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Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program. Today,

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we have an article from the Heritage Foundation, and this

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article is talking about how the evidence was compiled against

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Brian Cohberger and how that evidence complied with the Fourth Amendment.

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I know there's been some questions about that and about

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the genealogy that was used that led the authorities to

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Brian Coberger, So I thought that this article would offer

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a little bit of context and a little bit more

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clarity about all of that. So let's just dive right

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in and let's see what author Charles Cully Stimpson has

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to say. Headline, how DNA and cell phone evidence in

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Idaho murders complied with the Fourth Amendment. Now, remember that's

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all very important, right, because if someone's constitutional rights are

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stepped on by the investigators, by the police, they're going

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to use that to their advantage and they should. And

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there has been plenty of times where people who were

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obviously guilty got off because the prosecution or the police

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didn't do everything correctly. Now I'm not saying that happened here,

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but it's always worth exploring. Right, the prosecution and the

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government they have to be on their game and they

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have to make sure they're doing things by the book,

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and if they get caught cutting corners, then they should

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have to pay the penalty for that. Did the police

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violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the man accused of

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slaying four college students in Idaho. Much has been made

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of the fact that authorities relied in part on genetic

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genealogy and DNA evidence to justify the arrest warrants in

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this case, but the use of such technologies and the

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way it was likely used in this case was lawful,

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as was the use of self self site location information

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used to track the movements of the suspect's phone. Police

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have released a partially redacted after David that offers a

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clearer picture of the facts of the case and the

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evidence supporting the alleged killers arrest. And there's no doubt

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that what they did was constitutional. When you go after

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somebody like Brian Koberger and you conduct a trash pull

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like they did in Pennsylvania, that is perfectly legal under

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the Constitution of Pennsylvania. Once you discard trash by the

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side of the road, it is now considered a free

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for all. Right. Anyone can go and go through it

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and look for whatever they want, and that includes the

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police and the authorities DNA at the crime scene. The

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four murder victims, all students at the University of Idaho,

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were found in a house near the Moscow campus. Each

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was stabbed to death between approximately four am and four

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to twenty five am on November thirteenth, twenty twenty. Two

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male and female victims were found stabbed to death in

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a second floor bedroom. Two female victims were found in

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a single bet on the third floor. Next to one

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of the deceased girls was a tan leather knife sheath.

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Forensic examination found DNA from an unknown male on the

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sheaths button snap. And now, of course there's people out

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there that will say that the sheath doesn't prove anything.

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What if Brian Coberger was there previously. What if you

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as friends with one of these girls, and I say, okay,

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that's all fine and well, but there's gonna have to

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be some proof of that. Right. You can't go in

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front of a jury and just say whatever you want.

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They're gonna demand proof of that. And while the burden

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of proof is certainly on the prosecution, you can't just

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say whatever you want is the defense and expect the

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court to accept it. So they're going to have to

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explain how that DNA got on the button of that sheath,

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and from my seat here in the peanut gallery, I

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just don't know how they plan on doing that self

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cite location evidence, and this is the weakest evidence out

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of all of it. If this was all they had,

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I'd be laughing them right out of the courtroom. But

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when you tie this together with the other stuff, well,

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it paints a different picture, right, And it certainly gives you,

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at the very least probable cause. And there was enough

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of that probable cause for the judge to issue a warrant.

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Several months before the murders. On August twenty first, a

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county sheriff in Moscow stopped the suspect for a traffic infraction.

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He was driving a white twenty fifteen Hondai a Lantra

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with Pennsylvania plates. He provided his cell phone number to

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the officer. And this was one of the biggest mistakes

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Coburger made, because they were able to cross reference all

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of this stuff, look at the phone records and place

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this numb nut at the scene of the crime. How

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many times twelve at least every cell phone receives and

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sends signal to a local cell tower when the phone

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is turned on. As the cell phone moves, the signal

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transfers seamlessly from one tower to the next in the

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direction the phone is moving. Cell Phone service providers keep

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records on every cell phone using its services, including all

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cell site location information, and this information provides a map

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of where and when the phone went while it was on.

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So we know that Brian Coberger, according to the Affidavid,

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turned his phone off at the time that these murders

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were committed. Law enforcement applied for and was granted a

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search warrant for historical phone records for the alleged murderer's

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phone number. The record showed the account had been opened

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on June twenty third of twenty twenty two for a

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subscriber with the name of the suspect, who was listed

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at an address in all Brightsville, Pennsylvania. So Brian Coberger

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was keeping his address in all Brightsville, and I can

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understand that, right. Maybe he didn't plan on staying in Pullman,

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and that wasn't going to be his permanent address up there,

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so he didn't want to go through the rigamarole of

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changing all of that. I get that, but I think

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he made a pretty big mistake by changing his plates

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out when he did. Now I know that they were

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up for renewal, but it really looked bad for him

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and really turns some eyes his way. When you have

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that car that was seen at the crime and then

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it changes its plates like that, you know there's going

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to be some suspicion. A review of the historical CSLI

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data revealed that prior to the date of the murders,

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the phone at Ping cell towers in the area of

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the murder scene on twelve separate occasions, always in the

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evening or early morning hours. In fact, three months before

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the murders, on August twenty first, the suspect's phone pinged

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a cell tower that provided coverage to the King Road

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residence for over an hour from ten thirty four pm

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to eleven thirty five pm. So, oh boy, according to

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the phone records, anyway, was sitting out here and watching

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this house for an hour. I'm sure he wasn't out

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there doing homework or talking on the internet or anything

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like that. So he's gonna have to explain that in

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court as well. On the night of the murders, CLSI

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shows the phone at her nearest suspect's apartment in Pullman, Washington,

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at two forty two am. For the next five minutes,

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it moves south through Pullman, then stops pinging altogether, indicating

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the phone was then either turned off or put into

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airplane mode. Two hours later, at four forty eight am,

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the phone signal returned, pinging towers near State Highway ninety

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five south of Moscow and Blaine, Idaho. The phone then

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traveled south to Genese, Idaho, west to Uniontown, Idaho, and

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then north, arriving back at the suspects apartment at five

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thirty am. And during this ride home, I'm convinced at

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this point that Brian Koberger got rid of evidence and

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with the desolation out there, good luck at ever finding it.

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The CLSI footprint of the suspected killer's phone is consistent

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with the times, dates, and routes of the white A

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Lantras seen in video surveillance footage recovered from his neighborhood,

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his university, and the roads and highways between his apartment

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and the King Road residents. Did the police violate the

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murder suspect's Fourth Amendment rights by obtaining his CSLI information

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not at all. In Carpenter versus United States twenty eighteen,

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the United States Supreme Court raised the standard for allowing

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police to access SCLI records. Previously, the government would apply

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for a court order to obtain cell phone records under

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the Stored Communications Act. Those requests did not have to

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meet the probable cause standard needed to obtain a search

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warrant because the information was considered to be in the

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hands of a third party. The cell phone user therefore

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could have no reasonable exps of privacy over his CSLI.

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Carpenter upended that practice, requiring police to seek a search

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warrant for any CSLI if the scope of the request

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is more than seven days of data. And I think

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that was a good move by the Supreme Court, right.

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We don't want the police to be able to just

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snoop around willy nilly, but when there's a reason for it,

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then there has to be levers and channels that they

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can go through to get that information. In Idaho, the

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police were fully compliant. They first sought a search warrant

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for two days of CSLI data centered around the time

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of the slayings. After reviewing those recordings, they then requested

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and received a warrant for all CSLI from June to December.

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That data paints a damning map of the whereabouts of

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the suspect's phone in the months leading up to the

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murders and on the night of the crimes. Prosecutors will

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argue that the alleged killer scoped out the murder site

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a dozen times in the dark of night prior to

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the quadruple homicides. They will certainly argue that, based on

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the map of the phone's movement on the night of

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the murders, the suspect left his residence after two am,

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drove toward Idaho, turned off the phone while he committed

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the murders, and then turned on the phone after the

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murders were over. And we saw that in the probable

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cause Affid David certainly something that the prosecutors are contending.

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When overlaid with the movement of the white Alantra, the

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cell phone's movement would appear to be quite persuasive, no

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doubt about it. But we need more. It's not good

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enough for me anyway, just to have cell phone data,

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especially considering that it can ping off these towers all

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over the place. Genetic genealogy, What about the admissibility of

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the DNA evidence. On December twenty seventh, Pennsylvania law enforcement

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officers retreat trash from the suspect family, residents in all Brightsville.

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Under the Supreme Court's decision in California versus Greenwood, the

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Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure

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of garbage outside of a home. Lab testing compared DNA

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found on some of the retrieved trash and the DNA

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obtained from the sheath founded the crime scene. The lab

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concluded that at least ninety nine point nine eight percent

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of the male population would be expected to be excluded

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from the possibility of being the suspect's biological father. In

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plain English, that means the trash DNA came from the

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father of the person who left the DNA on the

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sheath at the crime scene, and that science is very

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very strong. That's the same thing they use for paternity

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tests and stuff, so very very strong science. The affidavit

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is deliberately vague on how the authorities came to this conclusion,

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but it's not hard to figure out what happened. No doubt.

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Police subjected the sheath DNA to two separate tests, one

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to forensically identify the DNA profile for admission into court,

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and one to create a SNIP based genetic profile that

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might enable them to connect that person's DNA to a

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close relative. SNIP stands for single nucleotide polymorphism and is,

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in Layman's terms, a sequence variation that allows geneticis to

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identify close relatives through genetic genealogy. And it's crazy how

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far this science has come. I'm forty three years old,

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and the leaps and bounds that this science has made

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since I've been a kid is just amazing. Police were

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able to tie the profiles of the suspect and his

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father together, and because the suspect is an only child,

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this was enough to establish probable cause and a rest

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him for the homicides. A quick correction, not an only child,

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but his only son. He has a sister. If the

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case goes to a contested trial, the government's case will

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hinge not only on the CSLI, DNA and genetic genealogy

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evidence described above, but also witness testimony, audio evidence, video

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evidence of the travels of the defendants, White Alantra, and

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other evidence of the defendants online activities. Like all defendants,

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the Moscow murder suspect is presumed innocent unless until proven

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guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But there is no doubt

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that there are no Fourth Amendment issues with respect to

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the CLSI or DNA evidence in this case. So I

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know there had been a lot of talk about that

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the Fourth Amendment and if Brian Koberger's constitutional rights had

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been stepped on, and the answer to that emphatically is no.

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So I don't even expect Brian Colberger's legal team to

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attempt to challenge any of that as far as on

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a constitutional basis. Instead, they're gonna focus on other things.

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They're going to focus on, you know, trying to put

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somebody else at the scene of the crime, trying to

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punch holes in what the experts have to say, and

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doing whatever they can to try and cause at the

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very least some reasonable doubt in the minds of those jurors.

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All Right, folks, that's gonna do it for this one.

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All of the information that goes with the episode can

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be found in the description box.