Brian Kohberger Grants Second Counsel in Idaho Murder Case, State May Seek Death Penalty
This article is based on sources and cannot independently verify this information.
Moscow, Idaho: Brian Kohberger, who is accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death, has been granted another death penalty-eligible attorney on his defense team. The suspect’s attorney, Ann Taylor, who heads the Kootenai County Public Defender’s Office, filed a motion March 2 for a qualified co-counsel to work on cases involving the death penalty. Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall granted the motion on Tuesday, March 7.
Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first degree murder and burglary in the deaths of Kylie Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Janna Karnodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20, all of whom were stabbed to death. A rental house near the Moscow University campus on November 13, 2022. The suspect was a criminology graduate student at nearby Washington State University in Pullman at the time of the murder. Although he has not yet pleaded before his preliminary hearing on June 26, a former lawyer said he was “interested in being acquitted”.
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I want the death penalty
Prosecutors in the case have not said explicitly whether they would seek the death penalty for Kohberger, but criminal defense attorney Andrew Cherkasky believes it was “relatively obvious” to everyone involved in the affair. “I actually don’t see any reason under the law why they wouldn’t,” Cherkasky told News Nation. According to him, Idaho’s administrative code requires death penalty cases to have at least two death-qualified defense attorneys. “In Idaho, when you consider a qualified death penalty attorney, it means they’ve been represented in previous death penalty cases and have years of experience, so I don’t think that there’s a big list to choose from, but there’s a qualified attorney that they have to choose from on this case,” Cherkasky explained.
Brian Kohberger, right, appears during a hearing in Latah County District Court on January 5, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho (Photo by Ted S. Warren – Poole/Getty Images)
While the Idaho Public Defense Commission maintains a list of qualified defense attorneys to represent defendants in cases where the death penalty is sought, the document was not available on the Idaho website. the commission early Thursday, March 9. It is unclear who will determine the second death. . – A qualified lawyer will, but Cherkasky mentioned some factors that will influence the decision. “You really have to look for availability,” he added, “The public defender’s office has the biggest workload of lawyers it can have at any given time, and so I think the main consideration is who is available. And then secondly, I think Who Can Really Get Into the Team can be a good second president. Meanwhile, he acknowledged there was also a chance a second attorney could lead Kohberger’s defense.
Idaho’s death row
According to the Idaho Department of Corrections, seven men and one woman are on death row in the state. Richard Levitt was last executed in 2012 in Idaho. Although lethal injection is the only method of execution allowed in the state at present, firing squads may soon return as an alternative method of execution pending a bill. through the state legislature, Newsweek reported.
