MOSCOW, Idaho — The attorneys for quadruple murder suspect Bryan Kohberger have filed a motion asking the judge to unseal his request to have his indictment dismissed.
Bryan Kohberger is the suspect in the quadruple murder of four University of Idaho students back in November 2022.
Back on Oct. 26, Kohberger and his defense team filed two motions discussing the dismissal of the grand jury indictment from May 16. They claimed that the jurors were given inaccurate instructions, were biased, had a lack of sufficient evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.
Since the very beginning of this case, a gag order was issued by Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall, and later maintained by Latah County Judge John Judge.
This means all parties to the case haven’t been able to speak publicly since Jan. 3 and the evidence in the affidavit makes up the vast majority of the public’s knowledge of what happened.
The motion filed on Monday by public defender Anne Taylor states that these documents don’t need to be sealed and are procedural into areas covered by rule and order.
Taylor mentioned that “Mr. Kohberger sought sealing of his filings solely based on email communications with the Latah County Prosecutor’s office stating they wanted the filings sealed…. Counsel for Mr. Kohberger informed the Latah County Prosecutor’s office a motion to unseal was forthcoming.”
Judge John Judge denied Kohberger’s motion to dismiss the indictment based on claims of inaccurate instructions to the grand jury.
Judge said that the defense’s arguments for “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for the grand jury were “historically interesting and creative, but do not overturn Idaho courts’ interpretation of the statute, the case law and the Criminal rules.”
Kohberger will be back in court on Jan. 26 for two separate hearings that will discuss reconsideration of dismissing the grand jury indictment, to unseal his request and to schedule a trial date.
