Idaho Student Murders: 5 Reasons Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Bryan Kohberger

Idaho prosecutors have announced they intend to seek the death penalty against accused murderer Brian coburger capital punishment expert Professor Jules Epstein comes on to discuss the five reasons the prosecution made this decision and what the defense may do to save the life of their client welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime I'm Jesse Weber there is a big development in the Brian coburger case this is the 28 year old grad student accused of murdering four University of Idaho college students 21 year old Kaylee Gonzalez 21 year old Madison Mogan 20 year old Zana kernodle and 20 year old Ethan Chapin and Mr coburger has learned that the state will be seeking the death penalty against him it is official and prosecutors have listed out several reasons or aggravating factors for this so let me bring back onto sidebar a very special guest some would say a fan favorite Professor Jules Epstein Professor Epstein is the Edward D all-bound professor of Law and director of advocacy programs at Temple University Beasley School of Law is taught death penalty law nationally to judges and attorneys and he continues to handle Capital cases at the Appellate and post-conviction stages Professor Epstein a pleasure to have you back here on sidebar thank you so much thank you and honored to be here okay you and I had talked about this the last time you were on but now it is official they're seeking the death penalty were you surprised at this announcement I'll I'm not surprised in states that pursue the death penalty that a case like this would get what we call a notice in other words a statement of intent um I don't know this particular prosecutor I don't know his personal values he's an elected prosecutor in a state that accepts the death penalty and probably on a scale of terrible murders and all murders are terrible this is at the high end yeah absolutely it's not only one of the most nationally recognized crimes that we've seen but I have to imagine in that community in Idaho one of the worst that they have seen the reason I asked if you were surprised is because the families of two of the victims Kaylee Gonzalez and Madison Logan they reportedly were supportive of the death penalty against Coburg or in fact there was a statement from Gonzalez's family there is no one more deserving than the defendant in this case we continue to pray for all the victims families and appreciate all the support we have received how however uh Zana kernodo's mother opposed the death penalty so I'm always curious about how prosecutors balance whether or not to go forward with the death penalty if some of the victims families are in favor of it but some are not so legally what the victim's family wants is not actually a prosecutor consideration that's a moral consideration that's a political consideration it's a respect for people consideration but it's not that gee it's two out of three so I must or it's one out of three so I must not that's up to the prosecutor I am assuming that what happened is this that one of the families said we're not in favor and families can have many reasons for not being in favor morally religiously or just that they've picked up from the news that if this is a death case it takes longer to get to trial and there will be years and years and years longer of appeals so in a let's get this put to bed there are many motivations to oppose but I'm assuming that the prosecutor was respectful to all the families made the decision and hopefully said to the family that doesn't want it we respect your decision we will not put you in a spot where you have to go against your personal values and I will do everything I can to make this as painless or less painful as it can yeah I hope that was the message that was communicated as eloquently as you Professor um the reason I was so excited to have you on um also for the fact that you know I just missed you I liked having you on the last time but the real reason is they listed five different aggravating factors in their notice in their filing from the prosecutors and I wanted to make sense of what this means so I'd like to go over them with you number one and this is all from the Idaho code the first reason they're seeking the death penalty against Brian coburger is they say at the time the murder was committed the defendant also committed another murder now I guess that's not a surprise that somebody who commits mult who kills multiple people this is a quadruple homicide that this is prime for the death penalty but there are cases right where you could kill one person and still get the death penalty right absolutely it's just that this is one of a list of possible reasons to take this murder case as opposed to 50 others and say this one could or should get the death penalty as we go down the other factors you'll see it doesn't matter if one person died or 12 people died they're for a single case X Factor could be an aggravating factor it's just that the Idaho legislature determined if we're going to step if I may if we're going to separate out some murder cases that don't deserve the death penalty from some that might one good way to draw a line is is it a single murder or a multiple and if that were the only possible aggravating factor and you only kill one person it's terrible but you're not what we call death eligible if you kill two or three at the same time you are now what we're going to learn is we go down the rest of the list if you kill even one person but some of these other factors are present again you may be what we call death eligible so it's not to have to prove all of these they have to prove only one but they've listed five that they feel the evidence supports and that they feel they can fairly present to the jury and remember if I'm a prosecutor and I really want the death penalty the more aggravating factors I can argue to the jury the more likely some at least will be found and bearing some kind of odd change in this story if this jury finds that he committed one of these murders they're going to think he committed all of them because it all happened at the same time there's not multiple Killers it's not spanned at different locations they're gonna think if they find them guilty they're finding him guilty across for all four killings now this brings me to the second aggravating factor which I find really interesting it says the murder was especially heinous atrocious or cruel manifesting exceptional depravity isn't every murder heinous or cruel and and showing of manifesting exceptional depravity so this phrasing has been the subject of litigate litigation up to the United States Supreme Court over the last 30 or 40 years okay and the Supreme Court held some time ago that terms like that are actually sufficiently precise and sufficiently aggravating so yes every murder is terrible let me just tell you that Idaho has an attempt to say what do we mean by those words okay yeah and here's what they say those murders were the actual Commission of the murder was accompanied by such additional acts as to set it apart from the norm of first-degree murders you may be scratching your head saying so what are those but then they say what's a normal what's a normal murder I mean that's something you've jumped ahead so my point at the end of this if they're doing their best to layer words upon words upon words to give us a useful tool but at the end of this your definition of wicked is going to be your personal one mine is going to be my personal it's not like a thermometer that would say oh it's a hundred degrees so here's what they say is it a extremely Wicked or shockingly evil is it outrageously Wicked and vile cruel means designed to inflict a high degree of in a pain with utter indifference to or even enjoyment of the suffering of others so the last word cruel sort of makes sense right it's like death by slow torture that's the added pain but if I fire one shot into one person's head to you that might be incredibly Wicked and vile on the other hand most murders are like that so I guess it's not so wicked and vile they're leaving it up to 12 people to use their stomachs to make that decision and I am assuming stabbing for young people to death would qualify as this let me say it this way unless a judge takes a pre-trial Challenge and says this one for some reason doesn't make it that's the jury's call yeah yeah I I also I I imagine that if this went to a jury and they convicted him and now they have to determine death I can't imagine one juror saying I don't I don't think it was particularly heinous or I just can't see it I just can't see it because I think one of the reasons this case got so much attention and the reason we're all so appalled by it is thinking about what happened to these four people but yeah um it's a professor I mean do you see it the same way yeah it's that's coming into the house late at night one by one in the bedroom other people are hearing him creeping around in case it's it's horrible now I do want to go into the other uh two factors that um there's one in particular that I find really really curious we'll get to that in a minute before we do this one's interesting and this is number four this aggravating Factor says that the murder was committed in the perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate arson rape robbery burglary kidnapping or Mayhem and the defendant killed intended to kill or acted with Reckless indifference to human life now he has also been charged for burglary why do we have this on the books why is it that if someone dies during the perpetration of a felony like a burglary or a robbery why is this important for the death penalty consideration again the theory of U.S death penalty law is that of all intentional murders we have to have some way to narrow the field for those who are death eligible because if every single person who killed got the death penalty the U.S Supreme Court would say the death penalty is too broadly applied right or wrong many states my state Pennsylvania is similar have said one factor to separate out the worst murders from the generally terrible horrible murders is if there was something else evil terrible criminal going on so if I'm going out and raping and murdering or I'm going out and kidnapping and murdering that should make me eligible for the death penalty over someone who just goes out and murders I'm not saying that's my personal belief but that's the idea of coming up with rules that supposedly it's like a funnel narrow who can get the death penalty that makes sense that makes sense I I agree that if everything was death penalty qualified they would say it's too broad it's too outrageous um so that makes sense now I want to get to the big one this is one that the people that I've spoken to this is the main conversation starter it's number five it's the last one the defendant by his conduct whether such conduct was before during or after the commission of the murder at hand has exhibited a propensity to commit murder which will probably constitute a continuing threat to society in other words this guy is so dangerous that we have to kill him and I my goodness how do they know that how does the jury calculate that because that's one where I'm I'm curious well maybe it was a situation where somebody only committed a murder one time because they were put in a really difficult spot or they killed their act they killed their wife they you know that was a very specific situation is it the randomized nature of this is it how many people he allegedly killed I mean this one this propensity to commit murder I find so curious what's your thoughts on this so I don't know how Idaho has treated this this is a big issue in Texas they've caught much more simply future dangerousness and sometimes psychologists are brought in to say we've assessed this person we've assessed their background we look yeah it's all predictions whether that's good science or looking inside of a crystal ball I will leave to another day to debate the flip side and it's somewhat ironic is that this invites the defense to tell the jury how safe it is for all of us including prison guards to have someone like him in a prison because there are prisons built exactly for people who are extraordinarily dangerous who just died Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber right he got like 13 life sentences he was in a super max prison I to my knowledge Mr Kaczynski didn't hurt anybody once he was in prison so let's assume for a minute right that there really was a scientific test that could say jewels not just has murdered but he's like Hannibal Lecter he's just going to keep going right if we had that kind of a test that would certainly be a rational consideration to be weighed against can we still protect our guards can we put them in a super max I'm not convinced that there is a reliable predictor and I can tell you having met with people tens if not hundreds of people who are life sentenced murder convicted people that when they get 10 years in 20 years in 30 years in they are different people we are not threatened by them yeah it makes me wonder something that you and I were talking off air before we came on is if if one of these factors is let's say weaker than the other does the jury have to find all five do they have to find one do they have to find any in order to support the death penalty walk us through how this works because they might say you know I don't think he's got this propensity but I think this murder was especially heinous walk us through how many factors they have to find um in and what the next step is in terms of voting in favor of death sure so first of all a jury is never told you must find an aggravator it's you may just like you may find somebody guilty what would happen is here they have a trial and assume he is found guilty now they move to the Penalty trial sort of phase two Idaho law makes it clear the prosecutor can incorporate they don't have to repeat they say hey everybody take the evidence you heard at our trial and now that's part of the evidence at part two so the jury will have heard the number of people killed and how they were killed and how terrible it was and it was during a burglary in this so a lot of the factual stuff will be there on the what we're calling future dangerousness they may call a psychologist who knows the defense will put on mitigating factors anything that would argue for a sentence less than death maybe some mental problems who knows maybe some good deeds this guy has done who knows that by the way they might also incorrect Me Maybe account his past drug addiction uh because I know that's a big part of his history as well and that would be so that's a funny thing because to many defense lawyers that is a mitigating Factor you have to explain it right because to some jurors that makes you sound even worse right that's true avoid what we call like splashback from that so here's what happens then the jury has told this the prosecutor is alleged five aggravating factors vote on number one unanimously it's proved or it's not number two unanimously proved or it's not number three maybe they'll find five maybe they'll find four they have to find at least one to keep going if they find none then the process stops and he gets life if they vote we find at least one and we're unanimous about it now they go back through the rest of the evidence and say all right individual juror by juror well I think his drug thing I don't want to call it an excuse it's not an excuse but I it makes him not deserving the death penalty in juror number two Mike I think there are three reasons number three might say I think there's none but then they vote and all 12 have to be unanimous now that we have at least one aggravating Factor okay do we agree that this case calls for the death penalty and that goes back to that standard that we talked about and if you'll forgive me shall be sentenced to death unless mitigating circumstances are found to be sufficiently compelling that the death penalty would be unjust so each of the 12 is sort of doing their own unjust not unjust if all 12 vote death penalty is just that's the death sentence that is a very you explain that incredibly well that it's very a formulaic way of listing it out but you and I also talked about that there could be other considerations right so there's the five aggravating factors there could be actually the mitigating factors that are put forward by the defense but there's other things that could come in or other things the jury can consider couldn't a juror wake up one day and say I know this wasn't mentioned by the defense explicitly but I look into co-burger's eyes and I see somebody who's not deserving of the death penalty maybe they decide that's a reason it wasn't listed out and also I wanted to mention to you this as well I'll give you an opportunity to mention like another mitigating Factor they consider that wasn't listed by the defense but it has come out this week that uh co-burger when he was 19 years old in 2014 he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor theft for stealing his sister's iPhone the records indicated that he allegedly said to his father not to do anything stupid his father had explained that Kobe Burger had suffered from drug addiction at the time coburger didn't serve any jail time there's no public record there's no more details of the case it's possible it was expunged or he entered into a rehabilitation program but it just makes me wonder would something like this come in it doesn't fit as one of those aggravating factors but it's another thing for the jury to hear so I'm more I'm curious how much does the jury have to stay into that formula of these are the factors these are the factors or can they look at other things too and will other things be presented so let's start first from the prosecution side um Idaho does not limit its prosecutors to only the listed aggravating factors so they are allowed to present any additional evidence that is relevant to supporting a sentence of death now they Pro there are certain things they couldn't do they couldn't put on well you're black or you're white or you're Democratic or you're Republican right right right right thank goodness thank goodness yeah thank goodness exactly but a prosecutor theoretically could say he's had been in trouble before not an aggravating Factor but a listed one but something they would say belongs on the aggravating side of the scale the defense might take that same story and say look this guy has actually led a very clean life the only problem he ever had is he stole his sisters phone during the period of drug addiction so either side might or might not deploy it either side could try and spin it but it is I I never want to use the words free-for-all but it is there is a wide range of supplemental information the prosecutor may present mitigation the United States Supreme Court has cautioned prosecutors and judges don't try and restrict it I mean there's some stuff that's way off topic admittedly but the idea is to give the jury every chance to consider a reason not to kill someone Coburg has been in jail maybe he's been incredibly well behaved in jail maybe he taught another inmate how to read you know on the other hand if he's been bad in jail right maybe that's something the prosecutor would grab so the the defense's job here and it's an interesting one because if they say he didn't do it but then they say okay well he you found that he did do it let me now change the conversation the conversation has to be is this that person you need to kill and they will do what they can to try and make him a person not just his deed and a person who has some good stuff and had some really bad stuff in their background if I may just finish with this one thought they want to make the jury feel he's not a demon seed child in other words that there's not some evil coursing through his blood that we can never get that he's a human he did something Assuming he's guilty Beyond terrible that's a given the death penalty issue is what do we do with him it's and one of the common things that I've heard when these are really bad cases sometimes and I wouldn't be surprised if we hear it from the defense as they say there's been so much loss of life we don't need another loss of life I've heard that before too Professor I mean that always feels like an argument appealing to the jurors emotions um I'll give you a quick minute to to respond to that so you'd have to really tease out in jury selection the particular beliefs of your jurors as to whether that's going to play well with them or seem like a cheap shot yeah they're they're a really sophisticated studies about what sways or doesn't sway a capital juror if there is any showing of remorse on his part that is often considered really important um if there is something that went way wrong in his life that he couldn't control that can be real important so too many factors I will tell you I just read in an Alabama death penalty case where I'm just sort of Consulting on the defense lawyer sort of said that almost tinting you'll be committing a crime because you're killing someone totally not a good rhetorical move yeah really something that has to be careful I I I probably wouldn't make that argument unless I really knew from jury selection that that somebody else had said like requesting me was a prospective juror and you said to me you know I take this death penalty stuff really seriously because there's too much death in this world that signal maybe I would consider reminding you of that but even then if you've already got that belief I'm not sure I need to repeat it and I think it when I turn off a bunch other jurors by the way for anybody listening I will finish this out by saying you know the one question that I did not ask the professor because it's an impossible question what's the jury going to do and the reason I didn't ask that is because I think we've seen time and time again the worst cases that you can possibly possibly see the worst defendants where the jury has come back and actually voted in favor of not the death penalty but life in prison it is so tough to predict what will happen and there's a long time between now and this trial I actually don't believe it's going to start in October so there's a lot that could come out and a lot we'll see but Professor Jules Epstein it is a pleasure talking to you you really lay this out in such a clear methodical way thank you for explaining to me thank you for explaining it to the viewers and listeners we really appreciate you having having you on and thank you I just want to say this um you know this is in a one minute sound bite you are giving your audience the time to do a deep dive into this and that's a real gift to people everywhere thank you we appreciate that um we want people to fully understand it and not do a you know a two-minute sound bite like you said to try to get it because it's a complicated issue and a complicated case Professor Epstein thank you so much thank you and that's all we have for you here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcast I'm Jesse Weber I'll speak to you next time [Music] thank you

Channel: Law&Crime Network

Views: 306,749

Keywords: law and crime, law and crime network

Id: 5THo9462XU4

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023