In the Idaho quadruple homicide case, defendant Bryan
Kohberger is accused of murdering University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle,
Kaylee Goncalves, and Madison Mogen. The
defense waived the right to a timely preliminary hearing (14 days
in Idaho) and set the hearing in June so it
has enough time to go through all of the evidence. The judge cleared five
days on the calendar for the hearing itself. This indicates that the defense gets the
discovery materials (e.g., police reports, witness statements, etc.) before the prelim and the state has to call actual
witnesses at the evidentiary hearing in order to establish probable cause.
By comparison,
in Wisconsin, the courts at all levels of the system have managed to
super-legislate from the bench; they have somehow turned an evidentiary
hearing, which was designed to prevent improvident prosecutions, into a
prosecutorial weapon for charging anything and everything without probable
cause and, certainly, without the presentation of any evidence.
What do I mean? Well, if
pre-hearing discovery and actual witnesses are the hallmark of Idaho’s preliminary hearing, then these are
the hallmarks of Wisconsin’s preliminary hearing:
