A district court judge has set a June 2025 start date for Bryan Kohberger’s criminal trial, who is accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in 2022. During a hearing on Thursday in Latah County, where the homicides occurred, both the defense and prosecuting counsel agreed on the court’s recommended trial timeline. Kohberger attended the hearing.
Latah County District Judge John Judge expects the trial to run for three months. That would cover two weeks of jury selection, eight weeks of the trial, and another two weeks for the verdict, sentencing, and anything else that remained, he explained.
Kohberger, 29, is accused of breaking into the off-campus house of former University of Idaho students and roommates Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, early one morning in November 2022. He is accused of fatally stabbing the three students, as well as Ethan Chapin, 20, Kernodle’s boyfriend who was present at the house.
Kohberger was a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate in criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, just a short drive from the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, when he was arrested in Pennsylvania about six weeks after the students were killed. He was extradited to Idaho within weeks of being apprehended and now faces four counts of capital murder and an additional crime of burglary.
Kohberger’s defense and prosecution have had a long back and forth, with the scheduling hearing being the first substantial development in legal procedures in quite some time.
The suspect’s public lawyer, Anne Taylor, emphasized that the defense does not favor his trial being held in Latah County. Another hearing is scheduled for August 29 to discuss a change of venue. A deadline for the defense to file motions contesting the death penalty, which prosecutors are seeking in this case, will follow shortly on September 5 CBSNEWS stated.
At Kohberger’s arraignment in May of last year, the judge entered not-guilty pleas to all of the allegations against him. He appeared at the arraignment but did not react to the judge’s question about his plea.
Kohberger is now being jailed without bond in Latah County.
+ There are no comments
Add yours