MOSCOW, Idaho – Judge John Judge expressed frustration with Bryan Kohberger’s attorneys during a Thursday hearing regarding a survey the defense sent to 400 potential jurors.
The survey was stalled by an order from the judge on March 22, which expressed concern that any contact with potential jurors would violate a previous non-dissemination order. An April 1 filing argued that halted the survey violated Kohberger’s due process rights.
On Thursday a visibly annoyed Judge argued that he didn’t violate the defendant’s rights.
“I have no doubt that I did not violate due process rights,” Judge said.
He emphasized that never ordered a definite end to the questioning of potential jurors.
“There are legitimate concerns about what was done in the survey,” Judge said. “I never said, ‘no, you can’t do a survey.’”
Prosecutors argued that the survey tainted 400 potential jurors in Kootenai County.
“We don’t care about surveys. We care about these particular questions,” Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said. “Those questions are disseminating by means of communication…evidence that could be inadmissible at trial.”
Judge seemed sympathetic to the prosecution’s argument that the survey tainted a pool of possible jurors.
“You know that we have been working very hard to keep this noise out of the case, and now that noise has been injected into these 400 potential jurors,” Judge said.
Kohberger’s team argued that they should be allowed to finish the survey ahead of the defense arguing for a change of venue due to alleged bias of Latah County residents, as well as polling two other counties in Idaho with which a trial could take place.
The prosecution argued that the defense should not be able to use the same survey questions in other counties, and asserted that the survey team hired by Kohberger’s attorneys should have been made privy to the judge’s non-dissemination order.
“It’s creating bias against Mr. Kohberger based on false or inadmissible evidence. That’s outrageous. How can we possibly perspective a jury pool with that going on? It has to stop,” the prosecution said.
A short hearing to resolve the dispute over survey questions was scheduled for April 10 at 4 pm.
