Episode Details

Bryan Edelman, a trial consultant retained by Bryan Kohberger’s defense, argued that the enormous volume of pretrial publicity surrounding the University of Idaho murders had made it extraordinarily difficult to find an impartial jury in Latah County. Edelman conducted telephone surveys of hundreds of prospective jurors and found widespread familiarity with the case, substantial exposure to inflammatory or disputed media claims and a strong tendency among respondents to believe Kohberger was guilty before hearing the evidence. He maintained that repeated reporting about the knife-sheath DNA, Kohberger’s vehicle, cellphone data, alleged stalking and other incriminating details had created fixed impressions in the community, even though some of those claims remained contested or potentially inadmissible. In Edelman’s view, Kohberger would have entered a Latah County courtroom already burdened with disproving conclusions that prospective jurors had formed from months of publicity.

Edelman also defended the defense team’s controversial public-opinion survey, explaining that its purpose had been to measure what residents had already heard and how that information affected their attitudes, not to persuade or contaminate them. He argued that ordinary jury questioning would not necessarily uncover the full extent of bias because prospective jurors might forget, minimize or fail to disclose the information they had absorbed. His declaration concluded that expanding the jury pool or relying on voir dire would not adequately cure the problem in a small community so closely connected to the victims, the university and the investigation. Edelman therefore supported moving the trial to Ada County, where a much larger population and broader jury pool offered Kohberger a better chance of receiving a trial before jurors who had not already decided the case.


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source:

072224-Memorandum-Support-MCoV.pdf