MOSCOW, Idaho — Following a lengthy and at times heated hearing, the judge presiding over the case of the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students made no decision on whether or not surveys of potential jurors by the defense could move forward.
In light of the ongoing dispute over the survey, Latah County Judge John Judge agreed to push back a highly anticipated change of venue hearing to June 27.
At issue Wednesday was whether Bryan Kohberger’s attorneys violated the tight gag order on his case when a trial consultant they hired asked a number of questions of potential jurors in Latah County.
Attorney Anne Taylor hired consultant Bryan Edelman to conduct the survey, which a hearing on April 4 revealed was given to 400 potential jurors. Taylor sought to demonstrate Latah County is biased against Kohberger, something she later claimed outright in a related court filing.
Judge issued an order in March stopping the survey over concerns raised to the court by prosecutors that it violated the gag order.
Both prosecutors and the judge insisted at the April 4 hearing that their concerns weren’t about the fact a survey was conducted, but rather the manner in which it was conducted and the questions — some of which entertained false social media speculation.
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson accused the defense of essentially tainting the jury pool with the survey that would lead respondents to be biased against Kohberger.
On Wednesday, Taylor called Edelman as a witness, giving him an opportunity to defend his work against those accusations.
“Being told… that I am tainting the jury pool and poisoning the jury pool and contaminating the jury pool by doing what’s required and standard,” Edelman said. “I’m not crying, I’m angry.”
In his testimony, aided by a slideshow, Edelman broke down the process by which he conducted his survey, addressing some of the concerns brought by prosecutors and the court.
Edelman noted that he only asked the questions of concern to people who initially answered that they were familiar with the case at all, which he said made up the overwhelming majority of respondents.
He also argued that his work was particularly necessary because Thompson directed the media to the affidavit of facts filed in the case in January of 2023 during a press conference following Kohberger’s arrest.
Thompson argued that he was referring to information on the official court docket. He grilled Edelman on the questions that went beyond what was explicitly stated in the affidavit.
“Your surveyors put that false information into the minds of people who were asked that question who may not have previously heard it,” Thompson said.
Edelman acknowledged that was true.
“The media mentioned it hundreds of thousands of times,” Edelman countered.
Judge was sympathetic to the questions referencing information from that affidavit of facts but remained skeptical of the two questions addressing social media speculation.
“Who knows where it came from,” Judge said. “I don’t think there’s anything in the public record that said anything about (the content of the two questions).”
Attorneys representing Kohberger insisted those questions were necessary and proper in line with existing case law, which they argued allows these types of surveys to explore the influence of misinformation on potential jurors.
