LATAH COUNTY, Idaho (Court TV) — Bryan Kohberger’s defense is seeking to have the death penalty thrown out in the case against the accused quadruple murderer.
In September, Kohberger’s defense filed over a dozen motions seeking to strike aggravating factors and the death penalty itself while the case was in Latah County. When the case was moved weeks later, they raised the same motions in Ada County.
Bryan Kohberger, second from left, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022, is escorted out of the courtroom as two of his attorneys, Anne Taylor, second from right, and Jay Logsdon, right, confer following a hearing in Latah County District Court, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool)
The documents claim the means of which the death penalty are carried out in Idaho are unconstitutional, saying, “executing Mr. Kohberger by means of lethal injection or a gunshot as conceived of by the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) would violate his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Other documents claim Idaho’s death penalty violates international law and human rights, and that “there has been an ideological shift (in the United States) and that the punishment now violates our contemporary stands of decency.”
Kohberger’s defense also claims “Idaho’s statutory and constitutional guarantee to a speedy trial prevents effective assistance of counsel in death penalty cases,” and “a capital case cannot be prepared in ten months.”
Kohberger is charged with the brutal murders of Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Kaylee Goncalves at their rental home near the University of Idaho. Six weeks after they were stabbed to death, Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania.
His trial is currently slated to begin in August 2025.
For months, Kohberger’s attorneys had been fighting to have his trial moved from Latah County to Ada County, where Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell stood trial. Latah County Judge John Judge ultimately granted the defense’s request and the case was moved to Ada County, where it was assigned to Judge Steven Hippler.
Judge Hippler will hear arguments on the challenge to death penalty on Nov. 7.
