Judge rejects Kohberger's request to delay quadruple student murder trial

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BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho judge says he won’t postpone the quadruple murder trial of a man accused in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students.

Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler made the ruling Thursday, telling Bryan Kohberger’s attorneys that jury selection will begin in August and opening arguments will likely be held around Aug. 18.

Hippler also rejected the defence team’s request to present theories of four “alternate perpetrators” to the jury, writing that evidence presented by the defence is “entirely irrelevant.

“Nothing links these individuals to the homicides or otherwise gives rise to a reasonable inference that they committed the crime; indeed, it would take nothing short of rank speculation by the jury to make such a finding,” Hippler wrote in the order.

Kohberger, 30, a former graduate student in criminal justice at Washington State University, is charged with four counts of murder. Prosecutors say he sneaked into a rental home in nearby Moscow, Idaho, not far from the University of Idaho campus, and fatally stabbed Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves on Nov. 13, 2022.

Kohberger stood silent at his arraignment, prompting a judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Defence attorney Anne Taylor had asked the judge to delay the proceedings. She said beginning the trial this summer would violate Kohberger’s right to a fair trial in part because his defence team was still reviewing evidence and struggling to get potential witnesses to agree to be interviewed. She also said extensive publicity could taint the proceedings and that a cooling-off period would help ensure an impartial jury.

But Hippler noted that interest in the case has only grown and that previous delays have only given the media more time to “provide coverage to a public audience which is clamouring for answers.

“The longer the public is made to sit and wait for the facts to come out at trial, the more time there is for inflammatory, speculative stories, movies and books to circulate and more time for prior ones to be re-broadcast, purchased, viewed and consumed by the public,” he wrote.

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Hippler also denied the defence’s request to present evidence of four “alternate perpetrators” to jurors, after finding that evidence was flimsy at best and would lead to “wild speculation,” needlessly dragging out a trial that is already expected to last three months.

The names of the four were redacted from the ruling, but Hippler briefly described them: Three of the people were socially connected to at least one of the victims, and interacted with them socially in the hours before the killings, lived within walking distance of the home and had been to the home before. The fourth person had only a “passing connection” to one victim after noticing her at a store several weeks before the deaths, Hippler said.

All four co-operated with investigators, and their DNA didn’t match samples taken at the crime scene, Hippler said, and there is no admissible or significant evidence that any one of them had a motive, was present at the crime scene or was otherwise connected to the crime.

“There is not a scintilla of competent evidence connecting them to the crime,” Hippler said.

Jury selection will begin Aug. 4, Hippler said, with the trial starting about two weeks later.