Prosecutors reject Bryan Kohberger’s bid to get the death penalty off the table

Prosecutors in Idaho have asked a judge to reject Bryan Kohberger’s defense team’s arguments against the possibility of the death penalty in his quadruple murder trial — and his request to have an outside expert testify on constitutional issues surrounding the death penalty quest to reject.

Kohberger’s defense, led by Anne Taylor and Elisa Massoth, has filed numerous requests that fall outside the bounds of established precedent, prosecutors wrote in a series of documents made public this past week.

The 29-year-old’s lawyers also argued that the state has “no viable method” to carry out executions and that there has not been enough time to adequately prepare the case against him.

“The thrust of defendant’s argument is that the applicable aggravating factors in a capital case should be presented to a grand jury,” Special Assistant Attorney General Jeff Nye and Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson wrote. “His argument is completely barred by binding precedent from the Idaho Supreme Court.”

DAMAGED IDAHO COLLEGE KILLER BRYAN KOHBERGER’S TRIAL DATE POSTPONED

Bryan Kohberger, right, is escorted into a courtroom to appear during a hearing in Latah County District Court on September 13, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

They wrote that they met their own legal obligations by including an affidavit in the superseding indictment and by notifying the defense that the state intended to seek the death penalty within 60 days of his arraignment when a judge pleaded not guilty on all charges. on his behalf.

Under the law, they added, they were not required to include additional probable cause for each “aggravating circumstance” that led them to seek the death penalty.

They also rejected Kohberger’s claim under the Eighth Amendment that the death penalty could be cruel or unusual punishment if prosecutors pursue it without consulting a “neutral fact finder.”

In a separate filing, Thompson also asked the judge to deny the defense’s request for expert testimony against the death penalty.

Madison Mogen, above left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and two other roommates in Goncalves’ latest Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)

“In Idaho, it is now common knowledge that ‘testimony containing legal conclusions of an expert witness is generally inadmissible,’” Thompson wrote in court filings, citing the ruling in Ybarra v. Bedke. “As the Idaho Supreme Court has explained, ‘when an expert witness draws a legal conclusion, he invades the court’s province to determine the applicable law.’”

BRYAN KOHBERGER’S DEFENSE TEAM AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

Last month, the defense attacked the possibility of the death penalty on numerous grounds, ranging from “contemporary standards of decency” to an alleged violation of international law.

They claimed that Idaho’s two legal methods of execution — lethal injection and firing squad — violate both the Eighth and 14th Amendments, and they claimed that the firing squad “was never constitutional.”

Attorneys for Bryan Kohberger, Anne Taylor (left), Elissa Massoth, center, and Jay Logsdon arrive at the Latah County Courthouse on June 27, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

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After Idaho reinstated the firing squad last year, one of the nation’s leading experts on the death penalty, Fordham Law School professor Deborah Denno, told Fox News Digital that the method is far more humane than lethal injections. which have failed seriously in recent years.

“The firing squad is the fastest, surest and most flawless and the only technique for which we have skilled and trained professionals,” she said at the time.

She added that if death row inmates were given the choice, she believed most would ask for a bullet instead of an injection.

Police search a home in Moscow, Idaho, on Monday, November 14, 2022, where four University of Idaho students were killed in a quadruple homicide over the weekend. The victims are Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Idaho; and Kaylee GonCalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

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Investigators said cell phone pings placed Kohberger near the home on the day of the murders, and they tracked his car throughout the area. However, defense attorneys have argued that he was not near the house where the murders took place and instead drove along cold mountain roads in the dark because he liked to “see the moon and the stars.”

Koberger was study in Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, at the time of the murders. The school is just a 10-mile drive across the state line from the crime scene, a stone’s throw from the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho.

According to online jail records, Bryan Kohberger is now in the custody of the Ada County Sheriff’s Office. (Ada County Sheriff’s Office)

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A stabbing at a home at 4 a.m. on November 13, 2022 left four students dead: Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Police found a Ka-Bar knife sheath under the body of Mogen who allegedly did this Kohberger’s DNA on the cut.

Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

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A hearing on the death penalty issue was scheduled for November 7.

Kohberger’s defense earlier this year successfully argued for a change of venue, transferring the case from Latah County, where he had been jailed since January 2023, to Ada County, where he is expected to go to trial next year.

Audrey Conklin and Greg Wehner of Fox News contributed to this report.