Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program. Today,
we have an article from the Heritage Foundation, and this
article is talking about how the evidence was compiled against
Brian Cohberger and how that evidence complied with the Fourth Amendment.
I know there's been some questions about that and about
the genealogy that was used that led the authorities to
Brian Coberger, So I thought that this article would offer
a little bit of context and a little bit more
clarity about all of that. So let's just dive right
in and let's see what author Charles Cully Stimpson has
to say. Headline, how DNA and cell phone evidence in
Idaho murders complied with the Fourth Amendment. Now, remember that's
all very important, right, because if someone's constitutional rights are
stepped on by the investigators, by the police, they're going
to use that to their advantage and they should. And
there has been plenty of times where people who were
obviously guilty got off because the prosecution or the police
didn't do everything correctly. Now I'm not saying that happened here,
but it's always worth exploring. Right, the prosecution and the
government they have to be on their game and they
have to make sure they're doing things by the book,
and if they get caught cutting corners, then they should
have to pay the penalty for that. Did the police
violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the man accused of
slaying four college students in Idaho. Much has been made
of the fact that authorities relied in part on genetic
genealogy and DNA evidence to justify the arrest warrants in
this case, but the use of such technologies and the
way it was likely used in this case was lawful,
as was the use of self self site location information
used to track the movements of the suspect's phone. Police
have released a partially redacted after David that offers a
clearer picture of the facts of the case and the
evidence supporting the alleged killers arrest. And there's no doubt
that what they did was constitutional. When you go after
somebody like Brian Koberger and you conduct a trash pull
like they did in Pennsylvania, that is perfectly legal under
the Constitution of Pennsylvania. Once you discard trash by the
side of the road, it is now considered a free
for all. Right. Anyone can go and go through it
and look for whatever they want, and that includes the
police and the authorities DNA at the crime scene. The
four murder victims, all students at the University of Idaho,
were found in a house near the Moscow campus. Each
was stabbed to death between approximately four am and four
to twenty five am on November thirteenth, twenty twenty. Two
male and female victims were found stabbed to death in
a second floor bedroom. Two female victims were found in
a single bet on the third floor. Next to one
of the deceased girls was a tan leather knife sheath.
Forensic examination found DNA from an unknown male on the
sheaths button snap. And now, of course there's people out
there that will say that the sheath doesn't prove anything.
What if Brian Coberger was there previously. What if you
as friends with one of these girls, and I say, okay,
that's all fine and well, but there's gonna have to
be some proof of that. Right. You can't go in
front of a jury and just say whatever you want.
They're gonna demand proof of that. And while the burden
of proof is certainly on the prosecution, you can't just
say whatever you want is the defense and expect the
court to accept it. So they're going to have to
explain how that DNA got on the button of that sheath,
and from my seat here in the peanut gallery, I
just don't know how they plan on doing that self
cite location evidence, and this is the weakest evidence out
of all of it. If this was all they had,
I'd be laughing them right out of the courtroom. But
when you tie this together with the other stuff, well,
it paints a different picture, right, And it certainly gives you,
at the very least probable cause. And there was enough
of that probable cause for the judge to issue a warrant.
Several months before the murders. On August twenty first, a
county sheriff in Moscow stopped the suspect for a traffic infraction.
He was driving a white twenty fifteen Hondai a Lantra
with Pennsylvania plates. He provided his cell phone number to
the officer. And this was one of the biggest mistakes
Coburger made, because they were able to cross reference all
of this stuff, look at the phone records and place
this numb nut at the scene of the crime. How
many times twelve at least every cell phone receives and
sends signal to a local cell tower when the phone
is turned on. As the cell phone moves, the signal
transfers seamlessly from one tower to the next in the
direction the phone is moving. Cell Phone service providers keep
records on every cell phone using its services, including all
cell site location information, and this information provides a map
of where and when the phone went while it was on.
So we know that Brian Coberger, according to the Affidavid,
turned his phone off at the time that these murders
were committed. Law enforcement applied for and was granted a
search warrant for historical phone records for the alleged murderer's
phone number. The record showed the account had been opened
on June twenty third of twenty twenty two for a
subscriber with the name of the suspect, who was listed
at an address in all Brightsville, Pennsylvania. So Brian Coberger
was keeping his address in all Brightsville, and I can
understand that, right. Maybe he didn't plan on staying in Pullman,
and that wasn't going to be his permanent address up there,
so he didn't want to go through the rigamarole of
changing all of that. I get that, but I think
he made a pretty big mistake by changing his plates
out when he did. Now I know that they were
up for renewal, but it really looked bad for him
and really turns some eyes his way. When you have
that car that was seen at the crime and then
it changes its plates like that, you know there's going
to be some suspicion. A review of the historical CSLI
data revealed that prior to the date of the murders,
the phone at Ping cell towers in the area of
the murder scene on twelve separate occasions, always in the
evening or early morning hours. In fact, three months before
the murders, on August twenty first, the suspect's phone pinged
a cell tower that provided coverage to the King Road
residence for over an hour from ten thirty four pm
to eleven thirty five pm. So, oh boy, according to
the phone records, anyway, was sitting out here and watching
this house for an hour. I'm sure he wasn't out
there doing homework or talking on the internet or anything
like that. So he's gonna have to explain that in
court as well. On the night of the murders, CLSI
shows the phone at her nearest suspect's apartment in Pullman, Washington,
at two forty two am. For the next five minutes,
it moves south through Pullman, then stops pinging altogether, indicating
the phone was then either turned off or put into
airplane mode. Two hours later, at four forty eight am,
the phone signal returned, pinging towers near State Highway ninety
five south of Moscow and Blaine, Idaho. The phone then
traveled south to Genese, Idaho, west to Uniontown, Idaho, and
then north, arriving back at the suspects apartment at five
thirty am. And during this ride home, I'm convinced at
this point that Brian Koberger got rid of evidence and
with the desolation out there, good luck at ever finding it.
The CLSI footprint of the suspected killer's phone is consistent
with the times, dates, and routes of the white A
Lantras seen in video surveillance footage recovered from his neighborhood,
his university, and the roads and highways between his apartment
and the King Road residents. Did the police violate the
murder suspect's Fourth Amendment rights by obtaining his CSLI information
not at all. In Carpenter versus United States twenty eighteen,
the United States Supreme Court raised the standard for allowing
police to access SCLI records. Previously, the government would apply
for a court order to obtain cell phone records under
the Stored Communications Act. Those requests did not have to
meet the probable cause standard needed to obtain a search
warrant because the information was considered to be in the
hands of a third party. The cell phone user therefore
could have no reasonable exps of privacy over his CSLI.
Carpenter upended that practice, requiring police to seek a search
warrant for any CSLI if the scope of the request
is more than seven days of data. And I think
that was a good move by the Supreme Court, right.
We don't want the police to be able to just
snoop around willy nilly, but when there's a reason for it,
then there has to be levers and channels that they
can go through to get that information. In Idaho, the
police were fully compliant. They first sought a search warrant
for two days of CSLI data centered around the time
of the slayings. After reviewing those recordings, they then requested
and received a warrant for all CSLI from June to December.
That data paints a damning map of the whereabouts of
the suspect's phone in the months leading up to the
murders and on the night of the crimes. Prosecutors will
argue that the alleged killer scoped out the murder site
a dozen times in the dark of night prior to
the quadruple homicides. They will certainly argue that, based on
the map of the phone's movement on the night of
the murders, the suspect left his residence after two am,
drove toward Idaho, turned off the phone while he committed
the murders, and then turned on the phone after the
murders were over. And we saw that in the probable
cause Affid David certainly something that the prosecutors are contending.
When overlaid with the movement of the white Alantra, the
cell phone's movement would appear to be quite persuasive, no
doubt about it. But we need more. It's not good
enough for me anyway, just to have cell phone data,
especially considering that it can ping off these towers all
over the place. Genetic genealogy, What about the admissibility of
the DNA evidence. On December twenty seventh, Pennsylvania law enforcement
officers retreat trash from the suspect family, residents in all Brightsville.
Under the Supreme Court's decision in California versus Greenwood, the
Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure
of garbage outside of a home. Lab testing compared DNA
found on some of the retrieved trash and the DNA
obtained from the sheath founded the crime scene. The lab
concluded that at least ninety nine point nine eight percent
of the male population would be expected to be excluded
from the possibility of being the suspect's biological father. In
plain English, that means the trash DNA came from the
father of the person who left the DNA on the
sheath at the crime scene, and that science is very
very strong. That's the same thing they use for paternity
tests and stuff, so very very strong science. The affidavit
is deliberately vague on how the authorities came to this conclusion,
but it's not hard to figure out what happened. No doubt.
Police subjected the sheath DNA to two separate tests, one
to forensically identify the DNA profile for admission into court,
and one to create a SNIP based genetic profile that
might enable them to connect that person's DNA to a
close relative. SNIP stands for single nucleotide polymorphism and is,
in Layman's terms, a sequence variation that allows geneticis to
identify close relatives through genetic genealogy. And it's crazy how
far this science has come. I'm forty three years old,
and the leaps and bounds that this science has made
since I've been a kid is just amazing. Police were
able to tie the profiles of the suspect and his
father together, and because the suspect is an only child,
this was enough to establish probable cause and a rest
him for the homicides. A quick correction, not an only child,
but his only son. He has a sister. If the
case goes to a contested trial, the government's case will
hinge not only on the CSLI, DNA and genetic genealogy
evidence described above, but also witness testimony, audio evidence, video
evidence of the travels of the defendants, White Alantra, and
other evidence of the defendants online activities. Like all defendants,
the Moscow murder suspect is presumed innocent unless until proven
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But there is no doubt
that there are no Fourth Amendment issues with respect to
the CLSI or DNA evidence in this case. So I
know there had been a lot of talk about that
the Fourth Amendment and if Brian Koberger's constitutional rights had
been stepped on, and the answer to that emphatically is no.
So I don't even expect Brian Colberger's legal team to
attempt to challenge any of that as far as on
a constitutional basis. Instead, they're gonna focus on other things.
They're going to focus on, you know, trying to put
somebody else at the scene of the crime, trying to
punch holes in what the experts have to say, and
doing whatever they can to try and cause at the
very least some reasonable doubt in the minds of those jurors.
All Right, folks, that's gonna do it for this one.
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