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Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is Daily Crime and
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Justice from Calaroga Shark Media, powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher.
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It's Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026. Quick word on Plymouth before
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anything else. As of the moment we recorded this, the
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jury in the Lindsay Clancy case was still out. They
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finished a fourth day of deliberations without a verdict, and
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they sent no notes on Monday. That case could break
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at any hour, including while you are listening to this.
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And when it does, we will have it in full. Today,
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we are going somewhere else. Because three defendants in three
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states just did something you almost never see. All of them,
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in the space of about a week, tried to change
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the basic rules of their own cases. In Los Angeles,
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a 21-year-old musician who by his own case's evidence has
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earned more than $ 10 million dollars stood in a courtroom
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and asked for a public defender. His high-powered attorneys walked.
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The family of the 14-year-old girl he is charged with
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killing says he is not broke at all. In Boise,
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Brian Koberger, who confessed in open court to murdering four
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University of Idaho students and was sentenced to four consecutive
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life terms, is trying to take it all back. He
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says he is innocent, that his own lawyers misled him,
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and last week his new attorney moved to disqualify the
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judge who sentenced him. And in Pinellas County, Florida, a
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plastic surgeon facing a death penalty prosecution has fired his lawyers,
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withdrawn his own motions, withdrawn all opposition to being executed,
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and on Monday, waived his right to a jury entirely.
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The judge asked him why. He would not say. Let's
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get into it. Celeste Hernandez was 14 years old. She
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lived with her family in Lake Elsinore, California. She has
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been dead since April of last year, and her remains
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were found in September of 2025 inside a Tesla registered
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to an address in the Hollywood Hills. David Anthony Burke
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is 21. He performs under a stage name that is
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stylized with numbers, and he is one of the more
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successful young musicians of the last few years. He has
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pleaded not guilty to murder, to continuous sexual abuse of
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a child under the age of 14, and to unlawful
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mutilation of human remains. In July, a Los Angeles County
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judge ruled there was enough evidence to send him to trial.
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Prosecutors allege he killed Celeste because he feared their relationship
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becoming public would end his career. I am not going
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to walk you through the evidence in this case. Some
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of it has been described in open court, and it
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is available if you want it, and I do not
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think there is a single thing our audience gains from
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hearing me describe what was done to a 14-year-old girl.
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What matters today is what happened Monday. and Monday was
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about money. Burke came into court for what should have
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been a routine pre-trial hearing. His attorneys had a meeting
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with Judge Charlene Almedo in Chambers. And when they came out,
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defense attorney Blair Burke told the courtroom that her client
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wanted a public defender. The judge asked Burke directly if
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that was what he wanted. He said yes. Burke and
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her co-counsel withdrew on the spot. Burke, in an orange
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jumpsuit and shackles, smiled and shook their hands as court adjourned.
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Burke said afterward that the court had granted their request
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to withdraw after it was determined he qualified for appointed
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counsel and that they continued to support him. The Los
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Angeles County Public Defender's Office took the case, and I
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want to give you their statement because it was a
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genuinely graceful thing to say in an ugly moment. They
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said they recognize the loss of life underlying the allegations
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and extend their sympathies to those who are grieving. And
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then they said that David Burke is entitled to a
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defense that takes his circumstances seriously and examines the evidence carefully,
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and that they are committed to providing it. That is
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exactly right, by the way. Every word of it. A
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public defender's office that takes a case like this one
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and says both of those things in the same breath
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is doing the job properly. Now. Here is the part
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that should stop you. Public defenders exist for people who
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cannot afford a lawyer. That is the entire point of
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the institution. It is a constitutional guarantee that your poverty
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does not determine whether you get a defense. And according
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to testimony given in this very case, David Burke has
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earned at least $ 10 million over his career. So the
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court found him indigent, which means either that $ 10 million
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is gone in about 18 months or that it is
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somewhere a court could not find it. Celeste Arivas Hernandez's
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family has an opinion about which one it is. They
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issued a statement saying he is not indigent at all
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and that he has moved his money into various corporations.
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I want to be careful here because that is an
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allegation by a grieving family and not a finding by
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any court. A judge reviewed his financial situation and concluded
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he qualified. That determination was made on evidence I have
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not seen. But look, I'm going to be honest with
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you about why this matters beyond one case. There is
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a version of this that is completely legitimate. Legal defense
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in a capital eligible murder case costs a staggering amount
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of money. Blair Burke is one of the most expensive
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criminal lawyers in Los Angeles. A young man could absolutely
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burn through millions in a year of pretrial litigation and
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be genuinely broke. And there is a version of this
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that is a shell game, where the money sits in
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an LLC and the LLC owns the assets, and the
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man who controls the LLC stands in front of a
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judge and correctly states that he personally has nothing. That
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is not fraud. That is structuring, and people with good
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lawyers do it every day. Accountability doesn't have a legal department.
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But it turns out that indigency sometimes does. And there
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is a real cost when a wealthy defendant qualifies, whether
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legitimately or not. The Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office
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is one of the busiest in the country, and every
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hour its investigators and attorneys spend on this case is
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an hour not spent on somebody who never had $ 10
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million and never will. That office will do this job
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well because that is what they do. But the arithmetic
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is the arithmetic. There is one more wrinkle worth understanding
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because it explains why the withdrawal was so abrupt. Burke's
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now former attorneys had been building a specific defense, and
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you could see it in the preliminary hearing. Prosecutors laid
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out that on the night in question, a rideshare was
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sent to pick Celeste up from her family's home in
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Lake Elsinore and bring her to a residence in the
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Hollywood Hills. and that records show her arriving at 1010
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in the evening, about an hour and 20 minutes before
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Burke's phone and car left that house heading north towards
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Santa Barbara County. The defense answer to that was narrow
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and technical. There is no evidence she ever got out
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of the rideshare vehicle. That is the kind of argument
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that costs a fortune to build. It requires investigators, data experts,
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and attorneys billing at Los Angeles rates for months. Whoever
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is running this defense now inherits that work and inherits
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it on a public defender's caseload. The new team asked
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the judge for more time before entering a plea. He
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said no. So they entered not guilty on all counts
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and got to work the same morning. Here is what
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happens next. District Attorney Nathan Hockman said his office has
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not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty, and
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he said publicly that he is confident the public defender
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will give Burke a zealous defense. which is the correct
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and professional thing for a prosecutor to say. Legal analysts
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in Los Angeles are already speculating that a public defender
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makes a plea deal more likely. I would be cautious
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about that. California has a moratorium on executions and has
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not carried one out in two decades, so the practical
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leverage that normally drives a plea in a case like
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this is not really there. The next hearing is October 19th,
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and at that point, the lawyers will tell the court
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whether they are ready for trial within 90 days. And
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I want to close this segment somewhere other than the money,
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because the money is the news and it is not
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the point. Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 14 years old. She
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was somebody's daughter in Lake Elsinore, and she got into
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a rideshare on an April night and never came home.
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When she was found, it was months later, and it
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was in a vehicle in a tow yard, and nobody
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had been looking in the right place. There is going
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to be an enormous amount of coverage of this case,
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and almost all of it is going to be about
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a famous young man and his career and his money.
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She is the one who is dead. Someone has to
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say her name. When we come back, Brian Koberger confessed
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to four murders in open court, and now he wants
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a do-over. On November 13th, 2022, four students at the
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University of Idaho were stabbed to death in an off-campus
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house on King Road in Moscow. Ethan Chapin was 20.
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Madison Mogan was 21. Zana Kernodle was 20. Kaylee Goncalves
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was 21. In July of 2025, Brian Koberger pleaded guilty.
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Not a no-contest plea. Not an Alford plea where you
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maintain innocence while accepting the conviction. He stood in a
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courtroom and admitted he did it in exchange for the
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state dropping the death penalty. Judge Stephen Hippler sentenced him
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to four consecutive life terms plus 10 years. That was
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supposed to be the end. In July of this year,
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one year after his sentencing, Koberger filed a handwritten petition
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seeking to withdraw that plea and go to trial. His
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position now is that he is innocent and that his
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own attorneys misled him into a false confession. He has
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been appointed a new lawyer, an Idaho attorney named Greg Rauch.
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And last Thursday, Rauch filed two motions that escalate this considerably.
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The first asked that Judge Hipler be disqualified from hearing
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the post-conviction case. The second asked that the proceedings be
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moved out of Ada County and back to Lata County,
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where the students were killed. I want to walk through
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both of those because the reflex is to dismiss this
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as a guilty man wasting everyone's time, and the actual
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legal argument is more interesting than that. Start with the judge.
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At sentencing, Hippler was not restrained, and frankly, there is
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no reason he should have been. He called Koberger a
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faceless coward. He called him the worst of the worst.
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And he asked out loud whether this defendant was even
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capable of speaking the truth. Now, none of that was improper.
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A judge imposing four life sentences for the murders of
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four young people is allowed to say what he thinks.
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But here is Rauch's argument, and it is not stupid.
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The question in a post-conviction proceeding is entirely about credibility.
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Koberger is claiming his lawyers coerced him and that his
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confession was false. The judge deciding that has to weigh
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whether to believe him. And that same judge already said,
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on the record, that he doubts this man is capable
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of telling the truth. The motion puts it this way.
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It does not rest on one adverse ruling or one
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harsh statement, but on the extraordinary convergence of all of them.
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Rauch has also pointed at a specific ruling that Hippler
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declined to give Koberger's original defense team more time when
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they said they had not finished reviewing Discovery weeks before
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a capital trial. which matters because that is the exact
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complaint at the heart of the whole petition, that his
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lawyers were not prepared and pushed him into a plea.
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And the venue piece has an irony you can see
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from space. The reason this case isn't Ada County at
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all is that Koberger's original defense fought hard to get
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it out of Lotta County, arguing the community was too
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small and too saturated with publicity for a fair jury.
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They won. The case moved to Boise. Now his new
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lawyer wants it back in Lata County, arguing the old
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concerns are irrelevant because this is a proceeding decided by
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a judge and not a jury, and that the transfer
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would be more convenient for witnesses and attorneys. It is also,
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as it happens, where Rauch's office is and where the
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Lata County prosecutor sits. There is also a wrinkle in
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what Koberger is asking for that people keep missing. He
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pleaded guilty specifically to take the death penalty off the table.
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Idaho was seeking execution and he traded a confession for
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four life terms. If he succeeds in withdrawing that plea,
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the deal goes with it. He would be back to
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facing a capital trial at his own request. Read that again.
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A man is asking a court for permission to put
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himself back in front of a jury that could sentence
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him to death. Either he believes something about this case
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that nobody else does or somebody has convinced him that
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this is the play. and I genuinely cannot tell you which.
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Prosecutors are not entertaining any of it. Their position is
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that Koberger has not made the substantial factual showing the
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law requires, and that he does not deserve an evidentiary
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hearing at all. They have asked that the whole petition
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be dismissed. Hippler has a status conference on the calendar,
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and the evidentiary hearing, if there is one, is currently
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set for June of 2027. Look, I'm going to give
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you my honest read. Withdrawing a guilty plea after sentencing
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is one of the hardest things to do in American
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criminal law, and it should be. The whole system depends
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on a plea meaning something. When Brian Koberger stood in
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that courtroom, he was asked a long series of questions
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designed for exactly this moment, and he answered them under
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oath with counsel beside him. That colloquy exists so that
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a year later, nobody can say they did not understand.
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And there is a cost to this that has nothing
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to do with law. Four families sat in that courtroom
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in July of 2025 and got the closest thing to