Lawyers for the man who killed four students in the US state of Idaho in 2022 want the case moved to another county. Due to the extensive media coverage, they believe jurors from the county where the murders took place will be too biased.
Image: Brian Kohberger, suspected of four murders in the American state of Idaho.
by Joost van der Wegen
Murder
Brian Kohberger is to stand trial for the murder of four Idaho University students on November 13, 2022, in the town of Moscow, that state.
His lawyer now thinks that it is not possible to find a ‘fair and unbiased’ jury in the ‘too small town’ where the people have ‘too close a relationship’ with each other to be able to judge this objectively.
Kohberger’s lawyer says that all the speculation and accusations that have already been made in the media have caused this.
She does not believe that possibly increasing the population from which the jurors will soon be selected in the county is sufficient. This is reported by ABC News.
Encourage
Criminal law experts do not think that a jury composed of people from the area cannot judge the case unbiased. A former prosecutor indicates that the gruesome nature of a murder does not necessarily mean that the jury will convict the wrong person: “On the contrary, it will even encourage them to convict the right person.”
Kohberger is said to have broken into the student house of the four victims, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapman, in the early morning of November 13, 2022, and stabbed them to death. They studied at the University of Idaho, in Moscow.
Closely monitor
Kohberger’s white Hyundai, which was parked near the house, eventually led police to him. This lasted seven weeks. It is not yet clear whether Kohberger had a relationship with the four victims. It has become clear from his telephone records that he had been monitoring the students involved for weeks. Afterwards, according to an American media source, he was seen for a while wearing gloves during visits to supermarkets.
Publicity
Another criminal law expert tells ABC News that moving the case to another county makes no sense. “The case has also received so much national publicity that it does not matter in which county the hearings take place.”
A date for the trial has not yet been set.
