Bryan Kohberger defense wants prosecution punished over delays

Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger's lawyers are asking a Boise judge to "sanction" prosecutors over what his defense team calls "inadequate disclosures" through the discovery process, requesting that expert witnesses be excluded from the case as a remedy.

"The bulk of the State’s expert disclosures fail to include opinions and reports. These inadequate disclosures greatly prejudice Mr. Kohberger who is obligated to submit defense guilt phase expert disclosures by January 23, 2025," Kohberger defense lawyers Anne Taylor, Jay Logsdon and Elisa Massoth wrote in a court filing. "The sanctions considered must be the exclusion of the experts or at a bare minimum, an order compelling proper disclosure and an extension of Mr. Kohberger’s January 23, 2025 deadline."  

Without the disclosures, they argued, they have no idea what expert evidence to prepare to fight in court.

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While prosecutors have disclosed 25 expert witnesses, Kohberger's defense says they have only received five expert reports, none of which involve DNA.

"This is a capital murder case and nothing about it is clear cut," the lawyers wrote. "The expert issues are complex, involving many different facets of DNA, cellular data, cell tower coverage and drive testing, car identification, crime scene and blood spatter analysis, fingerprint analysis, forensic pathology, and electronic device analysis of the suspect, victims, and alternative suspects, and social media accounts."

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Kohberger's team also had a deadline today to make its own disclosures. 

"They have a point," said David Gelman, a New Jersey-based defense attorney and former prosecutor who has been following the case. "If they violate ‘Brady,’ meaning they must, not shall, but must turn over all evidence, it doesn’t matter if they feel it is immaterial or not."

But it's not as simple as the defense getting everything it asks for.

"If the state doesn’t have possession or the evidence is just non-existent and the defense just wants it, then you can’t sanction the state," he said. "What are they going to just have it turn up out of thin air? There will be hell to pay, though, if the state has it and hasn’t provided it yet, especially since the matter is over a year old."

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The court could impose stricter sanctions down the line than what the defense has already asked for, according to Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor who is also closely following the case.

"There’s a strategic reason the defense is doing this: If the judge agrees that the prosecution hasn’t complied with its discovery obligations, he can sanction the prosecution," he said. "And one of those sanctions may be taking the death penalty off the table."

It wouldn't be the first time that has happened in a high-profile Idaho case involving multiple murder victims.

"That’s what happened in the recent Lori Vallow doomsday cult mom case in Idaho," Rahmani said. "The judge in that case removed the death penalty because of the prosecution’s delay in turning over evidence. Saving Kohberger’s life would be a huge win for the defense."

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Kohberger is facing four charges of first-degree murder and felony burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in November 2022. 

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Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were killed in a 4 a.m. home invasion attack in a six-bedroom home just steps off campus.

Two housemates survived, including one who told police she saw a masked man with "bushy eyebrows" walk out the back door after overhearing sounds of a struggle.

At the time of the murders, Kohberger was studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at the nearby Washington State University, which is about 10 miles away across the state line.