Criminal Defense Attorney in Media, PA: Enrique Latoison on Bryan Kohberger’s Arraignment Silenc

I’m Enrique Latoison, this video is being brought to you by commentary creations, your 3-minute lawyer. Today we are going to talk about Bryan Kohberger, who refuses to speak at his arraignment. What is this about and what is going on here? For somebody that is accused of killing 4 people, it got rather quiet very quickly. Is this a big deal? Is this normal? What is taking place here? Here in PA, this happens all the time. Now they are in Idaho, they said that he refused and that he remained silent. Here in PA, we say they stand mute. That is typically what takes place. When you go to a formal arraignment process, this is the process where you go from a district court level, up to a higher level at the court of common pleas. Here in PA we call it the court of common pleas, in Idaho it is the next level. At that court, is when you formally make your plea. Here in PA at our arraignment, the clients don’t say anything. We say they are standing mute. There in Idaho on behalf of Mr. Kohberger, the attorneys said he stands silent. What that means is that the judge ultimately still enters a not guilty plea in for Mr. Kohberger, but the judge is the one who does it, and not Mr. Kohberger. What that means is that he still reserves his right to still plead guilty, to plead not guilty at some point but for now, he is officially pleading not guilty in the court’s eyes. This allows the defense and the prosecution to still deal with one another and still allows him to change his plea at any point. The prosecution in this case, pretty gangster move, a great move for the prosecution, what they did was, to keep Mr. Kohberger from having a preliminary hearing, which was originally scheduled for June, they did a grand jury. Idaho has a rule here where if someone is charged with a felony or a serious crime, the prosecution can have 2 things done to prove probable cause. They have to prove probable cause to get to that next level at that arraignment. They can either have a preliminary hearing, which was originally scheduled in June, or they can do what you call a grand jury. There is a huge advantage for the prosecution to be doing a grand jury. If you do a grand jury, the defense cannot cross-examine that evidence. The defense is not in the room, they are not there when this evidence is being presented. The prosecution is able to put this evidence on in a pretty favorable environment, and then present this evidence, and then allow the grand jury to indict Mr. Kohberger. By doing that, the preliminary hearing is canceled. Pretty good move on the prosecution’s part, and now it’s up at the trial level. This is where he was at the formal arraignment where we hear about the fact that he didn’t say anything. This is pretty bad for the defense in this case because they don’t get a chance to cross-examine the evidence. The defense doesn’t get the chance to attack the evidence, they don’t get a chance to cross-examine anyone. They don’t get a chance to have someone on the stand where they get to go against the witnesses. This is a pretty gangster move for the prosecutor and I would say good for them. If the law allows it and there’s nothing illegal, they are putting on the best case that they can and they owe nothing to the defense to do something that’s going to be better for them. This is part 2 of this series, you can also check out my video on preliminaries to get an idea of what he missed or what was taken away from him. What we are dealing with here is many more videos to come in reference to this matter.