The defense of Bryan Kohberger, a Ph.D. student who has been accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022, has asked to make their request to the judge public.
Kohberger was a criminology grad student at Washington State University when he was arrested in December 2022 for the fatal stabbings of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle's boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, the previous fall.
He has been awaiting trial for over a year, and in that time, Kohberger's defense has made two attempts to get the charges against him dismissed. Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. A not-guilty plea was entered on Kohberger's behalf during his arraignment.
The judge presiding over the trial, denied both arguments last month and then the defense filed a sealed request for the judge to reconsider his decision.
On Friday, the defense filed a new motion, asking the judge to make public their request that he reconsider his refusal to drop Kohberger's charges.
"Mr. Kohberger acknowledges the right of the public to be fully informed of the issues," the defense wrote in Friday's filing.
The public has been invested in Kohberger's case since the beginning with media covering a six-week hunt for the suspect, the bombshell arrest of Kohberger, and the pretrial process. The trial has been long-awaited with no end in sight as Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial.
Newsweek reached out to Kohberger's attorney via email for comment.
A grand jury indicted Kohberger in May 2023, saying that he "did unlawfully enter" a Moscow home and then did "wilfully, unlawfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice aforethought, kill and murder" the four college students.
In one of the defense's arguments that the judge denied, they claimed that prosecutors withheld evidence that may help Kohberger defend himself and claimed the grand jury was biased.
Upon denying the defense's arguments, Judge said, "Kohberger was indicted by an impartial grand jury who had sufficient admissible evidence to find probable cause to believe Kohberger committed the crimes alleged by the State."
"Further, the State did not engage in prosecutorial misconduct in presenting their case to the jury," he added.
The other argument claimed that the grand jury should have used the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt to indict Kohberger, instead of the standard of probable cause that was used.
However, the judge said in December that there is "no dispute" that probable cause was the correct standard to use.
"The grand jury is not a trial jury. Its function is to screen whether or not there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial," the judge said.
Arguments on the defense's request for Judge to reconsider his decision not to dismiss the charges are scheduled to be heard on January 26.
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