The defense team for the man
accused of murdering four University of Idaho students
in 2022 said Thursday that his trial should not permit the death penalty as punishment, arguing that the state has “no real means” of executing an inmate and the methods are unconstitutional.
The death penalty hearing in Boise, Idaho, on whether suspect Bryan Kohberger can be executed if he is convicted, came as the campus community prepares to mark next week
two years since the quadruple homicide
in the college town of Moscow.
“I don’t believe our Constitution allows for us to move forward and make him sit in death row for years and years and years if the way Idaho is doing it right now isn’t really working,” Ann Taylor, Kohberger’s public defender, said. “It’s not a realistic option.”
“So you’re saying the anxiety of not knowing is a constitutional violation?” Ada County District Court Judge Steven Hippler asked.
Taylor continued: “It is anxiety. It is fear. It is the not knowing.”
But Latah County prosecutors responded that Idaho’s current method of execution, lethal injection, is now available, and while the method could change down the line, “we don’t have the time and effort debating what we don’t know in the future.”
“You don’t get to short-circuit the whole thing that death is off the table,” prosecutors said, adding “that’s not to say decades from now there’s not going to be a method to put him to death.”
Idaho currently allows death by lethal injection for condemned inmates, as well as firing squad, which Republican Gov. Brad Little
signed into law last year
as an alternative method.
While the death penalty in Idaho remains on the books, it hasn’t been used since 2012 because the state, like many others, has had trouble procuring lethal injection drugs.
That changed in February, when the state located the necessary drugs and planned to execute Thomas Creech, who was convicted of five murders in three states. But the state abandoned the execution
after prison staff failed to establish an IV line
, exposing the difficulties with administering the death penalty.
Another execution attempt of Creech, 74, had been
scheduled for Nov. 13
— coincidentally, the same date in which the four University of Idaho students were
fatally stabbed in 2022
in an off-campus apartment house. Creech’s
execution was temporarily halted
by a federal judge this week as he appeals.
At Thursday’s hearing, Taylor said it is unclear whether there would still be available drugs, and keeping Kohberger on death row would be “dehumanizing.”
“Looking forward, we just don’t have those answers yet,” Taylor said. “We don’t know how that will unfold.”
Hippler denied the defense’s request to hear from expert testimony regarding the constitutionality of the death penalty.
Meanwhile, the judge also heard arguments about whether Kohberger may pose a danger to others.
Prosecutors have said in court filings that four aggravating factors exist in the case against Kohberger, who turns 30 later this month, making the crime more severe and the death penalty warranted. They are that there are multiple victims; the murders were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel”; the suspect exhibited “utter disregard for human life”; and he has “a propensity to commit murder which will probably constitute a continuing threat to society,” according to the filing.
Taylor on Thursday
asked the judge to strike
the state’s death penalty request, which was based on the claims of aggravating factors.
The defense also suggested allowing for a special phase if Kohberger is found guilty that would require the jury to determine if he is then eligible for capital punishment, an extra step that prosecutors
want denied
.
Hippler said he would issue a written ruling on the death penalty motion at a later date. He did say he would allow Kohberger to appear in “civilian” attire at his trial, and on Thursday, the suspect appeared in court in a suit.
He was arrested in December 2022, more than a month after the four students — housemates Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20 — were killed. Kohberger was a resident of nearby Pullman, Washington, and then a doctoral student at Washington State University.
A
not guilty plea
on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary was entered on his behalf in May 2023. Authorities have not publicly confirmed a motive, and a
gag order
has prevented many involved in the case from speaking.
The prosecution says it expects to present
at trial DNA evidence, details about cellphone use and security videos to connect Kohberger to the crime.
Kohberger’s defense has suggested that he often went on late-night drives and that
cellphone tower data would show
that he had been doing so miles away when the four students were killed.
Next summer’s trial was
moved to Idaho’s capital of Boise
from Latah County after the defense successfully argued there would be a strong possibility for bias among potential jurors and the local community does not have the resources for such highly anticipated proceedings.
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