a couple of months. I've had plenty of cases like that. So you really don't want to get in a place where you're rushing through your preparation. Sometimes you need to go back to the court and say, hey, we need a few more months to prepare this case for trial. And I think that's probably what you'll see here as long as the government turns the information over in a timely fashion.

The defense is going to kind of pump the brakes and say, hey, let's take a look at this. We need experts to review this. This is now a capital murder case. This is not a j-walking case. It's not a DUI. you know it's not a bar fight this is a capital murder case and we need to take our time and go through this information carefully so just to recap let's go back to the alibi issue that the alibi response that they filed they're not asserting that there's an alibi you don't expect them

to provide an alibi they're just basically saying through the cross-examination of witnesses something may come out to say that he wasn't there possibly through experts. So right now, as you said, they've got nothing as far as an alibi goes. Well, I think if they had something significant in complying with the rules of criminal procedure, they would have set forth where he was at what time were there any other witnesses to confirm that he was at another location. Because that's what you would do, because that's what the rules are asking you to do. Give the government the information of your alibi now so that the government can conduct their own investigation.

And I think what they've just done is just preserved the rule. And hey, it's possible that maybe the defendant will want to testify a trial that, hey, I was asleep in my bed, you know, three hours away. And, you know, hope that Hail Mary, you know, answers some questions. But I don't see an alibi presentation at this point. That's interesting because I've actually been thinking about that. Will Brian Koeberger testify? And when your life is on the line, maybe you decide, yes, I am going to testify, especially when, you know, we're talking about DNA evidence.

And obviously, we haven't seen how that is going to unfold in the courtroom as far as cross-examining the DNA analyst or the people performing the testing, the people who found the sheath. But I've been thinking about that. He may elect to take the stand. Again, it's too early to tell. And, you know, we'd have to look at the evidence has been presented. by the government to the defense, you'd have to see how that presentation unfolds in the courtroom in front of the jury. And if it looks like he's gone down on the case based on the evidence, he may make a decision to get up there and testify and try and, like I said before,

throw that Hail Mary and see what happens. But I think it's way too early to make the decisions right now and whether or not he'd be testifying in the case. Well, Fred Perry, thank you again for coming on Sidebar. We always appreciate your time, and this is an interesting case. We'll be following it closely and hope to have you back to discuss it even further in the future. It's my pleasure. Good talking to you. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcasts.

And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.