Kohberger trial granted change of venue, but will it make a difference?
BOISE, Idaho - After months of back and forth motions, the judge in the trial of Bryan Kohberger granted a change of venue.
The 20-page court document cites concerns that, given the high-profile attention this case has received, it would be difficult to find an impartial jury in a county of some 40,000 people, and that Kohberger wouldn’t get a fair trial at the Latah County Courthouse in Moscow, Idaho.
Moscow is the city where Kohberger is accused of stabbing and killing University of Idaho students: Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernoodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves in an off-campus house in Nov. 2022.
The attorney for the Goncalves family, Shanon Gray, says the family is upset by the decision.
"They believed Latah County was the proper venue to try this case, and they thought that they could find fair and impartial jurors," said Gray.
But with so much attention surrounding this case, does changing the venue make a difference?
Criminal defense attorney, former Idaho Attorney General and former Lieutenant Governor Dave Leroy says yes, it can — on two levels.
Firstly, under Idaho law and the U.S. Constitution, Leroy says, it’s important that Kohberger is given a fair trial, and that means in a jurisdiction where there is arguably the least bias and best opportunity to find a fair and objective jury.
The other reason?
"We do not want to have on appeal an issue that this fair trial judgment was not very seriously considered, and the best possible remedies applied, even before the trial begins," said Leroy.
The judge did not specify where the trial would be moved to, but Kohberger is asking the court to move it to the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, nearly six hours away.
"What is unusual about this ruling is that the judge himself, at the district court level, did not determine [what] the venue of the trial would be," said Leroy. "Instead, he referred it to the Idaho Supreme Court to make that judgment, and that’s very unusual. I don’t know if that’s ever happened in recent history."
In a statement from the Goncalves family, they said in part:
"As victims’s families, you are left to just watch like everyone else, and really, you have little rights or say in the process and, at the same time, you are the most vested in the outcome. We have always felt that a fair and impartial jury could be found in Latah County and still believe that is where the trial deserves to be held to help the community heal. Thank you again for all your support and prayers!"
"It’s really difficult for them, it’s their first time in this position and hopefully the last," said Gray, their attorney.
If this trial is moved to the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, it would come after two other high-profile trials were also recently moved there — including the trial of "Doomsday mom" Lori Vallow and the trial of her husband, Chad Daybell.
Those trials aside, Leroy notes that changing venues this way is quite uncommon in Idaho.
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