Hearing looks at rules for evidence and other details in Bryan Kohberger's quadruple murder trial

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Hearing looks at rules for evidence and other details in Bryan Kohberger's quadruple murder trial

2025-04-11 02:55 Last Updated At：03:00

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Prosecutors and attorneys for a man charged in the killings of four University of Idaho students in 2022 argued some of the final ground rules they want for Bryan Kohberger's trial in a hearing Wednesday.

Kohberger, 30, is charged with murder in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho.

Kohberger, then a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks after the Nov. 13, 2022 killings. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

When asked to enter a plea to the charges, Kohberger stood silent, prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Jury selection in the case is expected to begin July 30, with the trial starting Aug. 11. The trial is expected to take nearly three months to complete.

Attorneys on both sides of the case have filed hundreds of pages of legal motions, including whether Kohberger should face the death penalty if he is convicted, whether witnesses should be allowed to testify about things like “touch DNA,” and who should be allowed in the courtroom during the trial.

Defense attorney Anne Taylor told the judge that the death penalty should be taken off the table for several reasons, including her client's autism diagnosis. She also said her team is still struggling to go through massive amounts of discovery material from prosecutors.

Many of those documents have been jumbled, out of order or electronically locked, Taylor said.

She said the issues are big enough that at this point it would be unfair for Kohberger to face the death penalty. She pointed to another recent major criminal case, in which a judge took the death penalty off the table for Lori Vallow Daybell after last-minute discovery issues arose before trial.

“We continue to go through discovery as rapidly as we can, we just won't get through all of it before we go to trial,” Taylor said.

Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler told Taylor he should have heard about the issues with discovery earlier in the case, and that Vallow Daybell's case is “completely different.”

Prosecutor Ashley Jennings said the defense was provided a searchable index for all the FBI documents.

Hippler said he would rule later.

The prosecution has listed Kohberger’s family as potential witnesses. Typically, witnesses are excluded from trials until after they have testified so their testimony isn’t influenced by other evidence.

But the defense team says Kohberger’s family should be able to attend because he relies on their support and it is the humane thing to do.

The prosecution told the judge that the defense shouldn’t be able to dictate how the prosecution presents its case. She says putting the family members on the witness stand early in the trial would make the testimony out of context and out of order.

“This is like a gumbo,” Hippler replied. “You all are going to put all the pieces you need into a pot, and at the end of the day, the jury is going to decide if it’s a good soup or not.”

He said he would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling later.

“I can only imagine that the family of Mr. Kohberger is devastated by these things. It’s nothing that they did, and their ability to be here to see the trial is important,” Hippler said.

If the jury finds Kohberger guilty, the defense team plans to submit evidence about his autism spectrum diagnosis as a “mitigating factor” for why he should not be sentenced to death.

The purpose is to show jurors that some of his behaviors are related to autism, Taylor said. For instance, Kohberger tends to be stoic and can sit very still for long periods of time, she said, and sometimes talks for longer than other people might want him to talk.

Taylor asked the judge to issue an order that says Kohberger’s autism-related characteristics can’t be used by prosecutors as “aggravating factors,” or reasons that he should get the death penalty.

The prosecution team countered that they have much better aggravating factors to present and don’t plan to reference Kohberger’s autism spectrum condition if the case reaches the penalty phase. But they also don’t want the defense to be able to chalk up any behaviors as being related to autism.

The judge said he will issue a detailed ruling later, but for now is making a general ruling that the state can’t cite autism as an aggravating factor.

The defense team says they plan to present evidence of “alternate perpetrators,” and their investigation into that is still underway.

But prosecutors want the judge to issue an order preventing defense attorneys from using a “shotgun approach” by throwing a bunch of names at the jury without offering substantiating evidence tying those people to the crime.

Defense attorney Elisa Massoth told the judge that there’s a lot of evidence to support other suspects.

“I would hope that the state, the court, can see that we are calculated and thoughtful in everything we’re doing in this case and wouldn't treat alternative perpetrators any other way,” Massoth said.

The judge says the defense team will have to make a “factual showing” that any suggested alternative perpetrators have a connection to the crime, and he doesn’t want to do that during the trial.

Hippler said he would set a separate hearing before the trial so the defense can present its evidence relating to alternative perpetrators.

Kohberger’s defense team asked the judge to prevent the state from relying on the excessive use of “emotional appeal” or gruesome photographs, and inflammatory words like “murderer,” “psychopath” and “sociopath.”

Hippler declined to issue a general order against inflammatory conduct but told both sides that he expected them to follow courtroom rules. He said he wouldn’t allow the use of the terms “psychopath,” “sociopath” or “murderer” during the evidentiary phase but left open the possibility that prosecutors could use “murderer” during closing arguments.

“Make no mistake, these murders, whoever did them, were ... horrific. And I expect that the evidence will reflect that,” Hippler said. “When it comes to cumulative evidence or some that are unnecessarily graphic, I think we will address that on a case-by-case basis.”

This story has been updated to correct the date of the killings.

US and global economic outlook deteriorates in Trump trade war, IMF says

2025-04-22 22:48 Last Updated At：22:50

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and global economies will likely slow significantly in the wake of President Donald Trump's tariffs and the uncertainty they have created, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

The IMF said that the global economy will grow just 2.8% this year, down from its forecast in January of 3.3%, according to its latest World Economic Outlook. And in 2026, global growth will be 3%, the fund predicts, also below its previous 3.3% estimate.

And the Fund sees the world's two largest economies, China and the United States, weakening: U.S. economic growth will come in at just 1.8% this year, down sharply from its previous forecast of 2.7% and a full percentage point below its 2024 expansion. The IMF doesn't expect a U.S. recession, though it has raised its odds of one this year from 25% to about 40%.

China is now projected to expand 4% this year and next, down roughly half a point from its previous forecasts.

“We are entering a new era,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist at the IMF, said. “This global economic system that has operated for the last eighty years is being reset.”

The forecasts underscore the widespread impact of both the tariffs and the uncertainty they have created. Every country in the world is affected, the IMF said, by hikes in US import taxes that have now lifted average U.S. duties to about 25%, the highest in a century.

The forecasts are largely in line with many private-sector economists' expectations, though some do fear a recession is increasingly likely. Economists at JPMorgan say the chances of a U.S. recession are now 60%. The Federal Reserve has also forecast that growth will weaken this year, to 1.7%.

The IMF is a 191-nation lending organization that works to promote economic growth and financial stability and to reduce global poverty.

Gourinchas said that the heightened uncertainty around the import taxes led the IMF to take the unusual step of preparing several different scenarios for future growth. Its forecasts were finalized April 4, after the Trump administration announced sweeping tariffs on nearly 60 countries along with nearly-universal 10% duties.

Those duties were paused April 9 for 90 days. Gourinchas said the pause didn’t substantially change the IMF’s forecasts because the U.S. and China have imposed such steep tariffs on each other since then.

The Trump administration has slapped duties on cars, steel, and aluminum, as well as 25% import taxes on most goods from Canada and Mexico. The White House has also imposed 10% tariffs on nearly all imports, and a huge 145% duty on goods from China, though smartphone and computers have been exempted. China has retaliated with 125% duties on US goods.

The uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s next moves will also likely weigh heavily on the U.S. and global economies, the IMF said. Most traded goods are parts that feed into finished products, and the tariffs could disrupt supply chains, similar to what occurred during the pandemic, Gourinchas warned in a blog post.

“Companies facing uncertain market access will likely pause in the near term, reduce investment and cut spending,” he wrote.

The U.S. tariffs are also expected to hit less-developed nations, with Mexico's economy now expected to shrink this year by 0.3%, down from a previous projection of 1.4% growth. South Africa is forecast to grow just 1% this year, down from a 1.5% projection in January.

While the U.S. economy will likely suffer a supply shock, Gourinchas said, China is expected to experience reduced demand as U.S. purchases of its exports fall.

Inflation will likely worsen in the United States, rising to about 3% by the end of this year, while it will be little changed in China, the IMF forecast.

In his blog post, Gourinchas acknowleged that there is an “acute perception that globalization unfairly displaced many domestic manufacturing jobs” and added that “there is some merit to these grievances.”

But he added that the “deeper force behind this decline is technological progress and automation, not globalization.” Gourinchas noted that both Germany, which has a goods trade surplus, and the U.S., which has a deficit, have seen factory output remain relatively level in recent decades even as automation has caused manufacturing employment to decline.

The IMF expects the tariffs to take a big chunk out of China's economy, but it also forecasts that additional spending by the Chinese government will offset much of the hit.

The European Union is forecast to grow more slowly, but the hit from tariffs is not as large, in part because it is facing lower U.S. duties than China. In addition, some of the hit from tariffs will be offset by stronger government spending by Germany.

The economies of the 27 countries that use the euro are forecast to expand 0.8% this year and 1.2% next year, down just 0.2% in both years from the IMF’s January forecast.

Japan’s growth forecast has been marked down to 0.6% this year and next, 0.5% and 0.2% lower than in January, respectively.

In a separate report Tuesday, the IMF warned that “global financial stability risks have increased significantly,’’ along with the deteriorating economic outlook. The fund noted that some stock and bond prices remained high despite the recent market rout triggered by Trump’s tariffs – which means they are vulnerable to further drops.

The IMF also cautioned that “some financial institutions could come under strain in volatile markets,’’ pointing in particular to heavily indebted hedge funds and asset management companies and the risk that they will be forced to raise cash by selling investments into an already-fragile market.

AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report.