Bryan Kohberger, the convicted murderer in the University of Idaho killings, has secured another court date as he continues his effort to undo the plea agreement that spared him a trial.
Court filings show Kohberger’s attorneys and prosecutors are scheduled to appear at the Ada County Courthouse on Oct. 15 for arguments tied to his request to remove Judge Steven Hippler from overseeing his post-conviction proceedings.
Hippler previously sentenced Kohberger, 31, to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole after the former criminology student admitted during a July 2025 plea hearing that he fatally stabbed University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Kaylee Goncalves in November 2022.
The newly added October hearing comes just weeks after Hippler set a separate status conference and evidentiary hearing in Kohberger’s case for June 2027.
In a handwritten affidavit submitted over the summer, Kohberger claimed his previous defense lawyers gave him and his family a misleading picture of the evidence against him before he agreed to plead guilty in the widely followed quadruple murder case.
According to a legal petition obtained by The New York Times, Kohberger alleged that “coercion, disinformation, false promises, and the withholding of exculpatory discovery” pressured him into entering what he now describes as an invalid guilty plea on July 2, 2025.
His defense team is also seeking to have Hippler disqualified, pointing to comments the judge made at sentencing that they argue raise questions about his ability to remain impartial, KTVB reported. The lawyers are additionally pushing to move the matter out of Ada County and back to Latah County.
Kohberger’s attorneys have argued that relocating the case could help blunt the intense media attention surrounding the University of Idaho murders, which they say has complicated efforts to secure a fair and unbiased venue, according to the outlet.
Prosecutors already filed a motion to dismiss the case, stating that Kohberger’s own admissions in a written factual basis document may pose a hurdle, People reported.
In the document, Kohberger stated that he is willing to “hereby admit responsibility” for the killing of the four University of Idaho students in their off-campus Moscow home, the outlet said.
He also admitted that the “killing and murder” of his victims was “willful, unlawful, deliberate, with premeditation and with malice aforethought.”
Kohberger then pleaded guilty in court as part of a plea deal that spared him the death penalty — but stipulated that he agree to never appeal his case — only giving him the chance of a new trial through a petition for post-conviction relief.
If granted a new trial and convicted, Kohberger will likely face the death penalty, the outlet said.
