The lawyer of a person who has been accused of murder Four University of Idaho students murdered They are asking the judge to throw out most of the evidence in the case because they say it all hinges on an unconstitutional genetic testing process.
Brian Kohbarger's The defense team also argues that the search warrants in the case were tainted due to police misconduct. They will make their arguments during a two-day hearing starting Thursday morning, part of which will be closed to the public. If they are successful, it could cause a major setback to the prosecution's case. Trial will start in August,
Kohbarger is charged with four counts of murder in the murders of Ethan Chapin, Zanna Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, who were killed in a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, on the morning of November 13, 2022. When Kohbarger was asked to enter a plea last year, he remained silent, prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf. Prosecutors have said they will seek death penalty If Kohlbarger is convicted.
Kohbarger's attorneys say law enforcement violated his constitutional rights when they used a process called investigative genetic genealogy, or IGG, to identify potential suspects.
“There would be no investigation of him without that core constitutional violation,” attorneys J. Weston Logsdon and Ann Taylor wrote in a court filing. He later continued, “Without IgG, there is no case, no request for her phone records, no monitoring of her parents' house, no DNA taken from the garbage out front. Because the IgG analysis is not the answer to this case. is the original of, everything in the affidavit should be removed.”
The IgG process is often initiated when DNA found at a crime scene returns no results through standard law enforcement databases. When this happens, investigators can look at all the variations, or single nucleotide polymorphisms, present in the DNA sample. Those SNPs, or “snips,” are then uploaded to a genealogy database like GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA to look for possible relatives of the person whose DNA was found at the scene.
In the case of Kohburger, Investigators said they found “Touch DNA” or trace DNA on the sheath of a knife that was found in the home where the students were fatally stabbed. The FBI used the IgG process on that DNA and the information identified Kohbarger as a possible suspect.
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson and the rest of the prosecution team say there is nothing unconstitutional about the use of IgG, noting that Kohbarger's relatives had voluntarily provided their DNA to the Genetic Genealogy Service. They have also argued in court filings that the case law is clear: defendants have no reasonable right to privacy for DNA left at a crime scene.
The defense team also says that once Kohbarger was identified as a potential suspect, law enforcement officials either intentionally or negligently lied or omitted important information when they asked the court to provide information about his apartment, his mother's home, and his family. -Asked to issue search warrant for father's house, his car, his cellphone. And even to your own DNA. They want all that evidence to be kept out of the trial.
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However, specific details regarding alleged police misconduct are hidden from public view; Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler has kept many of the court documents on the IG evidence, as well as most of those court filings, under seal. Part of the trial starting Thursday will be held behind closed doors because the judge says he doesn't want potential jurors to be “tainted” by hearing about evidence that can't be allowed at trial. Is.
On Wednesday, a coalition of news organizations, including the Associated Press, asked the judge to reconsider the privacy restrictions.
Wendy Olson, a lawyer for the news organizations, said, “In any criminal case, I would find that it is in the overwhelming public interest to know whether a law enforcement officer sworn to tell the truth … made reckless or false statements “. During the hearing on Wednesday. The U.S. Supreme Court has found that the public and the press have a First Amendment right to initiate court proceedings, he said, and open courts also help protect the rights of the accused.
“Openness and transparency are more important than ever to maintain and restore trust in our government institutions,” Olson said.
The judge was astonished.
Hippler said, “I don't think much has changed here in terms of the need to protect the jury pool given the intense media scrutiny of this case.” “We will be challenged under the best of circumstances to get a jury that has not been exposed to much of this case … and, in particular, is exposed to evidence that may not have come up in this trial.”
The judge said that no one will be allowed inside court But the open portions of the hearing will be livestreamed from the court's YouTube page.
“He works to die,” says the victim's mother.
In November, Kaylee Goncalves' parents Christy and Steve Goncalves said details of the case revealed death penalty is capable.
Steve Goncalves said, “You've got four victims, all in the same house – that's more than enough.”
Christy Goncalves said she spoke to the coroner and knows what happened to her daughter.
“If he did anything to others like he did to our daughter, he deserves to die,” they said.
steve goncalves Told “48 hours” Last year there was “evidence to show that she had woken up and tried to get out of that position,” adding that “she was trapped” based on the way the bed was set up.
Goncalves' family said in the spring that they were frustrated by how long it took for the case to move through the judicial system.
“This case continues to devolve into a cycle of motions, hearings and delayed decisions,” the family said in a statement.