Idaho prosecutors have asked the judge to reject Brian Coberger's request that the student murder give family priorities in his upcoming trial, at least in part.
Lata County Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Jennings wrote to the court asking Judge Stephen Hippler to exclude potential witnesses from Coberger's family from attending trial before giving their own testimony.
“The state may call members of the Coberger family to testify at trial,” she wrote. “Before we begin trial, the state expects to make a motion to the court, or the court will exclude the witness from the court to be agreed on by itself and generally not to hear the testimony of other witnesses.”
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Idaho students suspect Brian Coberger and his father were drawn into Indiana when they returned home to Pennsylvania in December 2022. (Indiana State Police)
The victim's parents guarantees legal rights, but there is nothing to give it to the family of the accused murderer, Jennings argued.
“The defendant requires members of his family to grant the same rights as the victim's family,” Jennings continued. “However, “direct family of murder victims” has constitutional and statutory rights to attend according to [the] Idaho Constitution… There is no equal constitution or statutory clause that provides these same rights to the defendant's family. ”
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Idaho murder sister Amanda Coberger was found leaving her Monroe County Courthouse home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. (Fox News Digital Image Direct)
Kohberger's defense attorney asked for the family to be included in their family list earlier this month after prosecutors filed a list of victims' relatives to court.
Defence counsel Elisa Massos alleged that exclusion of them would violate his Sixth Amendment Rights. But Jennings fired down that logic.
Prosecutors applaud back to Brian Coberger's “bushy eyebrows” denial by sharing a suspicious selfie from the day of the murder
Madison Morgen on the top left smiled on the shoulder of her best friend Kaylee Goncalves, who posed alongside two other housemates in Ethan Chapin, Zana Carnordal and Goncalves' final Instagram post, sharing four students before being stabbed and killed. (@kayleegoncalves/instagram)
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“The defendant has constitutional and statutory rights to a 'public trial', but that is not the choice of those sitting in court,” she wrote.
A 30-year-old former criminology doctorate, Washington State University student is accused of driving to the University of Idaho, where he killed four students.
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Prosecutors allege that Brian Coberger took the selfie at 10:31am on November 13, 2022. (ADA County Court)
The victims were identified as Madison Morgen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, and Ethan Chapin, age 20, according to court documents.
Police found a Ka-bar knife sheath under Morgen's body, and it is said that Coberger's DNA was on top of it. Prosecutors also argue that surveillance video of the suspicious vehicle and Coberger's phone records will help him stay on scene.
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University of Idaho students from left to right: Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Morgen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21. On November 13, 2022, all four were stabbed to death in an off-campus rental property in Moscow, Idaho. (Jazzmin Kernodle via ap/instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)
The defense did not oppose the presence of the victim's family in court, but Coberger's lawyers swipe through the Goncalves family by asking the judge to prohibit the judge from wearing clothes that have the victim's face in court.
Another judge entered four counts of first-degree murder and robbery, a plea that was not committed on Coberger's behalf in his arrest in May 2023.
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The trial is scheduled to begin on August 11th in Boise after the venue changes.
Kohberger could face the death penalty if convicted.
