Idaho college murder suspect Bryan Kohberger can get death penalty if convicted, judge rules

University of Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger can face the death penalty if convicted in the four students’ deaths, an Ada County judge ruled Wednesday.

Kohberger, a former Washington State University student, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the stabbing deaths of students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in November 2022. His attorneys previously filed multiple motions attempting to take the death penalty off the table provided Kohberger is found guilty of the homicides.

Ada County Judge Steven Hippler, who oversees the case since it was moved from Moscow to Boise to quell concerns of jury bias, rejected all 12 attempts from the defense to strike the death penalty.

In the 55-page decision, Hippler laid out the defense’s arguments, which included how the death penalty is used in various places in the state.

The defense also claimed that geography has a say in who gets the death penalty and who does not. Attorneys Anne Taylor, Jay Logsdon and Elisa Massoth cited a national treaty from 1992 barring undue punishment, arguing that the law is unconstitutionally vague and provides no clarity on a lesser penalty, among other arguments. Hippler said their argument “defies logic.” Idaho passed a law in 2023 to allow death by firing squad if lethal injection is unavailable, which the defense also claimed was cruel and unusual.

Hippler ruled against the defense arguments, saying the prosecution has a legal basis to ask for the death penalty under the law. The law is clear, Hippler explained, even when barred in other states: The death penalty has been declared constitutional in Idaho.

“It is difficult to conclude the death penalty contravenes evolving standards of decency when a majority of the states of this nation continues to provide for it as a punishment,” he wrote in the decision.

To sentence Kohberger to death, prosecutors must prove to a jury at least one “aggravating factor,” or factor that makes the crime more heinous in nature, existed during the time of the killings.

Latah County prosecutors listed five factors in their intent to seek death, including that Kohberger exhibited utter disregard for human life, is a continuing threat to society, and one murder was committed at the time of another murder. The defense also took aim at these factors, but Hippler noted case law that narrows the reasoning of why those factors could be applied; that “depravity” in such a crime can “offend all standards of morality” and that propensity to commit murder applies to a “willing, predisposed killer” who “tends toward destroying the life of another.”

And because the defense also took to challenge the Eighth Amendment on the basis of the death penalty being cruel and unusual, it’s also their job to provide for a more humane alternative. The defense did not do this, Hippler wrote. He also implied the defense’s motions were not timely or in the midst of controversy since the case hasn’t gone to trial and there is no verdict, so deciding on a method of death just based on the “defendant’s distress” is essentially pointless.

“Assuming the defendant is convicted, and the death penalty imposed, it would likely be at least a decade before he is executed,” Hippler wrote. “To decide now as to the constitutionality to any given method would amount to an advisory opinion.”

Kohberger’s trial is set for next summer.