Bryan Kohberger’s trial could be pushed back to the summer of 2025 as the judge presiding over the case denied another attempt by the University of Idaho mur*der suspect to dismiss his charges.
Kohberger, 29, was clear in view in the first-time livestream Friday. The alleged murde*rer was seen wearing a suit with a tie and white shirt as he sat next to his lawyer Anne Taylor.
The criminology student has been charged with the d*eaths of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, inside their off-campus home – which has since been demolished – in November 2022.
State attorneys want to start the alleged mu*rderer’s trial as soon as this summer to avoid the school year and to stop forcing the victims’ family to relive the pain of losing their children.
However, Taylor said she doesn’t believe they could be ready by this summer and would like to push it back to Summer 2025, as well as requesting a change of venue.
Taylor also said she believed the trial could last up to 15 weeks.
The attorney also said she wanted to make it clear his defense team hadn’t been “sitting around” to avoid being ready.
“We have not been sitting back and waiting,” Taylor told the judge.
However, Judge John Judge said he was “concerned about the delay.”
“This is a complicated case, this could take a long time – longer than any of us thought – and I think this would add an additional delay,” he told the attendees.
“Do we need a whole other year?” he questioned after Taylor’s lengthy explanation as to why they needed another year and half to do so, which included going through 51 terabytes of data.
Taylor said the earliest she could possibly be ready is March 2025.
“I’m nervous telling you I’ll be ready by summer 2025,” she said.
State attorneys said if the trial could not begin this summer, it would prefer the summer of 2025 to avoid the school year.
The first hearing, which was closed to the public, reportedly dealt with his team’s motion to dismiss the grand jury indictment because there was an “error” in jury instruction. The judge denied the motion.
Kohberger’s defense team has long argued that the indictment has insufficient evidence. Their past attempt to have the case thrown out was also denied.
“This isn’t our attempt to achieve some delay, this is our attempt to achieve due process,” his defense team argued Friday.
The criminology student’s team has been accused of filing endless motions to prolong going to trial.
“A trial in this case is going to happen,” a state attorney said. “We need to get to a trial in this case.”
