The cogs of justice do not always move at the quickest pace but unfortunately, it’s necessary to ensure everyone gets a fair trial.
The team surrounding murder suspect Bryan Kohberger, who is facing four counts of murder and a felony burglary charge for allegedly stabbing four University of Idaho students in their sleep, held a proceeding on Wednesday where they argued over the trial’s timeline moving forward.
The next hearing is expected to be held on May 14, where it will be decided if the proceedings need to move to another county.
Second District Judge John Judge originally wished to set the beginning of the trial to March 3, 2025, but is hearing out what Kohberger’s lawyers are asking, according to the Idaho Statesman.
“I’m listening carefully to both sides, and it’s a complicated case,” Judge said. “It’s a death penalty case,” Judge told Fox News.
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The attorneys representing Kohberger are claiming that because of the immense publicity the case has garnered, keeping the case where it is could have major ramifications on potential jurors’ opinions.
“A fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County owing to the extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity, allegations made about Mr. Kohberger to the public by media that will be inadmissible at his trial, the small size of the community, the salacious nature of the alleged crimes, and the severity of the charges Mr. Kohberger faces,” lead defense attorney for Kohberger, Anne Taylor ,wrote in a filing in January.
Taylor is blaming the immense amount of evidence around the case which is muddying the waters and complicating an early court date.
“Not only do we have a huge volume of information, the way I’m getting it is completely disorganized,” Taylor later said in court. “And it’s like if you wanted to play 52-card pickup with 100,000 decks of cards and throw them in the air, and I have to go figure out how to put them together,” Taylor said.
Is this trial moving too slowly?
Taylor claims that the prosecution has been slow in providing her with the requested information, pointing to instances including when she requested X-rays that were referred to in discovery reports but later told didn’t exist when requested.
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson claimed at the proceeding that they’ve turned over “more than 95%” of discovery material to the defense.
Those were far from the only matters argued at the Wednesday court session, with the defense and prosecution arguing over a potential alibi deadline.
Taylor pushed that as Kohberger was driving around on the morning of the killing, they would need to get an expert investigation on cell towers to look into it, according to Fox News.
The prosecution pushed back against it, claiming that the extra time could allow the defense to comb through discovery material to form an alibi they wouldn’t have had before.
Judge ultimately set the alibi deadline for April 17th.
While the idea of delaying the results of the trial is far from ideal, it’s very possible it’s needed.
As Taylor laid out, Kohberger has a right to a trial with an unbiased jury of his peers, and if not offered that, his constitutional rights would be violated.
Legal proceedings often can appear to be working in opposition to justice, but if the structure isn’t there to allow it to work as it does now, there’d be far much less justice achieved.
