Shakeup hits Bryan Kohberger's defense after judge rules to keep DNA for Idaho murder trial

Yahoo

22-02-2025

The defense team for Moscow college student homicides suspect Bryan Kohberger is undergoing a shakeup.
Jay Logsdon, North Idaho's state public defender and co-counsel for Kohberger's defense, will be replaced for his capital murder trial, a Thursday court order said. Taking Logsdon's spot is a Northern California attorney who specializes in DNA and previously testified as a paid consultant for the defense in the case.
Bicka Barlow, formerly of the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, joins the trio of lawyers defending Kohberger. Since 2013, she has run a private law office with a focus on cases that involve forensic DNA evidence, according to her website.
No reason was listed for the attorney substitution in the high-profile case. Patrick Orr, spokesperson for the Idaho State Public Defender's Office, where Logsdon is employed, declined to comment to the Idaho Statesman on the move, citing the standing gag order in the Kohberger case.
Kohberger, 30, is accused of the fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in November 2022. He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and a count of felony burglary. The case is scheduled to go to trial this summer, and the state intends to seek the death penalty for Kohberger if a jury finds him guilty of the murders.
The four victims were Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d'Alene; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The three women lived at an off-campus home in Moscow where they were found stabbed to death, and Chapin was Kernodle's boyfriend and stayed over for the night.
A leather sheath for a fixed-blade knife was located next to the body of one of the victims, according to the probable cause affidavit. Investigators discovered DNA on the sheath, which, after analysis later came back as a statistical match to Kohberger, police and prosecutors allege.
Logsdon, who has been Kohberger's No. 2 public defender for about two years, will be retained as a consulting attorney, lead defense attorney Anne Taylor wrote in a request to add Barlow to Kohberger's legal team, which also includes attorney Elisa Massoth. Logsdon 'will not participate as trial counsel,' Taylor said.
Barlow was a defense witness at an August 2023 court hearing over the state's effort to limit some records related to the FBI's use in the case of an advanced DNA technique called investigative genetic genealogy, or IGG, which first landed on Kohberger as the suspect. The prosecution objected to Barlow's testimony as improper, and a veiled attempt to include the legal conclusions of an attorney not affiliated with the case. The prior judge allowed the defense to call her to the stand and later awarded the DNA records to the defense.
Barlow also was present last month in the courtroom for hearings over the defense's push to suppress a variety of evidence, including DNA. Ada County Judge Steven Hippler, now overseeing the closely watched case, earlier this week denied each of those requests to exclude any of the items seized from Kohberger through search warrants and during his arrest in late December 2022.
The timing of the attorney swap, about five months ahead of trial, doesn't come as a shock, Joshua Ritter, a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles and host of true crime podcast 'Courtroom Confidential,' told the Statesman. Instead, the action represented the defense 'fine-tuning who will be the in-court attorneys,' he said.
'To me, it's a swift battle strategy change,' Ritter said by phone. 'They realized this front of get the DNA kicked out from a legal standpoint has now been foreclosed, and now it's time to pivot and focus on trial. And, in doing so, they needed to reorganize their trial team.'
Barlow's established legal practice area of DNA and IGG makes her a logical choice for Kohberger's defense team, Boise criminal defense attorney Edwina Elcox added.
'The heart of the prosecution is also the antithesis of the defense,' she said by phone, 'and that's, 'How do you explain that his DNA was there on this knife sheath?' ' she said in a phone interview with the Statesman. 'So absolutely, bringing in somebody to defend against this critical piece of evidence makes sense.'
The prosecution, led by Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson, also is in the midst of subbing out a member of its team in the Kohberger case. Late last year, Thompson filed a request, which Hippler granted, to replace prosecutor Ingrid Batey, a special assistant attorney general assigned to the case. In January, Batey left the Idaho Attorney General's Office to join the Canyon County Prosecutor's Office, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Batey and Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye, chief of the office's criminal law division, were assigned in April 2023 to assist Thompson and his senior deputy attorney, Ashley Jennings, with the case. Nye remains a member of the team prosecuting Kohberger, but Batey's replacement from the Attorney General's Office has yet to be named in court filings.
The defense's addition of a lawyer well-versed in DNA evidence is likely of great consequence, Ritter said.
He compared it to when attorney Barry Scheck, a DNA expert, joined the high-powered defense team for O.J. Simpson for his 1995 double-murder trial in Los Angeles. DNA evidence was still in its infancy at that time, and Scheck played a critical role in Simpson's acquittal, Ritter noted.
Kohberger's attorneys have their work cut out for them now that Hippler ruled that the knife sheath DNA said to be the defendant's will be included at trial, he said. But with her inclusion, Barlow can be expected to lead arguments about the case's key piece of evidence to convince jurors that the crime scene DNA may not be what it appears, as Simpson's defense succeeded in doing, Ritter said.
'They have a hell of job ahead of them, because a lot of things have changed over the last 30 years,' he said.
Kohberger is next due in court for a hearing before Hippler on April 9. Jury selection is scheduled to begin July 30.