The judge overseeing the murder case of Bryan Kohberger has govern the death penalty will remain on the table as the case proceeds, rejecting a request by Kohberger’s defense attorneys.
In June 2023, prosecutors announced they wanted to seek the death penalty against the former Ph.D. In November 2022, four University of Idaho students – Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20 – were charged with stabbing to death.
Bryan Kohberger, charged with murder, arrives for an in camera hearing in Latah County District Court on September 13, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho.
Ted S. Warren/Pool/Getty Images
This September, Kohberger’s lawyers made an extensive play to overturn the death penalty, arguing — in hundreds of pages of court filings — that Kohberger’s life should not be in danger, in part because it would violate the death penalty. constitutional rights and contemporary standards of decency.
However, on Wednesday, Judge Steven Hippler ruled in a lengthy filing against all twelve of Kohberger’s motions challenging various aspects of Idaho’s death penalty scheme.
In his 55-page decision, Judge Hippler “concludes that relief in (Kohberger’s) favor is not warranted on either motion.”
Among other things, the defense lawyers argued that the death penalty is incompatible with current social customs. However, the judge ruled that “there is no basis to depart from the established law that upholds Idaho’s death penalty statute as constitutional,” and that it remains “consistent with today’s standards of decency.”
Defense attorneys also argued that the death penalty should be imposed in this case based on execution methods, specifically citing a shortage of lethal injection drugs, and that executions by firing squad, which became legal in Idaho last year, are “cruel and unusual.” .” And, they argued, leaving their clients waiting on death row without knowing “how they will be executed” is “unconstitutional” torture.
But the judge again disagreed: he sided with the prosecutors’ argument that he was “not ripe” for debate because Kohberger has not yet been convicted. And, continued the judge, even if it was appropriate to correct it now, both the firing squad and the lethal injection have been considered constitutional and are authorized in the state.
The judge also ruled against each of the defense’s attempts to strike aggravating factors found by prosecutors to make Kohberger eligible for the death penalty.
Kohberger was arrested in December 2022 after a six-week manhunt.
A criminology student at Washington State University at the time of the crime, Kohberger was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of robbery.
A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf.
The trial is scheduled for August 2025.
