Bryan Kohberger has been assigned a new court date as he seeks to undo his guilty plea in the murders of four University of Idaho students.
Kohberger, 31, who has been convicted in the killings, is scheduled to appear on October 15 at the Ada County Courthouse, according to a court docket reviewed by Our News Outlet.
At that hearing, Kohberger’s defense attorneys are expected to argue that Judge Steven Hippler should be barred from overseeing his request for post-conviction relief, the docket said.
Hippler was the judge who previously sentenced Kohberger to four life terms for the murders of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen. The four students were found stabbed to death on November 13, 2022, inside their off-campus home.
The new date comes after Hippler set the case’s first status conference and evidentiary hearing for June 2027.
Kohberger avoided a trial and the possibility of a death sentence after accepting a plea deal last July in the fatal stabbings of the four young friends.
In a dramatic turn, however, he filed a petition for post-conviction relief in July — a legal avenue permitted under Idaho state law, though separate from a direct appeal.
‘My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,’ Kohberger said in a statement to The New York Times.
Bryan Kohberger will be in court on October 15 as he tries to overturn his guilty plea in the murders of four University of Idaho students
He pleaded guilty to killing Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, and Madison Mogen last July. They were all found stabbed to death in their off-campus home on November 13, 2022
He further claimed that he has ‘ineffective assistance of counsel’ and that he was ‘advised to lie’ by his legal team.
Kohberger previously signed a written factual basis document that stated he is willing to ‘hereby admit responsibility’ for the slayings.
In it, he also confessed that the ‘killing and murder’ of the victims was ‘willful, unlawful, deliberate, with premeditation and with malice aforethought.’
After the court document was filed, Kohberger admitted his guilt and accepted a plea deal. In addition to the four life sentences, he was also handed another 10 years for a burglary charge. He also owes $270,000 in civil penalties and fines.
As part of his plea deal, Kohberger waived his right to appeal. His only chance of getting a new trial is through a petition of post-conviction relief.
The former criminology student will likely face the death penalty if he is convicted in his new trial.
The judge who will preside over the new trial remains unknown.
In the meantime, Kohberger has been appointed a new defense attorney, Gregory Richard Rauch.
The off-campus home where the four friends were callously murdered
James Goldman, one of Kohberger’s lawyers, previously told People about his defense team’s efforts to disqualify Hippler.
‘This is not about attacking the Court nor asking for special treatment. It is about ensuring that the serious constitutional questions now before the Court are heard in a forum whose impartiality and neutrality cannot be questioned,’ Goldman stated.
Because of that, Goldman said that ‘it would be an inherent conflict for the same presiding judge to decide these very issues.’
It is not yet known if Kohberger will appear at his upcoming hearing. He remains in custody at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.
The latest update comes just weeks after a new three-part Netflix documentary series, The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, aired.
Kaylee’s mother, father, and sister, Kristi, Steve, and Alivea Goncalves; Xana’s father, Jeff Kernodle, and her little sister, Jazzmin Kernodle, were featured in the new show, among friends of the victims and law enforcement officials involved in the case.
After hearing about Kohberger’s bid to get a new trial, Alivea said she wants him ‘no longer breathing on this earth.’
Kaylee’s heartbroken sister previously slammed Kohberger during her victim impact statement last year in court.
It’s not yet known if Kohberger will appear at his upcoming hearing. He remains in custody at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution
‘I won’t stand here and give you what you want. I won’t give you tears. Instead, I will call you what you are: sociopath, psychopath, murderer,’ she said in the face-to-face courtroom confrontation that was broadcast live.
‘The truth is you’re basic. You’re a textbook case as insecurity disguised as control. You spent months preparing and still all it took was my sister and a sheath,’ she added. ‘You’re as dumb as they come. Stupid, dumb, weak, dirty.’
Last month, Alivea, 29, told NBC’s Today exactly how she feels about him trying to re-write his past.
‘The fact that someone locked behind bars still has the ability to revictimize their victims, that’s something that isn’t just very easy to get over,’ she told the outlet.
‘This will never be over for us until the defendant is no longer breathing on this earth.’
