The judge overseeing the murder case against University of Idaho stabbing suspect Bryan Kohberger has barred prosecutors and the defense from contacting potential jurors without express permission from the court.
It comes as the 29-year-old criminologist's defense is hoping for a change of venue from Idhao's Latah County, a community of about 40,000, where Kohberger allegedly barged into an off-campus rental house and massacred four students at 4 a.m. on a Saturday in November 2022.
The attack killed 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves and 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in a six-bedroom house on King Road, steps off of the campus. Two other housemates survived, including the only publicly known eyewitness.
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Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson requested the judge's order in a motion filed under seal. Kohberger's defense team, led by Kootenai County public defender Anne Taylor, objected in another filing under seal.
"Both parties are prohibited from contacting potential jurors about this case, including via third parties, until further order of this Court," Judge John Judge wrote in a short order on March 22, but made public Monday evening. "A hearing on this issue will be held as soon as practicable."
David Gelman, a New Jersey-based defense attorney and former prosecutor who has been following the case, told Fox News Digital the judge's order is "unusual."
"Jury ‘contact’ has long been forbidden, and attorneys should not have to be ordered to abide by this rule," he said. "By way of example, there are a litany of cases where criminal cases had to be moved to different venues because of pre-trial publicity sometimes caused by the litigants."
Judges often try to avoid potential damage to the jury pool by keeping information about the case under wraps, and a gag order has been in place since almost the moment prosecutors announced Kohberger as their suspect. Most of the case's filings have also been made under seal.
"Judges want to avoid jurors being given information about the case that could impact their ability to hear the case fairly and impartially," Gelman said.
Even the reasoning behind the prosecution's request for the order was filed under seal. Gelman said it may contain clues as to what is going on behind the scenes.
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"I can't help but think that something happened which prompted the judge's order and he is probably defining contact to include some type of behavior that he is concerned about," he said. "For instance, some type of juror research that might result in some type of social media contact."
Earlier this year, Kohberger's defense filed a motion for a change of venue to take the case outside of Latah County, where they argued the tight-knit, small community would be biased against him.
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"A fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County owing to the extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity, allegations made about Mr. Kohberger to the public by media that will be inadmissible at his trial, the small size of the community, the salacious nature of the alleged crimes, and the severity of the charges Mr. Kohberger faces," Taylor wrote in late January.
Kohberger, of Pennsylvania, was attending Washington State University in pursuit of a criminology Ph.D. at the time of the murders.
The campus is in Pullman, Washington, a 10-minute drive from Moscow, Idaho, where the students were killed.
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Moscow is the seat of Latah County and home to about half of its population, not including students at the university.
Changes of venue can be rare but can happen in high-profile cases, such as the double murder trials of Idaho's "cult mom" Lori Vallow and California's Scott Peterson.
Thompson, the lead prosecutor, has countered that the case is already receiving global attention and media coverage and that a change of venue would not be necessary.
