Idaho murder suspect Brian Koberger appeared in court Thursday as his lawyers argued for a change of venue for his trial after it was revealed that potential jurors had threatened to “burn down the courthouse” if Koberger was acquitted.
Koberger, wearing a blue shirt and black jacket, sat at the defense table in a Moscow, Idaho, courtroom as his lawyers called witnesses and asked for the trial to be moved to Ada County, more than 300 miles from Latah County, where the brutal murder took place.
Koberger's lawyers said his client could not get a fair trial in the sparsely populated county after surveying residents who said they would riot and “burn down the courthouse” if he was not convicted of the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in 2022.
The defense's first three expert witnesses, including a media monitoring analyst, a psychology professor and a trial consultant, testified that the sheer volume of media coverage and the proximity of where the murders occurred made it difficult to select an impartial jury.
James Todd Murphy, president of Media Monitoring and Analysis Services, said Latah County's relatively small population of 25,000 potential jurors would likely be subject to a greater amount of local media coverage than Ada County's much larger population of 300,000 potential jurors.
Dr. Amani El Aleyli, a psychology professor at Eastern Washington University, testified that people who are exposed to public reports about a case are more likely to vote guilty, even if they claim to be able to make an impartial decision.
She said it would be “difficult” if not “impossible” to select objective jurors from Rataha, given the fact that Moscow is a small community rocked by the murders.
The third witness, Dr Brian Edelman, a trial consultant with nearly 30 years' experience, conducted a survey of 400 Lata residents asking them about their knowledge and opinions of the case and found that 60 percent already believed Koberger was guilty.
Additionally, 52 percent said they believed he should receive the death penalty if convicted and that if he was acquitted, they would kill Koberger, riot or set fire to the courthouse, Edelman testified.
But prosecutors argue that moving the trial hundreds of miles away is unnecessary and inconvenient.
They argued that the defense's data was biased and flawed, and that potential jurors in Ada County would have had significant exposure to media coverage of the case.
Judge John Judge said even if he grants the request to move the trial to Ada County, the parties must prepare to move forward with the current June 2025 trial date.
Koberger is accused of killing four people — Ethan Chapin, Zana Kernodle, Kaylee Gonsalves and Madison Morgen — in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, while they were in a rented home near the Moscow University campus.
