Lawyers for Brian Koberger, the criminology doctoral student accused of killing four University of Idaho undergraduates in a 4 a.m. home invasion attack, have asked the new judge presiding over his case to allow him to appear in court in “plain clothes” rather than a prison jumpsuit.
Koberger has been wearing a suit to court since January 2023, when he made his first few court appearances wearing the orange Latah County Jail uniform.
Now that the motion for a change of venue has been granted and the trial has been moved to Ada County, the defendant's defense is asking the new judge, Steven Hipler, to allow the defendant to continue wearing formal attire, with the defense writing in court documents that the defendant's formal attire protects his right to a fair trial.
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Brian Koberger is led away in an Ada County sheriff's vehicle at the Boise, Idaho, airport on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. The trial of a man suspected in the murders of four University of Idaho students has been moved from Latah County to Ada County. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
“Allowing Mr. Koberger to attend all hearings in plain clothes is one way to reduce the possibility of bias,” attorney Ann Taylor wrote.
Taylor cited a 1976 Supreme Court decision that found forcing a defendant to wear prison clothes in court can negatively affect the defendant's presumption of innocence.
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The same defense team also argued for news cameras to be excluded from the trial and succeeded in severely restricting the media from photographing their client, regardless of what he was wearing.
She also disputed media reports of new mugshots of her client taken after he was transported to the Ada County Jail last week.
Brian Koberger is currently in the custody of the Ada County Sheriff's Office and is scheduled to stand trial on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony theft in connection with the stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen (21), Kaylee Gonsalves (21), Zana Kernodle (20) and Ethan Chapin (20). (Ada County Sheriff's Office)
At the time of the murder, Koberger, 29, was working toward a PhD in criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, just a 10-minute drive from the crime scene, which is on the edge of the University of Idaho campus across the state line in Moscow, Idaho.
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Koberger is accused of breaking into an off-campus rental home around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, and massacring four students with a large knife.
The victims were Madison Mogen (21), Kaylee Gonsalves (21), Zana Kernodle (20) and Ethan Chapin (20).
Madison Morgen (top left) leans on her best friend Kaylee Gonsalves' shoulder and smiles with Ethan Chapin, Zana Kernodle and two other housemates in Gonsalves' final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
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Police found a cover knife sheath under Mogen's body and later claimed in court documents that Koberger's DNA was on it. Investigators also determined through phone data and security footage that Koberger had been in the victim's neighborhood around the time of the murder.
The defendant's defense countered in court documents that his client had been out for a casual drive “as he often did to hike, jog and look at the moon and stars.”
Gonsalves' father, Steve Gonsalves, has previously criticized Koberger's ability to dress formally in court, saying it's just part of the “unprecedented” pretrial privileges afforded to defendants in Latah County.
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Gonsalves told Fox News Digital last year that he tried to obtain information about who paid for the legal fees and other information about the defense budget through a public records request, but was denied due to a gag order on the case.
“They won't tell us anything,” he said, “but I witnessed the moment in court when they agreed not to handcuff him.”
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Koberger faces four charges. First-degree murder and the other is felony theft.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
The defense is looking at that Removed from the table.
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At his arraignment in May 2023, a judge found the defendant not guilty. The trial has already been postponed and is now scheduled to begin in June 2025.
