Whether the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students can be punished with the death penalty if convicted will be the focus of a planned hearing Thursday, less than a week before the campus community will mark two years since the killings.
A judge in Boise, where the trial is set to begin in early August, will consider arguments from Latah County prosecutors and Bryan Kohberger’s defense team over the merits of capital punishment and whether the suspect poses a future 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.
But defense lawyer Jay Logsdon, a public defender who is qualified to co-lead a death penalty case, asked the judge to strike the state’s death penalty request, in part, because he said executing Kohberger by lethal injection would violate his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
The defense has 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.
In another filing last month, Logsdon countered the state’s claim that a “future dangerousness” aggravator exists in Kohberger’s case.
“Aggravators are intended for deciding which First Degree Murderers merit the death penalty. Future Dangerousness does not do that — it focuses on the person, not the act,” the defense wrote.
The death penalty in Idaho, while it remains on the books, had lapsed as its last execution was in 2012; the state, like many others, has had trouble procuring lethal injection drugs. In 2023, Republican Gov. Brad Little signed a law permitting execution by firing squad as an alternative method.
Idaho has since acquired the necessary drugs. In February, it planned to put inmate Thomas Creech, who was convicted of five murders in three states, to death after he had been behind bars for nearly half a century. 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 day as when the four University of Idaho students were fatally stabbed in 2022 in an off-campus apartment house. His execution was temporarily halted by a judge.
Kohberger was arrested 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 from speaking.
The prosecution says it expects at trial to present 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.
