Hearing looks at rules for evidence and other details in Bryan Kohberger’s quadruple murder trial

BOISE Idaho AP Prosecutors and attorneys for a man charged in the killings of four University of Idaho students in argued selected of the final ground rules they want for Bryan Kohberger s trial in a hearing Wednesday Kohberger is charged with murder in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin Xana Kernodle Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near campus in Moscow Idaho Kohberger then a criminal justice graduate attendee at Washington State University was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks after the Nov killings Investigators commented they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath exposed at the crime scene When demanded to enter a plea to the charges Kohberger stood silent prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf Jury selection in the incident is expected to begin July with the trial starting Aug The trial is expected to take nearly three months to complete Attorneys on both sides of the circumstance have filed hundreds of pages of legal motions including whether Kohberger should face the death penalty if he is convicted whether spectators should be allowed to testify about things like touch DNA and who should be allowed in the courtroom during the trial Will Kohberger still face the death penalty if he is convicted Defense attorney Anne Taylor communicated the judge that the death penalty should be taken off the table for several reasons including her client s autism determination She also reported her organization is still struggling to go through massive amounts of discovery material from prosecutors Several of those documents have been jumbled out of order or electronically locked Taylor mentioned She noted the issues are big enough that at this point it would be unfair for Kohberger to face the death penalty She pointed to another latest major criminal development in which a judge took the death penalty off the table for Lori Vallow Daybell after last-minute discovery issues arose before trial We continue to go through discovery as rapidly as we can we just won t get through all of it before we go to trial Taylor disclosed Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler explained Taylor he should have heard about the issues with discovery earlier in the circumstance and that Vallow Daybell s situation is thoroughly different Prosecutor Ashley Jennings noted the defense was provided a searchable index for all the FBI documents Hippler commented he would rule later Can Kohberger s family members attend the trial The prosecution has listed Kohberger s family as feasible bystanders Typically observers are excluded from trials until after they have testified so their testimony isn t influenced by other evidence But the defense crew says Kohberger s family should be able to attend because he relies on their patronage and it is the humane thing to do The prosecution narrated the judge that the defense shouldn t be able to dictate how the prosecution presents its occurrence She says putting the family members on the witness stand early in the trial would make the testimony out of context and out of order This is like a gumbo Hippler replied You all are going to put all the pieces you need into a pot and at the end of the day the jury is going to decide if it s a good soup or not He disclosed he would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling later I can only imagine that the family of Mr Kohberger is devastated by these things It s nothing that they did and their ability to be here to see the trial is central Hippler mentioned Will Kohberger s autism spectrum evaluation be brought up if he is convicted If the jury finds Kohberger guilty the defense gang plans to submit evidence about his autism spectrum evaluation as a mitigating factor for why he should not be sentenced to death The purpose is to show jurors that a few of his behaviors are related to autism Taylor commented For instance Kohberger tends to be stoic and can sit very still for long periods of time she disclosed and sometimes talks for longer than other people might want him to talk Taylor appealed the judge to issue an order that says Kohberger s autism-related characteristics can t be used by prosecutors as aggravating factors or reasons that he should get the death penalty The prosecution squad countered that they have much better aggravating factors to present and don t plan to reference Kohberger s autism spectrum condition if the scenario reaches the penalty phase But they also don t want the defense to be able to chalk up any behaviors as being related to autism The judge explained he will issue a detailed ruling later but for now is making a general ruling that the state can t cite autism as an aggravating factor Are there any other feasible individuals The defense association says they plan to present evidence of alternate perpetrators and their examination into that is still underway But prosecutors want the judge to issue an order preventing defense attorneys from using a shotgun approach by throwing a bunch of names at the jury without offering substantiating evidence tying those people to the crime Defense attorney Elisa Massoth stated the judge that there s a lot of evidence to backing other individuals I would hope that the state the court can see that we are calculated and thoughtful in everything we re doing in this episode and wouldn t treat alternative perpetrators any other way Massoth noted The judge says the defense unit will have to make a factual showing that any suggested alternative perpetrators have a connection to the crime and he doesn t want to do that during the trial Hippler declared he would set a separate hearing before the trial so the defense can present its evidence relating to alternative perpetrators What about inflammatory evidence and terms Kohberger s defense band sought the judge to prevent the state from relying on the excessive use of emotional appeal or gruesome photographs and inflammatory words like murderer psychopath and sociopath Hippler declined to issue a general order against inflammatory conduct but explained both sides that he expected them to follow courtroom rules He noted he wouldn t allow the use of the terms psychopath sociopath or murderer during the evidentiary phase but left open the possibility that prosecutors could use murderer during closing arguments Make no mistake these murders whoever did them were horrific And I expect that the evidence will reflect that Hippler revealed When it comes to cumulative evidence or several that are unnecessarily graphic I think we will address that on a case-by-case basis This story has been updated to correct the date of the killings Source