Bryan Kohberger’s lawyers asked the judge in Idaho to take away the death sentence as a possible punishment if he is found guilty, but the judge said no.
Four college students, Kaylee Goncalves (21), Xana Kernodle (20), Madison Mogen (21), and Ethan Chapin (20), died. Kohberger is charged with first-degree murder in their deaths. It was also charged that the former University of Washington student broke into a building, which is a crime.
At a hearing on April 9, Kohberger’s defence team asked the judge to throw out the death sentence, saying that the evidence given by the prosecutors was too much and not organised well. Kohberger said that this meant he couldn’t properly look over and research the evidence in order to get ready for the trial, which is set to start in August.
In his order from Tuesday, Judge Steven Hippler said that Kohberger’s complaints about how much discovery was done “ring hollow.”
“[Kohberger] has been receiving discovery in the same manner for over two years,” Hippler said. “[Kohberger] hasn’t looked for more resources…to hire more people to look over discovery or get litigation document control software to help put the evidence in order.” Even though there was a lot of discovery in this case, his lead lawyer demanded that she be given a second high-profile capital case to work on.
Hippler also said that Kohberger’s lawyer, Anne Taylor, “indicated that her practice is to personally review all the discovery herself, rather than rely on associates and staff to review materials to cut through the less relevant information and point to what materials need review by lead counsel.”