anything the prosecutors produce that goes to motive, planning, stalking, prior acts to inform the jury. That he is a weirdo? no that doesn't fly. That he was sneaking around some girls apartment when she wasn't home, his google searches etc..going through garbage cans at 4 am or something with rubber gloves on, moving trash to another property....trying to hide his DNA and hide evidence from LE.. They have to show he planned it and he did it and present the DNA evidence. They have to paint a picture of Bryan for the jury... a guy who drives around all night and goes running in the wee hours of the morning...past your daughter's dorm room. If I am on the jury , Bryan is a dead man. mOO
BBM
Prior acts are exactly what Rule 403 generally prohibits being from used at trial.
It surely sounds like you are ready to convict BK before the trial starts based on press stories about what he
might have done in the past. Of course, you have a right to your opinion and I'm sure there are other people who share that opinion. After all, the trial was moved in part because of the prejudicial effect of media stories on potential jurors. But wherever trials are held, our system of justice isn't supposed to convict people of specific crimes based on who they are, what character traits they may or may not have, what the press may or may not say about them, or what they might or might not have done in the past. And jurors certainly aren't supposed to come in convinced a defendant must be guilty unless he can be proven innocent by the defense.
Even if the rules governing criminal procedure did routinely allow evidence of prior illegal acts to be admitted at trial, I very much doubt some of the things mentioned above are provable nor are others illegal in any way. For example, I doubt it could ever be proven that he was "sneaking around some girls apartment when she wasn't home." The graduate female WSU classmate discussed in the media supposedly
thought someone had entered her apartment when she wasn't home
so she asked BK to help her set up a home surveillance system. (She never notified the police.)
After he was arrested for the murders some commenting on a
Dateline episode suggested 1) BK
might have secretly broken in so she'd ask him to help her with the surveillance system and 2) in setting up the system, he
might have left easy video access to her apartment for himself going forward. Those offering information and opinions included "an unnamed source" (always so trustworthy!), one of those infamous ex-FBI agents who are often later shown to have been 100% wrong about the high profile cases they commented on, and the daughter of a serial killer. (I'm sure it was hard for her growing up, but far as I can tell she believes her family background gives her expertise in analyzing all sorts of criminal behavior. I'm not sure that's true.)
Bryan Kohberger allegedly stalked a female classmate at Washington State University months before he would be accused of killing four undergrads at the neighboring University of Idaho, according to a new report.
www.fox13seattle.com
We don't know if ANY of the
Dateline suppositions are true. And they are certainly a far cry from
having proof he was sneaking around the woman's apartment when she wasn't home!
Running at night doesn't make someone guilty of any crime nor does being a night owl who drives around at night. And while I don't claim to have read all the stories about BK's supposed past, I've never read he was caught trespassing near a girls dorm. (You wrote "a guy who drives around all night and goes running in the wee hours of the morning...past your daughter's dorm room" so I'm guessing that's what you meant.) Certainly he hasn't ever been convicted of or even charged with a crime involving a dorm location. Nor has he been charged with being a "Peeping Tom." His criminal record is clean except for the fuzzy decade's old 2014 charge related to stealing his sister's iPhone. Being a thief, assuming he was in 2014 (the disposition of the phone case is unclear) doesn't mean he committed multiple murders years later.
To make it past voir dire, potential jurors will have to swear they will judge BK's guilt only on the evidence presented in court, not on all the sensational stories about him circulated in the press. Hopefully those who say they will do that aren't lying or if they are, they are such bad liars they will be tossed anyway. (And lying under oath--perjury-- would be a crime too. Should they be prosecuted? Would lying under those circumstances mean those people are "criminal types" likely to commit other crimes?)
MOO
www.rulesofevidence.org
