BOISE, IDAHO (AP) – An Idaho judge has denied a request from roughly two dozen news organisations to lift a gag order in the criminal case of a man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death. The judge did, however, significantly narrow the gag order in response to the news organisations’ concerns.
The ruling was handed down late Friday afternoon. In it, second District Judge John Judge said it was legally prudent to restrict attorneys from making some statements about the case in order to preserve Bryan Kohberger’s right to a fair trial. Still, Judge also said the original gag order – which also barred law enforcement officers and other people tangentially related to the case from speaking to the press – was “arguably overbroad and vague in some areas”.
Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths in Moscow, Idaho. Prosecutors have yet to reveal if they intend to seek the death penalty.
The bodies of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found on November 13, 2022, at a rental home across the street from the University of Idaho campus. The slayings shocked the rural Idaho community and neighbouring Pullman, Washington, where Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University.
The case garnered widespread publicity, and in January Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall issued the sweeping gag order that has barred attorneys, law enforcement agencies and others associated with the case from talking or writing about it.
A coalition of 30 news organisations including The Associated Press asked the Idaho Supreme Court earlier this year to reject the gag order, contending it violates the First Amendment rights of a free press. The high court declined to weigh in on whether the gag order violates the news organisations’ Constitutional rights, and said the media coalition should first ask the lower court to lift the order before asking the Idaho Supreme Court to step in.
“This Court has long respected the media’s role in our constitutional republic, and honoured the promises in both the Idaho Constitution and First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Justice Gregory Moeller wrote in the high court’s decision. He went on to quote a ruling from a federal case that said responsible press coverage, “guards against the miscarriage of justice” by subjecting the court system and those who are a part of it to public scrutiny.
In Friday’s ruling, the second District judge said the gag order served a legitimate purpose and “the very limited incidental effects of the speech restrictions on the media’s First Amendment rights are overridden by the compelling interest in ensuring fair trial by an impartial jury”.
The new gag order – formally called a “nondissemination order”- prohibits any attorneys representing parties, victims or witnesses in the case from making statements that could have a “substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing or otherwise influencing the outcome of the case”.
