Decision on possible trial relocation nears

COEUR d’ALENE — Although a jury trial for the man accused of killing Coeur d’Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore has been postponed, no decision has been made yet as to where the trial itself will take place.

Jonathan Renfro, a 26-year-old Rathdrum resident who allegedly admitted to shooting Moore in a Coeur d'Alene neighborhood on May, 5, 2015, faces the death penalty if found guilty. Last week, Kootenai County District Court Judge Lansing Haynes moved the trial date from July to Sept. 11, 2017.

Haynes has yet to make a decision on a motion for a change of venue in the trial brought forth by Twin-Falls based defense attorney Keith Roark, who is serving as the lead defense attorney in the case. According to Kootenai County Prosecutor Barry McHugh, Haynes directed both the defense and prosecution to submit documents further explaining their positions on the motion, which are due to the judge next week.

In addition to considering the documents, Haynes will also weigh the testimony of multiple expert witnesses, called by Roark, who testified during a May 5 hearing on the change-of-venue motion.

Austin Gaule, of Universal Information Services, was hired by the defense team to conduct a study of media coverage in the case. While testifying, Gaule said his team tracked as much information as it could from print, broadcast, and online media sources.

In total, Gaule said there have been 1,438 mentions of the case in the media from May 5, 2015, to March 16, 2017. That translates to more than 18 million potential individual views of the stories, he added.

Gaule said he classified the media mentions of the incident and case as “heavy coverage.”

In his cross-examination of Gaule, Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor David Robbins focused on the imprecise nature of the analysis, which he asserted could not accurately capture exactly how many individuals in the county viewed media reports.

“The number could be higher, and it could be lower,” Robbins said to Gaule, who replied he doubted the number could be lower.

“That’s interesting, but could it be lower,” Robbins asked.

“Yes,” Gaule replied.

Brian Edelman, of Trial Innovations, testified at the hearing about a phone survey his company was hired by the defense team to conduct. The public opinion polling, according to Edelman, focused on determining if media coverage of the case had any impact on the potential jury pool in Kootenai County.

For the survey, Edelman said 400 Kootenai County residents were polled. In addition, 200 Ada County residents were used as a comparison.

The numbers from individuals polled in Ada County, Edelman said, were significantly lower than those in Kootenai County.

Key findings of the survey, according to Edelman, were that 89 percent of those contacted in Kootenai County have read, seen, or heard about the case. Out of those that recognized the case, Edelman said 81 percent believe Renfro is guilty of first-degree murder.

“Not only is that group high, but almost 70 percent said the defendant would have to prove to them he is innocent,” Edelman added. “The important take-away here is that a whole lot of people recognize this case.”