Will Bryan Kohberger's Murder Trial Move? Lawyer Explains the Defense's 'Uphill Battle'

new filing we turn to Joshua Ritter former prosecutor criminal defense attorney and host of the courtroom confidential podcast uh Joshua it's always great to see you we'll Dive Right In and ask sort of the million-dollar question right off the bat based on your experience How likely is it do you think that the defense will succeed and get this trial moved normally I'd say that they have a very slim chance of convincing a judge to move a trial of this magnitude um you know usually there's a presumption that it will remain in the jurisdiction where the crime took place what makes this a little different is that that polling doesn't just reveal a bias that people in that community may hold toward cob Berger but it's talking about violence and that should be a concern I mean they they're using statements like they burn the courthouse down that they would take justice into their own hands and kill him himself if he were to be acquitted so this is something that obviously is's going to give the judge pause but he's got to weigh that against a couple of things first of all this is a death penalty case uh everything is going to be under scrutiny and secondly by moving it he's also going to inconvenience the witnesses and families of the victims that they would have to travel that far uh to attend the trial so a lot going on I still think it's an uphill battle for the defense but certainly uh made much more uh strong with these comments taken from the local community you know and prosecutors have called to your point the defenses claims a quote extreme exaggeration what what do you think is the strongest argument prosecutors could make to keep this trial where it's set to be I think they're going to say that listen you know you can pull a community and of course cherry-pick a few outliers here or there who have very strong feelings about this but the point is will we be able to find a fair and impartial jury and we're really not going to get get an answer to that question until we until we start the selection process and I think they're going to argue that listen many people uh may have strong feelings about this but you're also going to find that many people in the community don't and that many people in the community have not been following this case as closely um and again going back to that idea that this is where the crime took place uh and this is where the victims are and the victim's families and all of the witnesses who would be involved you know in this story it's made national headlines for two years now what are the odds in from your perspective of finding truly impartial jurors in such a high-profile case it's going to be difficult I I don't know if I would go to the point of saying impossible in that Community but you've got a couple of things is one it's in a smaller community and two it's a college community so things usually that affects the college in the way that this dramatically did are of course going to be news are of course going to be something that people are talking about at the local coffee shop so it's going to be very difficult I think to find people who don't know about the case the problem is are they going to be able to find people who have not prejudged the facts and already determined that the defendant is guilty in this case to to the extent that they can't even sit for trial that I think is the prosecutor's strongest argument to say let's give it a chance here first yeah that makes sense uh we have about 40 seconds left but I want to squeeze this in how will the high-profile nature of this case play into the defense's strategy during the trial uh do you think it'll have a big impact I think it's obviously going to have an impact on the case I I I I think it's hard to argue that when you have a case of this magnit ude it's Nationwide attention so focused on a very small community there are likely going to be cameras in the courtroom every day people are just going to change the way that they behave and the defense is saying this is a case where you want to put our client to death that falls under a special amount of scrutiny and we have to take careful steps in everything that we do and I think they're going to constantly put pressure on the judge using that argument all right Joshua Ritter we always look forward to you weighing in thank you sir thank you for having me