Bryan Kohberger granted second lawyer in Idaho murder case, state may seek death penalty
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MOSCOW, IDAHO: Bryan Kohberger, who is charged with stabbing four University of Idaho students to death, has been granted another death penalty-qualified attorney in his defense team. The suspect's attorney Anne Taylor, who is chief of the Kootenai County Public Defender's Office, filed a motion on March 2 for a co-counsel qualified to act in cases involving the death penalty. The motion was granted by Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall on Tuesday, March 7.
Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, all of whom were found stabbed to death in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow on November 13, 2022. The suspect was a graduate student in criminology at Washington State University in nearby Pullman at the time of the murders. While he is yet to enter a plea to the charges ahead of his preliminary hearing on June 26, a previous lawyer said he was "eager to be exonerated."
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Seeking the death penalty
Prosecutors in the case have not explicitly stated they would seek the death penalty for Kohberger, but criminal defense attorney Andrew Cherkasky believes it was "relatively obvious" to everyone involved in the case. "In fact, I can see no reason under the law why they would not," Cherkasky told NewsNation. According to him, Idaho's administrative code requires death penalty cases to have at least two death-qualified defense attorneys. "In Idaho, when you have that consideration of death qualified counsel, that means that they have performed representation in a previous death penalty case and have exhibited years of experience so I don't think that there is a large roster to choose from, but there are qualified counsel that they will have to choose from in this case," Cherkasky explained.
While the Idaho Public Defense Commission maintains a roster of defense attorneys qualified to represent defendants in cases where the death penalty is sought, the document was not available on the commission's website early Thursday, March 9. It is unclear who will determine who the second death-qualified attorney will be, but Cherkasky noted some factors that would impact that decision. "You really have to look for availability," he said, adding, "Counsel in public defender offices have maximum caseloads that they can have at any one given time and so what I think is going to be the primary consideration is who's available for this. And then secondarily, I think it's going to be who can really come into the team to be a good second chair." Meanwhile, he admitted there was also a chance the second attorney could end up leading Kohberger's defense.
Idaho's death row
According to the Idaho Department of Correction, seven men and one woman are on death row in the state. The last execution in Idaho was that of Richard Leavitt in 2012. While lethal injection is the only approved method of execution in the state at this point, firing squads could soon make a comeback as an alternative method of execution pending a bill that is making its way through the state legislature, Newsweek reported.