MOSCOW, Idaho — The defense team representing the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students can resume jury surveys, so long as it respects the gag order over the case.
Latah County District Court John Judge, who is overseeing the case of Bryan Kohberger, made the order allowing jury surveys to continue on Monday.
Kohberger’s defense team hired trial consultant Bryan Edelman to conduct the survey earlier this year as part of its effort to advocate for a change of venue.
On March 22, Judge issued an emergency order blocking all pre-trial jury surveys over concerns that the Kohberger defense was violating the gag order in the case. In a later hearing on the matter, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson argued the survey tainted the jury pool.
In another hearing, Judge suggested that many of the questions asked in the survey were defensible, but that at least two questions included information beyond what was in the public record — violating the gag order.
The defense insisted that the information in the pair of questions came from the media and social media and was thus part of the public record. Judge clarified on Monday that his gag order on the case meant the public court record.
While the two questions don’t fit that definition under his gag order, Judge noted that his order allows extrajudicial statements that a reasonable lawyer would believe are required to protect a client.
Given that, Judge determined that all of the questions were admissible his order and that the defense could resume conducting surveys without modifications.
In light of the legal dispute over the survey, Latah County Judge John Judge agreed to push back a highly anticipated change of venue hearing to June 27.
Kohberger’s defense attorney Anne Taylor said she would like to have the survey conducted in other counties where the trial could be taken up in order to give context to the data collected in Latah County.
Taylor said in a court filing in March that Latah County is biased against her client, and that the manner in which the court was alerted to her survey initially was evidence of that.
