Amidst the 2022 quadruple murder case, Ada County Judge Steven Hippler denied Bryan Kohberger’s request to throw out DNA evidence in his upcoming trial. Following this update, Kohberger’s defense team is replacing Jay Logsdon, an Idaho state public defender, with Bicka Barlow, a Californian attorney specializing in forensic evidence.
Kohberger is being prosecuted for the first-degree murders of University of Idaho students Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
The request to suppress evidence argued that police did not obtain warrants to analyze Kohberger’s DNA, which was found at the crime scene. They additionally did not obtain a warrant to analyze DNA of Kohberger’s relatives, which was sourced from genealogy databases. This process ultimately led to identifying Kohberger as a suspect.
Hippler denied this request on the grounds that Kohberger’s DNA was analyzed only for identifying purposes, and that the relative’s DNA was provided consensually to the database. He ruled that the police did not violate any constitutional rights.
In addition to seeking to have the evidence thrown out, Kohberger requested a Franks Hearing from Hippler, which he also denied. A Franks Hearing is a court proceeding held when the defendant has reason to believe that police lied in obtaining a search warrant.
Hippler said that the defense could not prove that police intentionally or recklessly lied concerning information that allowed them to obtain the search warrant, as per Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
Barlow, who previously worked in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, has run her own private practice since 2013, specifically focusing on cases involving DNA. According to her website, she has primarily counseled on homicide and serious felony cases.
Barlow is not licensed to practice in Idaho and therefore had to be approved by Hippler to join the trial as an attorney. No explicit reason was provided by Kohberger’s legal team as to why the substitution occurred.
Kohberger’s trial is set to begin in Ada County this August.
Alison Cranney can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu.