Bryan Kohberger appears in court seeking to strike death penalty from case

Bryan Kohberger and his attorneys scored an early win in an Ada County courtroom on Thursday when a judge ruled he would be allowed to appear in street clothes at pre-trial hearings.
Kohberger was wearing a blue shirt and a suit for the second part of Thursday’s hearing, which was open to the media. That hearing focused on motions related to the death penalty. Kohberger faces a potential death sentence if he is convicted of the murders of four University of Idaho students.
Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in Nov. 2022.
Kohberger’s murder trial isn’t scheduled to begin until Aug. 11, 2025, but his attorneys are already focused on the potential punishment. Prosecutors filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in June 2023. Since then, Kohberger’s attorneys have filed several motions seeking to take it off the table.
Defense attorney Ann Taylor argued to Judge Steven Hippler that Idaho is not currently capable of executing inmates on death row, and said that to keep a person on death row without a way to execute them is dehumanizing.
Hippler disagreed with the argument, saying that Idaho does have legal means, including lethal injection and firing squad. Judge Hippler also noted that even if Kohberger is sentenced to death, it would be more than a decade before any execution would be carried out.
The state argued the defense’s arguments were too vague and should not be accepted. “They haven’t even suggested what a proper alternative would be, and we don’t even know decades from now what alternatives there would be.”
Hippler said the court would take those arguments into advisement and issue a decision later.
The defense then pleaded with the judge to allow testimony from Professor Aliza Cover, whose research has examined capital punishment and constitutional law.
“I don’t find that the testimony will be relevant or helpful for the court to decide this issue,” Hippler ultimately said.
Kohberger’s defense argued several other motions to strike the death penalty, citing grounds of arbitrariness, that Idaho law on aggravators is vague and a violation of the defendant’s Eighth Amendment rights.
The defense also cited the potential jury as an issue. “It goes to the point of why we are arguing all of these right now — there’s a huge difference between picking a death-qualifying jury and a non-capital qualified jury,” the defense argued. “Death-qualified juries are highly likely to convict in the guilt-innocence phase, and we are very concerned about that.”
Taylor argued that if Kohberger went to trial at the initial October 2023 date in Latah County, he would have had to give up his right to a fair and impartial jury and effective counsel. Kohberger’s trial was moved from Latah to Ada County after the defense raised concerns about the ability to choose an impartial jury.
The defense argued it is a conflict of constitutional rights — specifically Kohberger having to choose between effective assistance of counsel or a speedy trial. In Idaho, a case must be brought to trial within roughly six months of an indictment unless a defendant waives their right to a speedy trial. However, the defense argues it’s not possible to properly carry out that legal process for a death penalty case that quickly.
Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye argued, “The real problem here that the defense is grasping with here is that they didn’t have to waive his constitutional right, but they did.”