4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered, Bryan Kohberger Arrested, Moscow, Nov 2022 #87

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Yeah the loophole is basically that LEAs can override that opt-in. Which is atrocious.

What opt-in? Othram has ALL opt-ins. It's the whole point of the service. The Defense expert appears to have been talking about GedMatch (which does have an opt-in).

I know of no cases were LE over-rode individual human DNA donations and the humans' requests for privacy. None. Not from GedMatch, or Ancestry or 23andme or Parabon. HOW would LE even do this?

Is it implied that LE hacks into businesses' computers? Even if they did, how would they know how to change data files in a proprietary database? It makes no sense. It would make more sense if the expert described the mechanism. Bribery? Hacking? Whining? Moaning? Being really friendly? HOW does LE (is it coming from Chief Fry - is that the claim? Or does every cop in America know how to hack in and over-ride database rules in a business?)

It makes no sense to me.

Maybe I need a vacation.

IMO.
 
Anne Taylor: "The court should stay the proceedings and allow an evidentiary hearing to investigate what impact that had on the grand jury indictment."

We are now hearing other motions, including the motion to stay proceedings. Defense is going through the "irregularities" that happened in the grand jury indictment process, which they say violated Idaho code.


 
State asks court to deny the motion to stay the proceedings. Defense argues there were only 32 people called for grand jury when there should have been 45. Says there were items that were wrong on the questionnaires that were not done correctly. Defense again asks for a stay.

 
BREAKING: Judge says he has studied the case law prior to today's hearing. He says the affidavit was "vague." Based on what has been presented, he does not believe there was a substantial failure in the grand jury indictment. Judge has denied the request to stay the proceedings.

 
I'm confused by this as well. It's not at all necessary to use any loopholes or back door methods. Once you have a list of matches through GEDMatch, where those matches have opted into allowing their profiles to be visible to law enforcement, you can easily build a tree with publicly available databases, vital records, social media, obituaries, etc.

Has anyone reported what specifically this witness is saying--what are these potential loopholes? I understand why the defense wants the methodology because, as I said, they need the dna thrown out and saying that they tested the father based on IGG that was improper is possibly a way to get there.
The PCA had many other factors that resulted in an arrest of BK. It even mentioned not taking the DNA solely into account.

BK's DNA was located on the sheath underneath a murdered victim. His car and phone places him in the area of the house. A witness testified to a limited physical appearance that matches BK. There was a 5 octillion x's likelihood result that the STR test done from the buccal swab taken from BK at time of his arrest matches that DNA on the knife sheath.

It's been reported that he purchased a Kbar knife and sheath (per Dateline episode), a latent print size 13 was identified just outside DM's door. The average shoe sizes of man in the US is between 9 - 12. He was disposing of trash in neighbors receptacle at 3 am in the morning the day he was arrested?!

BK's alibi - get this...he was out driving around per his attorney.

I can't think of another case where there was as much evidence of a perpetrator than this one and I'm sure we don't know half of it yet mainly due to the gag order.

Let the Defense raise their questions, accusations, whatever. It's their job, but I think they've gotten down to playing a bit on the dirty side lately.

The State will have their day to cross examine these 'less than' Experts and I look forward to it.

MOO
 
So, going back to the Notice of Filing Declaration. It says:

These database tools have known loopholes that allow a genealogist to see matches that have explicitly declined to participate in law enforcement matching. This is not a glitch in the programming causing this by accident. It is a standard feature within the tools that essentially tricks the system into displaying all matches as opposed to only those who have consented to law enforcement matching. This is not a loophole nor is it something you will stumble upon. Using the tool this way requires effort and knowledge.

This is saying "genealogists" not law enforcement. Thinking about this, I can see some methods they might call a loophole to make it seem shadier, but it's not really. For example, if I had a list of matches from GEDmatch to an unknown profile, all those matches having opted into being visible, I could use them to build a private, not viewable to the public, research tree on ancestry. On ancestry I'm not using dna at all, just publicly available databases and information. I build out the tree, adding more and more people. At some point I will likely figure out where that unknown profile fits in that tree.

There may in fact be "matches" on that tree that were in the GEDmatch database but opted out of being visible to anyone else, including law enforcement. But I didn't get them through some back door or by tricking the system into displaying them. I got them by piecing together publicly available information. I didn't use their dna profiles to place them in that tree.

It also says:

  1. I am aware that law enforcement has obtained results in ways prohibited by the terms of use and prohibited by their own policies.
This is not really a "loophole", which implies skirting legality.
 
We are now beginning to hear arguments about #BryanKohberger's alibi: That he was out driving around the night of the murders. State says it will accept the alibi that he was driving around, but he should specify where exactly if he is not going to call anyone else to verify it.

 
The defense says it has provided what it can provide to the prosecutor and more. Taylor says Kohberger doesn't have to testify if he doesn't want to at trial. More information about the alibi may come from expert witnesses, but she says she won't go into it more today.

 
Thompson doesn't like that answer. He is getting heated and says that logic shouldn't be allowed based on the way the statute is written. Says Kohberger should be allowed to testify about his alibi, but no third party witnesses should be allowed to weigh in.

 
But as I understand it, Moscow PD didn't even use GedMatch (and if GedMatch had been used and screwed up, then it would be on GedMatch and another service should be used instead).

LE went to a forensic-only genetic genealogy database, wherein ALL the participants had opted in to allow LE to look at their DNA profiles (the 600,000 SNP's that Othram studies). So the idea that some kind of privacy policy was violated doesn't work for me - of course, no one brought in an Othram expert (and they definitely have one available for cases like this - this is what Othram does).

All this kerfluffle over a very standard way of trying to identify the source of DNA found on part of a murder weapon, at a crime scene.

SMH.
Okay, interesting, thank you for this. For some reason I thought they'd used GEDmatch.
 
Judge says that if Taylor plans to present witnesses to testify about his alibi, then she needs to share who with the prosecution before more time passes. That aligns with the state's point, that time is running out and they don't want to be ambushed when the trial begins.

 
Judge now discussing deadlines. We are now six weeks away from trial.
Deadlines for completion of discovery: Sept. 1
Deadline for expert disclosures: Sept. 8 If there is an actual alibi, required by Sept. 8
Deadline for pretrial motions including those related to death penalty: Sept. 8
Deadline for responses to motions: Sept. 15
Deadline for proposed jury questionnaires: Sept. 18
Deadline for proposed witnesses under rules 16b6 and c3: Sept 15
Deadline for rule 404b notices: Sept. 15
Court will hear all the motions: Sept. 22 at 10amPT
Jury Selection: Sept. 25, 26 & 27 (possibly more)
Final Pretrial conference: Sept. 29 at 10amPT
Trial: Oct. 2 beginning at 8:30amPT through Nov. 17


 
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The court is trying to schedule a day to discuss a motion to dismiss indictment. The defense hopes to propose it sooner rather than later, but the judge says he is very busy trying to clear his schedule before Oct. 2. The state is arguing that it needs time to go through the motion and build their arguments against it once it is filed. They say they need at least seven days. The motion to dismiss indictment has been scheduled for 1pmPT on Sept. 1.


It is wild to think that this trial could begin on Oct. 2. Every single legal expert I've spoken to say they don't think it will begin then. But the way both sides + the judge are talking right now, it really seems as if they are adamant of getting this going on time.

 
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