In Idaho murder case, Kohberger’s defense argues death penalty ‘ought to be abolished’
Bryan Kohberger and his attorneys met a steady stream of skepticism from the judge overseeing the murder suspect’s case at a hearing Thursday as they continued their push to drop the death penalty as a sentencing option.
Judge Steven Hippler, of Idaho’s 4th Judicial District, interjected frequently as the defense and prosecution volleyed arguments about Kohberger’s possible punishment if he is convicted at trial next summer of killing four University of Idaho students.
But the Ada County judge particularly challenged the defense about a litany of supposed justifications they presented to try to convince him to take the death penalty off the table — when both the Idaho and U.S. supreme courts have established it as an option under the law.
To an argument from Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s lead attorney, that Idaho did not have the means to execute a prisoner, Hippler noted that the state prison system recently was able to buy lethal injection drugs with some consistency.
To the allegation that a death sentence represented cruel and unusual punishment for the incarcerated person, Hippler pushed back that the Idaho Supreme Court just found that a prisoner’s fear and anxiety of being executed did not meet the threshold of a violation under the Eighth Amendment.
To the premise from Kohberger attorney Elisa Massoth that Idaho’s death penalty is applied arbitrarily and handed out more often in areas of larger population, Hippler pointed out that her client was charged in one of the state’s rural counties.
“I just don’t see how as applied you’ve provided the court any information where I could conclude that,” Hippler said. “Thank you, I think you’ve used your time.”
Prosecutors, meanwhile, countered that capital punishment is the law of the land and constitutionally defensible based upon precedent in the high courts of both the state and the U.S.
After several hours of arguments on the appropriateness of the death penalty and whether Kohberger — if convicted — should face it, Hippler said he’d take the opposing arguments under advisement and issue written rulings at a later date.
Kohberger is accused in the November 2022 stabbing deaths of four U of I students at a home near campus in Moscow. At the time he was a graduate student at Washington State University living just over the Idaho-Washington state line in Pullman. Next Wednesday marks two years since the killings took place.
The four victims were three North Idaho women who lived in the home, and the boyfriend of one of them. They were: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. Two other female housemates went physically unharmed in the early-morning weekend attack.
Family members of victims Goncalves and Mogen made their way to Boise from North Idaho for Thursday’s hearing, which was attended by roughly two dozen people. Steve and Kristi Goncalves have gone on record as firmly supporting the death penalty for Kohberger.
After the hearing, Steve Goncalves told the Idaho Statesman that he liked Hippler’s no-nonsense approach to the hearing and how he’s handling the closely watched case after inheriting it with a venue change from Moscow that was approved in September.
“I appreciate him being that leader that he needs to be,” Goncalves said in an interview. “I think there’s a lot of delay tactics that have been used, and I feel like he sees between the lines and he’s helped clear that up, and helped steer that legal argument into a place where it can get resolved in a timely manner.”
Idaho one of 27 states with the death penalty
Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder along with a count of felony burglary. A defendant is eligible for the death penalty in Idaho only with a first-degree murder or conspiracy to commit first-degree murder conviction — such as in the criminal cases of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell.
Kohberger’s murder trial is scheduled for next summer, starting with jury selection at the end of July 2025.
Last year, prosecutors in the case issued their intent to seek the death penalty for Kohberger, as required under Idaho law. A jury must be unanimous in its decision to sentence a defendant to death following a murder conviction.
Idaho, one of 27 U.S. states that maintain capital punishment, will seek to place the defendant on death row if jurors find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Idaho’s approved execution methods include lethal injection and death by firing squad.
Kohberger’s defense team spent the majority of the hearing challenging the death penalty from nearly every angle, including that Idaho possesses no viable or constitutional way to execute prisoners. They hoped to have a pair of experts on the subject — U of I law professor Aliza Cover and Dr. Barbara Wolf, a medical examiner licensed in Florida — testify Thursday, but Hippler denied the request.
Hippler agreed with prosecutors who said Cover’s testimony would amount to legal opinion, which was not permitted. Instead, her law review article focused on narrowing the use of the death penalty in Idaho, and a prior declaration submitted by Wolf, were sufficient enough for his needs, Hippler ruled.
Earlier Thursday morning, the judge held a closed-door hearing to consider whether to grant Kohberger’s request to wear civilian clothes at all hearings ahead of his trial, rather than standard jail jumpsuits. Defendants are already allowed to wear suits and clothing other than jail attire at trial.
Hippler announced at the start of Thursday’s public hearing that he granted the defense’s request, adding that prosecutors did not object and that he spoke with court security to revise any additional steps that would need to be taken. Kohberger appeared in court Thursday wearing a dark gray suit with a blue button-down shirt and patterned tie.
“This court has employed security measures, and is comfortable in terms of the security and flight risk related to Mr. Kohberger with those measures,” Hippler said, “and therefore has granted the defense motion to allow him to appear in civilian clothes.”
He worked to move the day’s oral arguments along quickly where possible.
“My schedule is already shot to hell,” Hippler quipped as one of the planned discussions ran long.
Prosecutor: Death penalty not ‘immoral or improper’
In court filings ahead of the hearing, Kohberger’s defense argued that the death penalty was inappropriate under modern standards and in violation of constitutional and international law. They added that too many people are eligible for capital punishment, and also cited Idaho’s recent obstacles to executing a prisoner as issues with the state’s current system.
“Instead of it being a situation where the worst of the worst are being charged with the death penalty, everyone falls within that category,” Massoth told the court Thursday.
The defense also pointed to the state’s failed execution of Thomas Creech earlier this year. They argued that while the Idaho prison system has been able to buy lethal injection drugs for the first time in years, state legislators chose to add a firing squad as the state’s backup execution method, and they questioned its constitutionality.
Prosecutors conceded that a “high percentage” of Idaho’s first-degree murder cases are eligible for capital punishment, but Idaho Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye said it doesn’t apply to every single murder.
Nye leads the criminal law division in the AG’s office. In the absence Thursday of Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson, who is leading the prosecution in the case, Nye was joined in making the state’s arguments by Ingrid Batey, an Idaho special assistant attorney general who also is assigned to the case.
Kohberger’s other attorney, Jay Logsdon, wrote all of the defense’s briefs about the death penalty, but had to arrive for the hearing a couple of hours after it started because of a scheduling conflict. During arguments, he angled to have Hippler strike the death penalty because he said the law is overly broad, and the lengths of time between convictions and executions have expanded.
Logsdon told the court that a shrinking number of states impose the death penalty, but Nye countered that a state’s removal of the death penalty doesn’t confirm officials thought it was “immoral or improper.”
“We’ve reached the point where the death penalty ought to be abolished,” Logsdon added.
Nye countered that “we’re nowhere near a national consensus that the death penalty is somehow immoral or improper or indecent.”
The defense asked Hippler to strike all of the aggravating factors against their client — which in turn would remove the death penalty as an option. To sentence someone to death, a jury needs to find what is called an aggravating factor to justify the most extreme sentencing option.
In their intent to seek the death penalty, the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office initially cited five aggravating factors, including allegations that Kohberger “exhibited utter disregard for human life” and “a propensity to commit murder which will probably constitute a continuing threat to society.”
Following challenges by the defense, the prosecution dropped one of the five factors: an allegation that the killing was committed while also perpetrating the crime of burglary. Under Idaho law, the jury needs to find only a single aggravating factor to give a convicted defendant a death sentence.
By the end of the hearing Thursday, the defense took aim at each of the other four factors. On one that alleges Kohberger “exhibited a propensity to commit murder” and that he’ll continue to be a danger to society, Taylor said that she couldn’t count the “number of times” she has heard prosecutors accuse a client of committing the “worst” crime “they’ve ever seen.”
“That can’t be true when you sit in court day after day after day, and you hear that about person after person after person,” Taylor said. “This statute doesn’t do anything to help a jury decide who is the worst of the worst.”
Prosecutors stuck to their position that both state and federal courts have upheld the death penalty as an option.
“All of these aggravators have been upheld,” Batey told the court. “We would ask the court to deny their motion.”