Brian Koberger's defense team opposes the death penalty sentence for the suspect in four Idaho murders on several grounds.
Koberger, 29, is charged with murder and four counts of theft in the Nov. 13, 2022, killings of Zana Kernodle, 20, Ethan Chapin, 20, Kaylee Gonsalves, 21, and Madison Morgen, 21.
Arguments against the death penalty presented by Koberger's lawyers include that “Idaho has no feasible method of killing” in capital cases, that the state's method for obtaining the death penalty is “unconstitutional,” that a death sentence for murder cannot be prepared in 10 months, and that the death penalty violates the “prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments.”
“Executing Koberger by lethal injection or shooting, as contemplated by the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC), would violate his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process,” his lawyers wrote.
Brian Koberger returns to Idaho court to seek venue change in student murder case
Brian Koberger appears in a Moscow, Idaho, courtroom on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. Koberger was in court to challenge a grand jury indictment for the 2022 murders of four college students at his home. (Kai Eiselein/Pool)
The lawsuit also argues that shooting, the second-most legal method of execution in Idaho after lethal injection, “is not, and has never been, constitutional.”
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In other documents filed Thursday, Koberger's defense said the punishment is “cruel and unusual because it does not meet the evolving standards of a modern, civilized society.”
Idaho murder trial for Brian Koberger set to begin in June 2025
Brian Christopher Koberger arrives at the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 3, 2023, before waiving extradition to Idaho to face murder charges in the stabbing deaths of four college students. (Image direct from Fox News Digital)
“Most modern, civilized societies have already abolished the death penalty because they recognize that the execution of human beings by governments is an affront to human dignity and the human soul,” the lawyers wrote. “The systematic killing of civilian prisoners is an affront to modern, civilized societies. The United States has consistently been condemned by the international community for continuing to execute its own citizens.”
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Prosecutors, on the other hand, argue that the state is trying to enforce an Idaho law that says juries have the right to determine not only guilt but also the possible punishment.
Koberger's death sentence would cost $1 million more than a life sentence, reports say
Investigators position themselves outside the home where four University of Idaho students were killed in November 2022, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
“We are simply trying to fulfill our responsibilities under the law. To describe the state as wanting, wanting or attempting to kill someone is simply appealing to raw emotions and there is no room for that in this courtroom,” prosecutors said previously.
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The defendant is a 29-year-old former doctoral student in criminology. Washington State University A man living near Pullman, Washington, is suspected of stabbing four University of Idaho students with a KA-BAR-type knife in the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, at a home near campus.
Madison Morgen (top left) leans on her best friend Kaylee Gonsalves' shoulder and smiles with Ethan Chapin, Zana Kernodle and two other housemates in Gonsalves' final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
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Koberger was arrested in late December 2022 at his home in Pennsylvania.
His trial is scheduled to take place no later than the summer of 2025.
