Idaho Supreme Court Rejects Bryan Kohberger's Appeal of Indictment

The Idaho Supreme Court rejected Bryan Kohberger's attorney's appeal of a grand jury indictment over the murders of four students.

The reasoning behind the court's rejection of the pre-trial appeal on Tuesday was not provided. In the filing, the suspect's attorney claimed that the prosecutors in the case indicted their client improperly on four counts of first-degree murder and a single count of burglary, to the grand jury.

Bryan Kohberger Appeals Indictment

The Idaho Supreme Court rejected an appeal of a grand jury indictment filed by Bryan Kohberger's attorneys but did not cite any reasoning for the decision.
(Photo : Kai Eiselein-Pool/Getty Images)

At the time that the grand jury was working toward an indictment, prosecutors in the case said that they must reach an indictment if the case reached the higher legal standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt instead of the standard of probable cause.

The Idaho Supreme Court's one-page ruling did not give out any reasoning for their denial of the defendant's attorney's filed appeal and the matter was quickly closed, according to Fox News.

Kohberger is a Ph.D. student at the nearby Washington State University and is the primary suspect in the brutal murders of four students. The victims were identified as Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, and Ethan Chapin. The crime occurred inside a rental house near the University of Idaho campus.

The grand jury in the case indicted Kohberger in May last year after he was taken into custody after a weeks-long investigation. The arrest was made after surveillance footage showed the defendant's vehicle at the scene of the crime multiple times around the time of the killings in Moscow, Idaho.

However, Kohberger has repeatedly pleaded not guilty on all counts and has maintained his innocence throughout the case. While a trial date has not yet been set, the suspect's defense team is seeking to have it moved to a different country, said Yahoo News.

The 29-year-old defendant appeared in a Pennsylvania courtroom in January last year and waived his extradition to Idaho. This meant that he had voluntarily agreed to return to the state in order to face the charges that were filed against him.

Killing of Idaho Students

The victims were found to have been stabbed to death on Nov. 13, 2022, and two others, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, were at the home at the time but were not harmed. Investigators early in the probe quickly ruled out the surviving roommates as suspects.

Initially, officials believed that Mortensen and Funke slept through the attack that killed the four victims. However, the probable cause affidavit, which was released in January last year after Kohberger came back to Idaho, revealed that one of them said they saw the killer.

The roommate described a "figure clad in black clothing and a mask" who she said walked past her as he left the crime scene. She also said that on the night of the killings, she heard crying. The May 2023 indictment of the defendant allowed prosecutors to bypass the previously scheduled June 2023 hearing.

The two surviving roommates could have potentially been cross-examined during that particular hearing. The day after, the defendant stood silently while the court waited for his plea. Ultimately, the judge in the case entered a plea of "not guilty" in his stead, according to People.