Bryan Kohberger Trial Request ‘Certainly Not Frivolous’—Attorney

The request by attorneys of the man charged with the murders of four University of Idaho students to move the trial is “certainly not frivolous,” an attorney told Newsweek.
Bryan Kohberger, 29, is charged with four counts of murder in the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. The four students were were stabbed to death in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, in a rental house near the campus in Moscow.
Police arrested Kohberger, then studying at Washington State University in nearby Pullman, six weeks later at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania. The killings shook the small community and garnered national attention.
Kohberger’s lawyers have asked a judge to move his trial, scheduled for June 2025, to Boise or a larger city, saying the widespread media coverage and strong emotions in the community will make it impossible to find an impartial jury in Latah County.
Prosecutors argued against moving the trial on Thursday, saying the case attracted high levels of media coverage in other parts of Idaho and that issues with potential bias could be handled by calling a larger pool of potential jurors.
“The defense request to move the trial is expected and certainly not frivolous,” Michael McAuliffe, a former federal prosecutor and elected state attorney, told Newsweek. “However, as the prosecution argues in its response, the publicity is so widespread that changing counties doesn’t necessarily address the defense’s stated issue of not being able to procure an impartial jury.”
McAuliffe said pretrial publicity can be better handled by limiting comments through a partial gag order and “robust jury selection procedures, including a larger jury pool and an appropriate questionnaire for prospective jurors.”
He added: “Notably, the trial isn’t set to start until next summer so the actual impact of publicity remains largely speculative.”
Attorney Nicole Brenecki said the attempt to move the trial may not be as necessary as Kohberger’s attorneys have argued because both sides will have the chance to question potential jurors in a process known as voir dire.
Kohberger’s attorneys “can make a plausible argument that the local jury pool is more prejudiced and biased against the defendant,” Brenecki told Newsweek. “However, all potential jurors will be subjected to voir dire and, if any person is determined to be so biased that they cannot render an opinion based on the evidence, that person can simply be excused from service.”
The process “gives both sides a fair opportunity to empanel a jury that they believe is fully capable of serving in this particular matter,” she said. “As such, Mr. Kolhberger’s attempt to move the case to another venue may not be as necessary as his attorneys want the general public to believe.”
Kohberger’s defense attorney, Anne Taylor, argued that the results of a survey of Latah County residents conducted on behalf of the defense team found how pre-trial publicity has left the community strongly biased against Kohberger.
“The court can see actual prejudice by understanding the results of that survey, reading the hundreds of comments from Latah County residents,” she said.
Some of the comments made by respondents to the survey were detailed in a court document filed by the defense team earlier in August. Respondents said that if Kohberger wasn’t convicted, people would “burn the courthouse down” and that “they would probably find him and kill him.”
But prosecutors argued that the survey results did not justify moving the trial.
“This case has media coverage everywhere,” Special Assistant Attorney General Ingrid Batey told the judge. “That is something that was acknowledged by the defense, and that is something that is abundantly clear in these surveys.”
Judge John Judge, of Idaho’s 2nd Judicial District in Latah County, did not make a ruling after Thursday’s arguments, saying there were “really important things to think about on both sides.”
“I will say this is probably, professionally, the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make,” he said.