Politics
Why a judge moved the location of Bryan Kohberger’s Idaho murder trial
By Jordan Rubin
UPDATE (Sept. 12, 2:42 p.m. ET): After the judge in Latah County, Idaho, who was presiding over Bryan Kohberger’s murder case granted the defendant’s motion to change venuethe Idaho Supreme Court on Thursday said the new venue will be Ada County, the site of the state capital, Boise. The state high court also assigned the case to a new judge in that district, Steven Hippler.
In the latest twist in Bryan Kohberger’s”https://www.BLN.com/opinion/BLN-opinion/idaho-murders-bryan-kohberger-speedy-trial-lawyers-rcna85889″ target=”_blank”>quadruple murder case in Idaho, the judge said the trial for the deaths of four University of Idaho students must be moved out of the county where the killings occurred.
Latah County District Judge John Judge cited potential prejudice to the defense if the trial went forward in the close-knit community that’s been inundated with media coverage since the 2022 deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in an off-campus home in the Latah County city of Moscow. (A not-guilty plea on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary was entered on Kohberger’s behalf in May 2023. He may face the death penalty if convicted.)
Among other things, the judge lamented “the ongoing spread of prejudicial misinformation, rumors, and patently false theories of the case on social media outlets such as Facebook, podcasts, and blogs.”
While the parties agreed that the case generated extensive media coverage, they disagreed about how to ensure a fair trial. Kohberger argued that it needed to move away from the area of the crime scene. The prosecution, meanwhile, said that extensive questioning of potential jurors could help ensure fairness.
In granting the defense motion to change venue, Judge noted that Latah County is relatively small and that, “While the issue of extensive, sensationalized coverage is not unique to Latah County, it is potentially more impactful given the volume of coverage coupled with the smaller population.”
“Considering the undisputed evidence presented by the defense, the extreme nature of the news coverage in this case, and the smaller population in Latah County, the defense has met the rather low standard of demonstrating ‘a reasonable likelihood’ that prejudicial news coverage will compromise a fair trial in Latah County,” Judge wrote.
He added that the venue must change for practical reasons, too, noting that Latah County lacks the necessary resources to provide security and even sufficient space to conduct such a big trial there.
“While traveling to another county for three months is indeed inconvenient for the attorneys, the Court, some family members of the victims, and some witnesses, having the trial at the Latah County courthouse would also be inconvenient in numerous ways and, beyond that, would present serious safety risks,” Judge wrote, adding that the interest of justice “requires that the trial be moved to venue with the resources, both in terms of personnel and space, necessary to effectively and efficiently handle a trial of this magnitude and length so that the parties and the Court can focus on the case and not on peripheral issues.”
Judge’s order doesn’t say where the new venue will be. Rather, it says that, under state rules, the court refers the matter to the administrative director of the courts for the state supreme court to assign it to a proper venue in another district. NBC News reported that the trial was tentatively set for next June.
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Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
Blue Light News has been crunching the numbers to see how all 48 of this year’s World Cup participants rank in several other off-field categories, which we’ll share more of over the weekend.
In today’s item, we look at whether GDP per capita has any connection to soccer performance. As you can see, the chart does show some positive correlation — note, for example, wealthy tournament contenders such as France, the Netherlands and Germany all in the upper right corner.
But it’s not a perfect indicator. By this metric, Qatar is the wealthiest country in the tournament — and it lost 6-0 to Canada on Thursday …
CANBERRA — It was disappointment from start to finish around the USA vs. Australia match in the Bush Capital, won comfortably by the American side.
Neither of Canberra’s Socceroos made the starting lineup and the local government failed to provide an outdoor watch site for the match, despite a heavy social media campaign from locals. With federal politicians out of town and back in their districts this week, the campaign lacked star power and fell on deaf ears.
That left thousands to fill inner city pubs and the University of Canberra, which were allowed special trading hours for the match, from 4.30 a.m.
Australia’s politicians — vocal in their support in the lead-up to the match — went silent quickly, after Australia’s own goal 11 minutes minutes into the game.
If the Aussies’ lackluster performance left the crowd subdued, they found energy to boo Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a notably unpopular figure in Australia, which embraced harsh Covid lockdowns and vaccines — when he appeared on the match broadcast.
While Boston and Dallas have been taken over by marauding Scotland and England fans, Washington D.C. this week welcomed a (slightly) more sedate British crowd at Duke’s Grocery, a trendy restaurant and bar in Washington’s West End neighborhood.
Call it the U.K.’s diplomatic mullet: Business in the front; party in the back.
More than a hundred England fans crowded some ten television sets inside the bar on Wednesday, invited by the U.K. embassy to mark their team’s first game of the World Cup against Croatia.
Flags for every participant hung down from the ceiling. An old British telephone box sat in the corner, chock full of cups and salt shakers. There was also a cardboard cutout of Prince William and Kate at their wedding tucked underneath a Pride flag just by the front door.
Despite a critical byelection in Makerfield on Thursday, which is set to propel Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham toward a leadership challenge to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, sport was top of mind at the party.
“That’s the best bit about it,” said Frances Sterling, head of strategic communications and public diplomacy at the British Embassy in Washington. “This afternoon, there’s been no politics.”
The event pulled in Premier League fans from many of England’s largest clubs, encompassing World Bank staffers and embassy employees, English and Americans. They drank, celebrated heartily when England scored and chanted “wanker” in unison when calls went against them on the field.
A sign just off the projection set at the center of the bar read, “Great sport brings people together.”
“You know, you get in a stand, and you watch a football game, and everybody’s a friend,” Sterling said. “Everybody is there for one thing, and you go do the highs and lows of that team, and you feel like you live it, and, for everyone in the U.K. it’s that sense of national pride that this is their game, but it’s played all over the world.”
Duke’s will have hosted three games in tandem with the U.K. embassy throughout round robin play — two for England and just one for Scotland.
Sterling said that’s because the Scottish fans have decamped to Boston, where they’re drinking the city dry.
“The U.K. consulate there is absolutely overrun,” she said. “And so we were like, you know what? Scotland is doing great in Boston, so we’ll do one, but we know they’re all there.”
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