Bryan Kohberger and his attorneys won an early victory in an Ada County courtroom Thursday when a judge ruled that he would be allowed to appear in plain clothes at pretrial hearings.

Kohberger wore a blue shirt and suit for the second part of Thursday’s hearing, open to the media. That hearing focused on motions related to the death penalty. Kohberger faces a possible death sentence if convicted of the murders of four University of Idaho students.

Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in November 2022.

Kohberger’s murder trial is not scheduled to begin until August 11, 2025, but his attorneys are already focused on potential punishment. Prosecutors filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in June 2023. Since then, Kohberger’s attorneys have filed several motions seeking to take it off the table.
Defense attorney Ann Taylor argued before Judge Steven Hippler that Idaho is not currently capable of executing death row inmates and said keeping a person on death row without a way to execute them is dehumanizing.

Hippler disagreed with the argument and said Idaho does have legal means, including lethal injection and the firing squad. Judge Hippler also noted that even if Kohberger were sentenced to death, it would be more than a decade before any execution would take place.

The State argued that the defense arguments were too vague and should not be accepted. “They haven’t even suggested what a suitable alternative would be, and we don’t even know what alternatives there will be decades from now.”

Hippler said the court would take those arguments into consideration and issue a decision later.
The defense then pleaded with the judge to allow testimony from Professor Aliza Cover, whose research has examined capital punishment and constitutional law.

“I do not believe the testimony is relevant or helpful for the court to decide this issue,” Hippler finally said.

Kohberger’s defense argued several other motions to vacate the death penalty, citing grounds of arbitrariness, that Idaho’s law on aggravation is vague, and a violation of the defendant’s Eighth Amendment rights.

The defense also cited potential jurors as a problem. “This gets to the point of why we are discussing all of this right now: There is a huge difference between choosing a jury that is eligible for death and a jury that is not eligible for the death penalty,” the defense argued. “Death-qualified juries are very likely to convict in the guilt-innocence phase, and we are very concerned about that.”

Taylor argued that if Kohberger went to trial at the initial October 2023 trial date in Latah County, he would have had to give up his right to a fair and impartial jury and effective counsel. Kohberger’s trial was moved from Latah to Ada County after the defense raised concerns about the ability to select an impartial jury.
The defense argued that this is a conflict of constitutional rights: specifically that Kohberger has to choose between the effective assistance of counsel or a speedy trial. In Idaho, a case must go to trial within about six months of being charged, unless the defendant waives his or her right to a speedy trial. However, the defense argues that it is not possible to properly carry out that legal process for a death penalty case so quickly.

Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye argued: “The real problem facing the defense is that they did not have to give up their constitutional right, but they did.”

This story was originally published by Court Television.