Lawyers for man charged in deaths of 4 Idaho students say trial should be moved over strong bias

Bryan Edelman, a trial consultant and co-founder of Trial Innovations, which conducted the study, also testified for the defense. He said that since November 2022, there have been about 440 articles about the case published in local Latah County media outlets, including The Moscow-Pullman Daily News, The Lewiston Tribune and the University of Idaho student newspaper, The Argonaut. The local population is only 40,000 people, he said.

Defense attorneys provided more details about Edelman’s survey in a court filing earlier this month. Some respondents made dire predictions, saying that if Kohberger is acquitted, “there will probably be a riot and he won’t last long outside because someone will get him justice,” “they will burn down the courthouse” and “there will be riots, his parents will take care of him.”

Prosecutors wanted the judge to disregard the survey, arguing that it did not include all the data about people who refused to take it. Prosecutor Bill Thompson and Special Assistant Attorney General Ingrid Batey said in court papers that there are other ways to ensure a fair trial without moving the proceedings hundreds of miles away, including expanding the pool of potential jurors to include neighboring counties.

Any change of venue would be costly and would also require court staff, witnesses, experts, law enforcement officers and victims’ families to make an inconvenient trip to the new location, the prosecution team said.

Media coverage of the murder investigation was not limited to local and national media outlets. True-crime television shows, books, podcasts and YouTube streams also focused on the case, as did social media groups on sites like Facebook, Reddit and TikTok.