Over to criminal defense attorny
and legal expert John Henry Bro,
who's joining us live this morning to
talk more about this arraignmend
possible next steps even for this case.
So John, first of all, thank yoo
much for joining us this mornin.
I want to get right to the quesn
about the suspects decision on
standing silent and not actually
verbally saying or entering A p.
Can you explain a little
bit about what that means?
Well, it's not uncommon
and. It really doesn't have
any legal significance.
The judge enters when you
don't say not guilty or guilty,
which of course wouldn't happen in this case.
The judge will normally enter pleas for
you and that's usually always not guilty.
So that's not really very unusu.
It doesn't really have a lot of meaning.
And so let's talk about next sts
because we do know now that the trial
will begin or set to begin October 2nd.
And that the attorney for Coburr
actually asked for a slightly longer.
She actually asked for it to be
pushed as far back as November.
Do you think that what do you think that
the defense is now working on at this time?
Well, that's a really early trial date
for a death penalty case. I wou,
I'm assuming that that date
will be continued again,
you know in cases like this,
I've had a lot of the material that's online.
In the court pleading,
and I'm sure there's a lot of DA
evidence that may or may not be questionable,
they'll probably be a battle of
the experts on DNA and perhaps
some other crime scene experts.
So I think an October trial
date is very optimistic.
The death penalty cases I've handled,
we had more than a year at a minimum. To
prepare for trial. And
of course, probably one of the best known
cases that you are known for representing,
of course, is Ted Bundy.
And so you have tons of expertin
dealing with cases of this magnitude.
Is there anything else that peoe
should know about who aren't necessarily
as familiar with the legal systm
and trying to follow this case?
Well, it's not well known,
but it's true. And actually wria
little book, but I'm not plugging it.
But I got a flea bargain for Ted involving
4 states that if he pled guilty in Florida,
he would avoid the death penalt.
And it took a while about myseld
another attorney talked him int.
He signed the paperwork.
We walked into court,
he said he's not going to do it.
And that was the last I decided to help him.
You know, basically if you want to die,
then I don't have time to wait.
I would think in most,
almost all cases insolving the death penalty,
there is rigorous plea bargaining going on.
When I represented Sergeant Bal,
who was charged with some
homicides in Afghanistan,
it was the death penalty case and we resolved
that case by taking the death penalty
off the table after a lot of work, so.
And here, seeing Idaho,
you get preliminary hearings.
We don't In Washington,
normally if you're indicted
or charged by information,
you don't get a preliminary hea.
Preliminary hearing could
be very interesting.
In this case, it's a preview.
It's a preview of what the government has.
And the defense has a good opportunity
to question the evidence and get
more information, a excuse me,
out of preliminary hearing.
It's interesting that,
excuse me,
there's a book that's recently
released called Justice in the
Time of Judgment by Ann Bremner,
BRE&amp;NER and her brother Doug Bremner.
It's an excellent book for everybody involved
in this to read because it's very timely,
because the question they askeds
it possible to get a fair trial
in the time of social media?
And I personally,
unfortunately,
think it's not
that social media really changed
the presumption of innocence and
proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
I'm sure there's thousands,
if not millions of texts and
emails and posts on this case.
I'm sure most of them are
against the defendant. So.
It's a really interesting book because
they came to the conclusion andn
Prender was a long time prosecu,
very well known.
And it's a really good book.
But I don't think it's possible
to get a fair trial anymore
for the case where there's
a lot of pretrial attention.
You know,
in Canada it's against the law o
have pretrial publicity of any .
The reason they do that is, yea,
yeah, it's very interesting.
That's actually another one of e
things that has many people talg
of course is the gag order thate
will be hearing a little bit moe
on a little later this morning.
But that gag order issued
out by another judge,
actually one of the reasons they
set for it was so that there
would be access to a fair trial.
Do you think a gag order in this case
actually does help the proceedi?
Well, I think it certainly
indicates the judges that judge
which was really trying to. Bet.
To provide this defendant with a fair trial.
But I think the cat's out of
the bag First of all, a judge.
No judge can prohibit citizens
in general from making comments
online or live or written,
the only jurisdiction the court.
You'll probably like this because I don't
think the judge has jurisdictio.
Silence the press.
I think that's the real. I know.
I hope you have good lawyers on
that because I think the judge y
has jurisdiction over the partis
which would be the state and the
defendant and his defense team.
But I I was very impressed.
I read the order. I was very impressed
with the judges trying to do hi.
I think it was the male judge,
his best to silence the pretty
travel the city, but that.
I mean, he may enter the order,
but the damage has already been done.
I mean, I don't think Mr.
Koberger,
and I'm no fan obviously,
but I don't think Mr.
Koberg can get a fair trial any.
Well, John, I want to thank youo
much for your time this morning.
We have to wrap things up right.