FIRST ON FOX: The Idaho judge overseeing the case against student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger has announced that he will release a redacted transcript from a closed-door hearing held last week, which he had initially barred the public – and the media – from attending.
Ada County Judge Steven Hippler told court officials to hand over verbatim copies of the unredacted transcript from the sealed hearing on Jan. 23 to both the prosection and the defense so they could recommend redactions.
“The parties will have fourteen (14) days to identify those portions of the transcript that should be redacted from public disclosure, providing a basis for the same,” he wrote in an order made public Tuesday. “Thereafter, the Court will release to the public a redacted transcript of the previously closed portion of the hearing.”
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The hearing regarded forensic investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) evidence that Kohberger’s lawyers want thrown out.
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During a two-day public proceeding that followed the closed hearing last week, they argued that the FBI violated Kohberger’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
“I struggle with the idea that DNA left at a crime scene, that there’s any expectation of privacy,” Hippler told Kohberger’s lead defense attorney, Anne Taylor.
Hippler appeared unreceptive to their arguments that the IGG techniques violated Kohberger’s constitutional rights and questioned whether the defendant even had standing to challenge the investigatory tactic.
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“It wasn’t his DNA that was searched,” Hippler said. “At best, it was his ancestors.”
Taylor also argued that the FBI violated its own internal policy when checking IGG samples against a database. The judge asked prosecutors why he should allow the evidence to be introduced.
They countered that there’s no expectation of privacy in connection with public records and crime scene evidence, and Idaho Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye told the court that the FBI’s interim policy Taylor questioned “does not impose any legal limitations on otherwise lawful investigative or prosecutorial activities.”
Much of the IGG process has been sealed by the court, and the unredacted transcript could give new details about how investigators pieced together the case in the weeks following the murders and tracked Kohberger to his parents’ house in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.
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Kohberger is scheduled for trial later this year in the home invasion murders of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. The attack took place around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, as all four were inside an off-campus house near the University of Idaho.
Kohberger, at the time, was a Ph.D. student studying criminology at Washington State University, which is just 10 miles away from the crime scene.
Latah County Judge John Judge entered not guilty pleas on Kohberger’s behalf at his arraignment in May 2023. Kohberger’s lawyers later successfully argued for a change of venue, transferring the case to Ada County under Judge Hippler.
Kohberger could face the death penalty if convicted.
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The defense is still awaiting Hippler’s decision on whether to grant a Franks hearing, in which they hope to have warrants in the case thrown out.
Experts say such hearings are rarely granted and even more rarely successful.
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