Agreed. Motive is not a required element of a crime. It can help to tell the story, but at the end of the day it’s not something the prosecution has to prove, or even offer a theory on.
Did he act with intent to kill these four people, and with death resulting? If the prosecution can show beyond a reasonable doubt that he did, then it has met its burden even if the motive remains a mystery.
This isn’t an episode of Murder She Wrote, after all.
There are parallels between the case against Kohberger and Ted Bundy’s conviction for the Chi Omega sorority murders in Florida, including “circumstantial” evidence and an eyewitness who couldn’t recall much that was specific about the escaping killer (who was wearing a pulled-down stocking cap, not a balaclava).
There wasn’t any demonstrated “motive” for Bundy other than that he liked killing young women, especially those of a certain physical type. If the prosecution has any evidence of Kohberger resenting a type of young woman exemplified by the Idaho victims that might bolster their case, but not having a motive to play up will doubtfully be significant in his prosecution.
This is from a month ago, but one talking head on YouTube brought it up.
The defense has hired an attorney who specializes in DNA, which people are taking as an indication of how crucial that evidence is.
A recent example is Darrell Brooks, the guy who drove a SUV through the Waukesha parade, killing six people and injuring 62 others.
I followed the trial and IIRC, the prosecutors never even addressed motive. The evidence was overwhelming, anyway.
Summary of todays hearing. I watched some of it live on youTube Crime Talk channel.
One of the outcomes from the marathon hearing on the various motions.
One of the talking heads on YouTube pointed out that there has to be actual evidence against someone else in order to use that in a trial.
I dont think so- what you can do is raise “reasonable doubt”.
that article explains that usually-At the most formal level, the claim that someone other than the defendant committed a crime is known as an alternative perpetrator defense. It’s a strategy in which the defense introduces concrete evidence to flesh out an explanation of why someone else was responsible.
To do so, a defendant must declare the defense before the trial so the court can determine whether there’s enough evidence — be it fingerprints, motives, testimony or other clues — to connect the alternative perpetrator to the crime. It’s similar to the burden requiring prosecutors to stick to relevant, well-grounded evidence.
“It has to go beyond just mere speculation or suspicion,” said Derik Fettig, a teaching fellow at Hamline University’s law school.
However, simply casting some doubt in the juries mind can be legit. Asking whether tha Police investigated other possible leads is totally legit.
I don’t get it. Isn’t nearly every defense “someone else did it”? I mean, we know those students are dead. If it wasn’t Kohlberg, then it must have been someone else.
I see your point. But …
I think the distinction is more between a defense like this:
The prosecution claims K did it, but the evidence they’ve produced isn’t enough to pin it on K.
Versus one more like:
The prosecution claims K did it, but the evidence they’ve produced isn’t enough to pin it on K and we, the defense, have shown a bunch of evidence that it really was somebody else, not K.
So both are questioning the prosecution’s meeting their threshold, but the latter is actively sowing a much more psycho-emotionally effective form of doubt.
As I’ve noted before, the people on the jury deeply want to solve the whodunit, even though that is totally not their official charge.
The narrative “Somebody did it, there’s some weak proof of K doing it and there’s also some weak proof of unknown other people doing it” is far more likely to result in acquittal than “All the evidence points to K, but it’s only a small pile of evidence, so not enough. Otherwise we (the jury) have no idea who did it.”
Yes, IF you want to suggest a particular person did it.
But NOT if you just want to cast doubt, and inquire if the police really investigated other leads. Like the other male blood, or why did the police rules out the surviving roommate so fast?
Right, Instead of pointing to one possible suspect, you show that any of a number of unnamed others could have done it.
And “clever” does not necessarily mean “practical”.
(Not a slam at PhD students; lots of people are clever but not practical.)
But according to your own cite, you can’t suggest that the remaining roommates are possible suspects without evidence that the judge accepts as sufficient. As your own cite says, “It has to go beyond just mere speculation or suspicion,”
It’s fine for Internet sleuths to throw out unsubstantiated theories, but they can’t be argued during the trial.
Sure, if they can find any sufficient evidence to allow that to be argued. The defense in this case is claiming they are pursuing some ideas but haven’t produced any yet. They are under court order to produce this evidence for the prosecution to also evaluate it and for a hearing to be held to see it can be admitted in the trial.
Right, You cant say they did it. You can ask why they werent investigated. And the blood will certainly come up[.
Bryan Kohberger’s attorneys are working with an expert who says it’s likely two people were responsible for the Nov. 13, 2022, murders of four University of Idaho students.
In another defense filing released in the tranche, Kohberger’s attorneys say, “Many alternate perpetrators can be connected to the crime,” and they have evidence they want to show the court.
“Many” alternate perpetrators? I would think presenting a host of possible perpetrators would weaken the prosecutors’ argument, at least in the jurors’ minds. If you give me “evidence” that implicates six people for a crime that is known to have involved only one or two perpetrators, I’m liable to think, “well, the evidence for each of these people is equally strong, but I know for a fact that at least 4 of them are innocent, so I guess the so-called evidence isn’t really that strong”.
Sure, but the police will have an answer why they didn’t investigate and the defense can only do so much with that.
In this case, having a knife sheath with the defendant’s DNA on it is going to be lot more powerful than a few questions concerning the unknown person’s blood. Apparently, the place was a party house with lots of people coming and going.
And they have a May deadline to provide that information to the prosecutors and then there will be a hearing.
Exactly. I was speaking to the motivation for the defense to try that angle, if sufficient evidence can be found to pursue it. Which evidence they are certainly avidly hunting for and have been for a couple years now. We don’t yet know how much they’ve found, but we will eventually.
My comments were a pushback to @Chronos post just above mine. Which was an almost-tautology that if the defense argues that K didn’t do it, then logically somebody/ies else must have, so arguing about those somebody/ies is pointless. In effect it assumes the conclusion.
He’s 100% right in a formal logical sense, but persuading a jury has more than just formal logic in it.
Well, yeah, that’s why the defense is arguing it. Or at least, trying to. It remains to be seen whether they have the evidence to support it.
Ah, I mistyped that. I meant it would weaken the defense’s argument. A defense narrative that implicates one other person seems stronger to me than a narrative that implicates ten other possible suspects, even if the evidence is equally strong for all of them.