'Take a listen': Legal expert highlights 'something that really struck me' in murder trial

Prosecutors in the case against Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger have asked the court for permission to conduct their own psychological testing and the trial judge rejected a defense motion to rule out the death penalty.

Ada County judge Steven Hippler denied a motion to strike the death penalty in the quadruple murder case despite Kohberger's recent autism diagnosis, and CNN attorney Jean Casarez explained the latest developments in the high-profile criminal case.

"[Prosecutors] do not state in this filing what it actually means, but they are telling the court and asking the court, 'We want to do psychological testing on this death penalty defendant,'" Casarez said. "'We're not giving you the filing because we want you to seal the filing because it cannot be exposed,' because they say he's already had testing done by the defense. All the results, are there any diagnoses of mental conditions, are there, but [prosecutors] want to go and do our independent testing. Here is from the filing, it says specifically the filing also reveals the nature of mental condition examinations already conducted and the type of examinations and testing the state seeks to perform, some of which is personality testing, to which the defendant objects."

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"Now, there was a recent hearing in the Bryan Kohberger case," Casarez added. "The defense was arguing to strike the death penalty, and in that argument, I heard something that really struck me, and I want you to hear it. Take a listen."

Casarez presented video of defense attorney Elisa Massoth arguing in that hearing that Kohberger's lack of insight about his past good deeds, such as his volunteer work for the Special Olympics or helping to save a person's life on the job, should be mitigating factors.

"He can see the logic in the word mitigation," Massoth argued, "but he has no ability to understand and help us develop a case for him for mercy."

Casarez noted that Kohberger was a PhD candidate in criminal justice, but his attorney argued that he could not understand what his own attorneys were doing to present information that might lessen the severity of a sentence or his culpability for allegedly stabbing to death Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near the University of Idaho.

"This is a doctoral candidate in criminal justice," Casarez said, "[and] the defense is now saying cannot comprehend when we are trying to do his mitigation phase, and those volunteer activities previously in his life would be mitigation. Well, first of all, the judge will not strike the death penalty, so that's going forward. We do not know if he will allow the prosecution to do this independent testing, but they have every right to do it because in the mitigation phase, they're going to put in the autism spectrum disorder."

"As an attorney, I said to myself, are they going to raise a competency issue here?" she added. "Competency is you are not able to aid and assist your attorney for trial. We have seen nothing of that, but that is what she's basically saying in that argument, but once again, it was to strike the death penalty."

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