The new judge overseeing the murder trial of Bryan Kohberger dinged his attorneys on Thursday in a ruling ordering them to resubmit a hearing request with more detail and less extraneous documentation.
The new ruling came just days after Judge Steven Hippler denied 12 motions filed by Kohberger’s defense to bar the death penalty from the case, as CrimeOnline reported.
Kohberger is charged with brutally stabbing to death four University of Idaho students on November 13, 2022.
At issue is the defense request for a Franks hearing — to determine if law enforcement used false information to secure search warrants — that included 38 exhibits and more than 2,000 pages. The defense “largely fails to identify with particularity the relevant portions of the exhibits,” Hippler wrote.
Thus,the Court is left with the unenviable task of sifting through pages and pages of largely irrelevant documents to as certain what portion Defendant may be referring to,” he said.
112224 Order Re Franks Motion by kc wildmoon on Scribd
As an example, Hippler noted that one portion of the motion referred to an exhibit containing more than “one hundred pages of duplicative emails” without identifying which one supported the proposition.
“The Court will not do counsel’s job and scour the exhibit to decide what portions defendant must be suggesting supports his assertion,” the judge wrote.
Hippler gave the defense until Tuesday to submit the revised filings.
Hippler took over the case earlier this year when the defense won a change of venue motion to move it away from Latah County and to the larger Ada County. Kohberger’s trial is set to begin next summer.
