Thanks for the exact quote
@snooptroop88 !
I don't believe a plea deal is in the cards either: neither side seems to be interested in going that route.
I guess he was being sarcastic about how long it's taking. Then again, I've heard that many cases take even longer than this one before the trial starts, so would he really find the delays unusual? After all the prosecution already stated several hearings ago they won't have all their discovery ready until the fall, so whatever circus is going on right now doesn't actually seem to delay anything further.
It was an odd remark, to me at least. But maybe just a frustrated judge.
The judge may have been referring to the time it's taken so far. As you suggest, he may be frustrated and may feel like the case has been moving very slowly. But despite his feelings and despite the feelings of some family members, if historical statistics can be believed (and I suspect they can) objectively it's not taken that long given it's a death penalty case, and it's a DP case with four victims.
Per
State Studies on Time Costs
In a 2013 study published in the University of Denver Criminal Law Review, DP cases in Colorado took an average of
nearly 4 years longer (1902 days) to conclude than LWOP cases. Time was measured from the time the defendant was charged to final sentencing, not from the date of the crime. (That makes perfect sense to me but some family complaints about time in BK's case cite the time of the crime.) In contrast, LWOP cases took an average of 526 days to complete.
That's still 17.5 months for the average LWOP cases to conclude. While the study was from 2013, I don't know of any reason cases would be faster to go to trial today than 10 + years ago. If anything, forensic evidence has become more complex and discovery more complicated.
The study also found "...even when a death-penalty case ends in a plea agreement and a life sentence,
the process takes a year and a half longer than an LWOP case with a trial. The authors noted that selecting a jury in an LWOP case takes about a day and a half; in a capital case, jury selection averages 26 days."
In comparison to Colorado, Idaho does (or did) have a "rocket docket." The above link states (based on an Idaho legislative study released in 2014 & available by clicking on a link at the end of the above article) "Capital cases with trials took 20.5 months to reach a conclusion while non-capital cases with trials took 13.5 months." While this multiple victim case WILL take longer than that Idaho capital case
average to reach a conclusion, it's only been a bit more than 16 months since BK was charged with 4 murders and a little less than 12 months since he was indicted. (As discussed at the time, it was a bit weird to suddenly indict with a grand jury.)
The Idaho legislative study also discussed other costly and time-consuming aspects of DP cases like appeals. Further data were presented to show how seldom the DP is sought in Idaho and how seldom it's awarded. And, unfortunately, DP reversals weren't rare in the state's historical data (for reasons of prosecutorial misconduct, violation of Constitutional rights, ineffective assistance of counsel.) So I'm not sure what basis of comparison for "time to trial" the judge has. Given how seldom the DP is sought for first-degree murder in Idaho, I wouldn't think an individual trial judge, no matter how experienced he/she is, could have a lot of experience with DP trials. So the delays in this case may seem more unusual than they really are.
MOO
