Idaho college murders: Prosecutors can seek death penalty against man charged with killing 4 students

The man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students two years ago may be punished with the death penalty if he is convicted, the trial judge has ruled.

At a hearing this month in Boise, Idaho, suspect Bryan Kohberger’s defense team had tried to convince District Court Judge Steven Hippler to block his trial, scheduled for August, from becoming a capital murder case.

But Hippler found Kohberger’s defense had failed in providing an alternative method of execution in Idaho to death by lethal injection or firing squad that is not “unduly painful,” the judge said in his order issued Tuesday.

“Defendant must come forward with an alternative method,” Hippler concluded. “He has not done so, thus foreclosing his claim.”

Idaho’s alternative to the death penalty for a first-degree murder conviction is life in prison with at least 10 years served before becoming eligible for parole.

Prosecutors had said in court filings that four aggravating factors exist in the case against Kohberger, who turns 30 on Thursday, making the crime more severe and meriting the death penalty. They are that there are multiple victims; the murders were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel”; the suspect exhibited “utter disregard for human life” and has “a propensity to commit murder which will probably constitute a continuing threat to society,” according to the filing.

A jury must concur that at least one aggravating factor pertains in order for a defendant in a capital case to be sentenced to death. The jury must also unanimously agree to impose a death sentence.

At the hearing, Idaho Deputy Attorney General Jeff Nye had argued against the defense’s claims that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it would be “dehumanizing” to have Kohberger sitting on death row “for years and years and years” if the state does not have a viable method to administer an execution.

“You don’t get to short-circuit the whole thing that death is off the table,” Nye said, adding “that’s not to say decades from now there’s not going to be a method to put him to death.”

Idaho has not executed anyone since 2012 because the state, like many others, has had trouble procuring lethal injection drugs.

However, Hipple noted at the hearing that the state did get the necesessary drugs as it awaits to put to death inmate Thomas Creech, who was convicted of five murders in three states and sentenced to death in 1983. His execution remains temporarily halted as he appeals after the state’s attempt to execute him in February was abandoned when prison staff failed to establish an IV line in the death chamber.

An alternative method to lethal injection — death by firing squad — was signed into law last year, but a revamped chamber to allow for it has yet to be constructed.

Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s public defender, had also challenged the prosecution’s claim that her client deserves the death penalty because he could pose a future danger to society — which, she contended, is vague because defendants are routinely accused of being dangerous.

“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.”

A motive remains unclear for the killings of housemates Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, in November 2022.

Kohberger was a resident of nearby Pullman, Washington, and then a doctoral student at Washington State University.

While a gag order has prevented many involved in the case from speaking publicly, the prosecution has said it expects to present at trial DNA evidence, details about Kohberger’s cellphone use and security videos to connect him to the crime.

Kohberger’s defense has maintained 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.

In a filing this month, the defense has asked the court to suppress evidence at Kohberger’s trial, including DNA samples, it believes were improperly obtained by law enforcement and violated his constitutional rights.

The trial has been moved to 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.

Steve Goncalves, the father of Kaylee Goncalves, supported the trial’s relocation and told NBC News before the judge’s death penalty decision that he wanted to see the suspect “locked away and no longer influencing society.”

He added that Kaylee was a “very loving girl” whose spirit has been missed.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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