Mega Edition: Judge Hippler And The Order On the 9-11 Call (8/30/26)

Judge Steven Hippler’s April 24, 2025 order addressed whether the jury would be allowed to hear the 911 call made from the King Road house and see related communications between surviving roommates D.M. and B.F. Prosecutors wanted to introduce the call, the roommates’ text messages and testimony about their conversations, while Kohberger’s defense challenged portions of that material as inadmissible hearsay and objected to allowing jurors to use a transcript while listening to the audio. Hippler largely sided with the prosecution, finding that most of the 911 call and the roommates’ communications were likely admissible if prosecutors laid the proper foundation at trial. He did, however, order several portions of the 911 call redacted because certain statements did not qualify for the hearsay exceptions the state relied upon. Hippler also permitted the prosecution to use a transcript as a demonstrative aid while the jury listened to the approved portions of the recording.

The order was significant because the 911 call captured the chaotic discovery of the crime scene nearly eight hours after D.M. said she had seen a masked intruder inside the house. Among the portions ordered removed was a statement referencing someone having seen a man in the house the night before, while the remaining portions could still be presented to jurors subject to the court’s evidentiary requirements. Hippler’s ruling therefore rejected the defense’s broader effort to keep the call out while still trimming material he believed crossed the hearsay line. The decision also revealed additional detail about the surviving roommates’ actions that morning and showed how the prosecution intended to use the 911 call and contemporaneous messages to reconstruct what happened before police arrived. In practical terms, Hippler allowed the jury to hear most of one of the most anticipated pieces of evidence in the case, but not without carefully controlling which statements could come in.



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