Mega Edition: The Media Battles For Their Right To Intervene In The Kohberger Case (9/1/26)

A coalition of roughly 20 news organizations banded together in the spring of 2023 and asked to formally intervene in the Bryan Kohberger case so they could challenge the sweeping nondissemination order restricting what attorneys, law enforcement officers, investigators and others connected to the prosecution could say publicly. The coalition included the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, the Seattle Times, the Spokesman-Review, the Idaho Press Club, EastIdahoNews.com and numerous television and journalism organizations. Their argument was straightforward: the gag order directly affected the media’s ability to gather and report information about one of the most closely watched criminal cases in the country, yet the press had not been given an opportunity to object when prosecutors and Kohberger’s defense agreed to the restrictions. The media initially took the dispute to the Idaho Supreme Court, which declined to immediately invalidate the order on procedural grounds but recognized that an overbroad or insufficiently tailored gag order could unconstitutionally interfere with news gathering. The coalition then returned to the trial court and formally moved to intervene so it could challenge the order there.

Judge John Judge ultimately granted the media coalition permission to intervene, but only for the limited purpose of litigating the nondissemination order rather than becoming a full-fledged party to Kohberger’s criminal prosecution. That distinction mattered: the news organizations were not being allowed to litigate guilt, evidence or other substantive issues between the State and Kohberger, but they were given standing to argue that court restrictions affecting public access and press freedom were unconstitutional or unnecessarily broad. The intervention became part of a much larger struggle over transparency in the case, eventually extending into disputes over cameras, courtroom photography and access to court records. In practical terms, the media organizations recognized that their interests were not always going to be represented by either prosecutors or the defense, so competitors that normally fought each other for stories joined forces to defend a common principle: if a court order restricted the public’s ability to learn about the prosecution, the press wanted a seat at the table when that restriction was challenged.


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