Bryan Kohberger’s defense team is expected to push for his murder trial to be relocated on Thursday, arguing potential jurors threatened to “burn the courthouse down” if the trial remained in the Idaho community where the brutal slayings took place nearly two years ago.
Kohberger’s attorneys said in a motion filed last week that they surveyed potential jurors in Latah County who warned of violence and riots if Kohberger was found not guilty in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students in 2022.
Those surveyed said they would “burn the courthouse down” and riot if Kohberger got off scoff-free. Some even said protesters would try to kill him themselves if he was acquitted, according to court documents.
Kohbeger is charged with the murders of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, inside their rental home near the Moscow campus.
Kohberger’s defense team has been pushing for the trial to be relocated, asserting that the vast pre-trial news coverage on the case and the “mob mentality” of locals enraged over the murders would hinder him from receiving a fair trial.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said the data Kohberger’s legal team used to determine potential jurors were biased was flawed.
Prosecutors also took issue with their request to move it to Ada County, over 300 miles away, according to court documents.
Prosecutors said the court should “decline to relocate itself, the state, and scores of witnesses hundreds of miles only to face another jury pool with smartly high media exposure.
“(The) defendant has failed to meet his burden of showing that change of venue in this case is necessary or convenient,” prosecutors argued in a filing.
Judge John Judge is scheduled to preside over the hearing Thursday morning.
Kohberger is expected to stand trial in June 2025.
