Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program. During
Speaker 1: the lead up to the Brian Coberger trial that never came,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of talk about the different conditions
Speaker 1: that he was suffering from, and according to his psych evaluation,
Speaker 1: he was diagnosed with autism, OCD and anorexia. And if
Speaker 1: you remember, there was a battle going on inside the
Speaker 1: courtroom between his legal team and the state about these
Speaker 1: conditions and if they would be mitigating factors when it
Speaker 1: comes to the death penalty, and the judge, Judge Hitler,
Speaker 1: ruled against the defense in every single one of them,
Speaker 1: saying that none of these conditions raised to a level
Speaker 1: that would prevent a capital punishment sentence from being handed down.
Speaker 1: But now those evaluations have been unsealed, and for the
Speaker 1: first time, the public's getting a look at what the
Speaker 1: defense expert had to say. So in this episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to dive into an article from People and the
Speaker 1: headline psych evaluation diagnosing Brian Coberger with autism, OCD and
Speaker 1: orexia unsealed. This article was authored by Chris Spargo. Brian
Speaker 1: Colberger revealed that he had been diagnosed with four mental
Speaker 1: health disorders in a twenty twenty five cord filing autism
Speaker 1: Level one, OCD, ADHD, and ar FID. There was no
Speaker 1: additional information on those disorders including in that filing, but
Speaker 1: Coberger did note that he had been diagnosed with all
Speaker 1: four in February of twenty twenty five. Now the detailed
Speaker 1: neuropsychological evaluation that resulted in those diagnoses have been unsealed
Speaker 1: by the court, providing details about the four disorders while
Speaker 1: also revealing for additional diagnosis that were previously unknown. So
Speaker 1: here's the question. Was Brian Colberger going through a psychiatric break?
Speaker 1: Was he having some kind of issue, you know, like
Speaker 1: they're saying with Lindsay Clancy. So I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: getting at is where do we draw the line? Because
Speaker 1: couldn't you use that same defense for Brian Colberger? Oh,
Speaker 1: he was suffering from AB and C. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I'm just playing Devil's advocate here. As you all know,
Speaker 1: I think this dude is as guilty as it comes.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to these conditions, I don't really
Speaker 1: have any sympathy for him or empathy. He was able
Speaker 1: to function in society for all these years, right, was
Speaker 1: able to go to college, was able to get you know,
Speaker 1: a ba was working on his PhD. But all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, now we want to rely on these conditions
Speaker 1: when it comes to him being in trouble. Now you
Speaker 1: can miss me with that. Now. I know that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are down with that shit
Speaker 1: these days, but not me. Guess what if you kill somebody,
Speaker 1: you need to pay the price. Now we can talk
Speaker 1: about mitigation when it comes to the penalty phase one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. And if somebody is going through a mental episode,
Speaker 1: then yeah, there should be some concessions. But the million
Speaker 1: dollar question at this point is where's that line drawn.
Speaker 1: Is it drawn at some woman who says that she's
Speaker 1: suffering from postpartum depression who has been obviously over medicated,
Speaker 1: or do we draw the line at Brian Colberger saying
Speaker 1: that he has these disorders? And if one's acceptable, why
Speaker 1: isn't the other? You know they're going to make that
Speaker 1: argument in court right. The evaluation was done by Rachel Lawson,
Speaker 1: an expert hired by Colberger's defense team. She was brought
Speaker 1: in by Colberger's attorney Ann Taylor as she and prosecutors
Speaker 1: butted heads over Coburger's mental health, which he argued should
Speaker 1: be a mitigating factor, but prosecutors wish to classify as
Speaker 1: an aggravator according to emotion in lemonae filed by the
Speaker 1: defense at the time. And remember this is about mitigation, right,
Speaker 1: not about if he's guilty, you're innocent, And that's when
Speaker 1: this comes into play. So do you give somebody the
Speaker 1: death penalty who has all these conditions? Or as a
Speaker 1: jur do you say, you know what, I don't think
Speaker 1: that I can go through with that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that he meets the standard in my opinion, considering the
Speaker 1: issues that he has and considering how he was able
Speaker 1: to function, it would be a non starter. If I
Speaker 1: was a jur that narrative would be away with me.
Speaker 1: And I try to put myself in the jury box
Speaker 1: when we're talking about this, because that's what really matters, right,
Speaker 1: What would the jurors think? And in my opinion, the
Speaker 1: jerry is not going to be buying any of this nonsense.
Speaker 1: She also provided the court with Or's evaluation of Coburger,
Speaker 1: which had remained under steal until now. The defense made
Speaker 1: it clear that the evaluation was not done to pursue
Speaker 1: a mental capacity defense at trial, but rather to put
Speaker 1: Or on the stand if needed, so she could respond
Speaker 1: to claims made by prosecutors. It's all about mitigation again. Remember,
Speaker 1: it's all about Brian Colberger not getting the death penalty.
Speaker 1: That's what they were trying to do. And I think
Speaker 1: that when we look back at this in retrospect, it's
Speaker 1: obvious that Ann Taylor knew that Brian Colberger was cooked.
Speaker 1: She saw all the evidence, she saw the discovery, she
Speaker 1: saw all of the information that was going to be used,
Speaker 1: and she knew that her client was in big trouble.
Speaker 1: That's why she told him to take the plea. Not
Speaker 1: because he got bad counsel, not because Ann Taylor's a
Speaker 1: bad lawyer, it's anything. But he took that plea deal
Speaker 1: because he knew that the gag was up and that
Speaker 1: if you went to trial, a jury in Idaho was
Speaker 1: going to find his ask guilty and give him the
Speaker 1: death penalty. Colberger ultimately met with ORR on six separate
Speaker 1: occasions over three months for testing, evaluations, and conversation. According
Speaker 1: to the evaluation, a copy of which people obtained, one
Speaker 1: of the first things that Or noted to a report
Speaker 1: was Coberger's restricted range of facial expression with stoic effect
Speaker 1: at baseline and look, there's a lot of people out
Speaker 1: there that are really suffering from these conditions. So I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to make light of that. But what I
Speaker 1: am saying is I'm not buying it. It's not enough. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you have these conditions. Why did you kill
Speaker 1: those four kids? It's really what it comes down to
Speaker 1: for me, and frankly, I'm not interested in excuses or
Speaker 1: reasons why. She wrote that smiles were often slight, his
Speaker 1: social smiling was either inconsistent or absent, and the manner
Speaker 1: in which he often furrowed his eyebrows during more like
Speaker 1: conversation contributed the awkward engagement. So what, he's a weird dude.
Speaker 1: That means he should kill people? We should just you know, Ah,
Speaker 1: I get it. He was a social misfit, So the
Speaker 1: fact that he killed those four kids, we should just
Speaker 1: you know, be more understanding of that. No, I'm not
Speaker 1: more understanding of it, and I don't care. Coburger also
Speaker 1: exhibited a number of atypical social behaviors, she said, which
Speaker 1: included lack of descriptive or emphatic gestures, a typical speech
Speaker 1: tone and cadence, awkward interaction, lack of fluidity, awkward delivery
Speaker 1: of humor at times, awkward comments eg. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun doing the XX cognitive text, inconsistent understanding,
Speaker 1: acknowledgment of humor, poor reciprocity of interaction, including very frequently
Speaker 1: refocusing of conversation back on his own experiences, or unusual
Speaker 1: responses to my sharing. Okay, so the weird kid, that's
Speaker 1: basically what he was. How many people like that? Do
Speaker 1: you know how many people did you go to school
Speaker 1: with like that? And how many of them ended up killing?
Speaker 1: Four kids who are sleeping? Reduced social qualities at times
Speaker 1: without awareness, primarily through matter of fact comments or directives
Speaker 1: e g. Replying firmly I'll tell you when I'm done,
Speaker 1: one prompted for anything else during cognitive measures, or an
Speaker 1: abrupt response, unusual observations he made during testing, occasional intense gaze.
Speaker 1: So what about any of that tells us that he
Speaker 1: shouldn't be held to the fullest extent of the law
Speaker 1: for what he did. Well, according to Judge Hipler, none
Speaker 1: of it. Or also wrote in our evaluation that Colburger
Speaker 1: has impulse tendencies throughout evaluation, pointing out that he violated
Speaker 1: rules and rushed through tests. Additionally, he had an overall
Speaker 1: poor insight, according to Or, except for a few moments
Speaker 1: of fleeting acknowledgment one explicitly challenged to consider his role
Speaker 1: in certain situations. Oh give me a break. He was
Speaker 1: socially aware enough to make it through college, socially aware
Speaker 1: enough to get there, and socially aware enough to become
Speaker 1: a TA. But all of a sudden, Brian Colberger is
Speaker 1: a vegetable sitting around drooling on himself with a helmet.
Speaker 1: I'm not buying any of it. Save the emotional terrorism
Speaker 1: for somebody else. I've had my fill. Much of the
Speaker 1: behavior that Or witnessed were also reported by Colburger's parents
Speaker 1: and two sisters, who were interviewed on multiple occasions as
Speaker 1: part of the evaluation. Or wrote that Coburger's family noted
Speaker 1: that his struggles with everything from deficits in nonverbal communication
Speaker 1: and a limited range of facial expressions to rigid thinking
Speaker 1: and behavior, along with trouble coping with changes in routine
Speaker 1: and welcome to the real world. Who the fuck wants
Speaker 1: their routine changed? Not me? So does that mean he
Speaker 1: should get off on murder? His family members also described
Speaker 1: engaging in extensive social coaching add provision of social feedback
Speaker 1: to Noah Vail. According to the evaluation, this led to
Speaker 1: a diagnose of Coburger with four mental health disorders. The
Speaker 1: first was autism spectrum disorder level one without any accompanying
Speaker 1: intellectual or language impairment. Individuals that are diagnosed tend to
Speaker 1: be high functioning and display only a few symptoms of
Speaker 1: the disorder and often require no assistance to perform everyday
Speaker 1: tasks like I said nothing, Burger. She also diagnosed Coburger
Speaker 1: with obsessive compulsive disorder, which is typically characterized by an
Speaker 1: individual engaging in repetitive behavior in an attempt to shut
Speaker 1: out on wanted intrusive thoughts. Coburger also received an attention
Speaker 1: deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosis, which is one of the more
Speaker 1: common developmental disorders and can manifest in a number of ways,
Speaker 1: varying from person to person. A majority of those diagnosed
Speaker 1: struggle to pay attention, while others struggle to stay organized,
Speaker 1: keep a schedule, or stay focused on a specific task. Lastly,
Speaker 1: she diagnosed Coburger with an eating disord arfied or avoidant
Speaker 1: restrictive food intake disorder, most common in children. This disorder manifests,
Speaker 1: and highly selective eating habits that greatly limit in individual's
Speaker 1: diet and can result in malnutrition and limit a person's
Speaker 1: physical growth. Or also said that Colberger had met the
Speaker 1: criteria before additional diagnosis in the past developmental coordination disorder,
Speaker 1: an unspecified depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, an opioid use disorder.
Speaker 1: That last disorder or result of the heroin addiction Colburger
Speaker 1: developed in his teenage years is in sustained remission or
Speaker 1: noted in the evaluation. Okay, none of that meets the
Speaker 1: bar for him not to get the death penalty. And
Speaker 1: now that we actually have the report and I've looked
Speaker 1: at it, I feel the same way. This man should
Speaker 1: have stood trial and in my opinion, should have been
Speaker 1: found guilty and he should have faced the firing squad.
Speaker 1: Colberger did not attempt to claim he was not the
Speaker 1: mind due to any of these diagnoses when entering his
Speaker 1: guilty plea to the four charges of murder. He wrote
Speaker 1: in his own filing that he was aware of the
Speaker 1: fact that if the judge accepted his plea, he would
Speaker 1: likely be sentenced to serve four lifetimes in prison along
Speaker 1: with an additional ten years on a burglary charge. Four
Speaker 1: life sentences still not enough, because those four lives that
Speaker 1: he took, they're never coming back, no matter how many
Speaker 1: years this idiot does. Colberger then appeared in court on
Speaker 1: July second, twenty twenty five, and confessed to killing the
Speaker 1: four University of Idaho students Madison Mogan, Kayley Gunsalvis, Xana Kernodle,
Speaker 1: and Ethan Chapin. Three weeks later, he was back in court,
Speaker 1: at which time he was sentenced to serve four lifetimes
Speaker 1: in prison for those murders. Then, in July of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, Coburger filed the motion with the court asking
Speaker 1: that his guilty plea be tossed out and that he
Speaker 1: be allowed a trial on account of ineffective council. Prosecutors
Speaker 1: have yet to respond to the filing. Ineffective council. That's
Speaker 1: some of the biggest horseshit I've ever heard. This dude
Speaker 1: has not had ineffective council. Okay, and Taylor killed it
Speaker 1: for him. She was great. And you know how you
Speaker 1: know she was great because everybody was criticizing her at
Speaker 1: the time. She's going too far. There's too many filings, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: So that whole entire argument just doesn't hit. And I
Speaker 1: think that the court is going to recognize that, and
Speaker 1: I think that this appeal is going to be smacked down.
Speaker 1: But like usual, we'll keep following along and we'll see
Speaker 1: what the prosecution has to say. In response to Brian Coberger.
Speaker 1: All the information that goes with this episode can be
Speaker 1: found in the description box.