A Joint Jury Instruction Contradicting the PCA Idaho v Kohberger (Opinion)

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Indie Zone. My name is Kathy. It came to the surprise of many in the community as to the party's joint proposed jury instruction regarding tip leading to investigation of the defendant.

[00:00:17]The proposed jury instruction appears at page number two and it reads, "You heard Corporal Payne testify that the investigation team received a tip on December 19th, 2022 that caused them to investigate the defendant, Brian C.

[00:00:34]Coberger." This testimony was admitted for the limited purpose of explaining what caused law enforcement to investigate the defendant. You are not to consider the testimony for any purpose other than the limited purpose of when and why law enforcement first investigated the defendant. You are not to speculate as to the source or substance of the tip.

[00:01:01]Detective Payne when he testified at the January 23rd, 2025 closed hearing regarding the defendants all denied motions to suppress evidence as to what the source of that quote unquote tip was. And he testified also he had not learned of Mr. Coberger's name until that tip was received on December 19th, which appears to conflict with what Detective Payne stated under oath in the PCA, the warrant affidavit signed by him under penalty of perjury in order to persuade a judge to issue a warrant for Mr. Cobberger's arrest, which did occur on December 29th, 2022.

[00:01:53]If you were to go to pages 9 and 10 of the PCA, you would see that Detective Payne here is writing about a date weeks earlier when he says that on November 25th, Moscow Police Department asked area law enforcement to be on the lookout for white Hyundai Elantras in the area. And that caused not one but two tips to be submitted to the MPD by two different Washington State University law enforcement officials located just a short distance from Moscow in Pullman, Washington. The first tip, according to Detective Payne, of November 29th, came from WSU officer Daniel Tieno, who had located a 2015 Elantra bearing Pennsylvania plates at approximately 12:28 a.m.

[00:02:49]And just 30 minutes later, a second WSU law enforcement official, Curtis Whitman, also located the car in the parking lot of the Stepto Apartments where Mr. Hobberger was residing at 12:58 a.m. But all of this is furthermore contradicted by correspondence that the chief of police of the Washington State University Law Enforcement Division sent out to his team indicating that the PCA had just been released.

[00:03:27]And in it, he's referring to the references, two officers, Tiango and Wittmann, finding this car, giving themselves all kudos and pats on the back, it appears, for having turned in the vehicle weeks earlier. He does note here that there was a discrepancy in when law enforcement were asked by MPD to be on the lookout for this vehicle.

[00:03:53]According to the chief of police here, he's saying that this happened on the 28th of November. And you can read the rest of this email for yourself. If you have any comments, any thoughts, any opinions regarding this matter, please leave them here. Until next time, this is Kathy. Thank you for joining us here