Death Penalty News

The former doctoral student pled guilty in 2025 to the murders of four University of Idaho students. A legal expert has called Bryan Kohberger’s attempt to abandon his guilty plea “highly unlikely” to succeed after the convicted killer filed a petition for post-conviction relief in an Idaho court. Kohberger pleaded guilty in 2025 to killing four University of Idaho students, waiving his right to a trial and avoiding a possible death penalty conviction. He received four life sentences in prison. On July 27, Kohberger filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the Ada County District Court. He looks to withdraw his guilty plea and conviction and seeks a trial on the murder charges.

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

There is a com­mon­ly held belief that use of the death penal­ty is always sup­port­ed by the friends and fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones to vio­lence. Prosecutors and elect­ed offi­cials often argue that only the death penal­ty will bring them the clo­sure and jus­tice they deserve. Family mem­bers are invit­ed to wit­ness exe­cu­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es on the the­o­ry that doing so will help meet their needs for ret­ri­bu­tion and closure.  While this feel­ing may be true for some , oth­ers feel dif­fer­ent­ly, includ­ing some who oppose the death penal­ty in all circumstances.

Bryan Kohberger, the 30-year-old accused of fatally stabbing 4 University of Idaho students in their apartment in 2022, has agreed to a plea deal to avoid the death penalty in his quadruple murder case.   The plea deal consisted of pleading guilty to 4 counts of murder in exchange for the government not pursuing the death penalty, a person familiar with the deal confirmed to CNN. Shannon Gray, attorney for family of victim Kaylee Goncalves, also confirmed the deal to CNN.  A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Kohberger was slated to go on trial in August, and prosecutors indicated they would pursue the death penalty.

Idaho's state prison system has suspended all executions and execution-related procedures, including lethal injection, at least until the end of 2025. This suspension is due to the upcoming transition to firing squad executions as the state's primary method of capital punishment, a change that necessitates significant renovations to the execution chamber at the maximum-security prison.  The new law prioritizing the controversial firing squad method is set to take effect in July 2026.

Idaho quadruple murder suspect's claims about overwhelming evidence preparation 'ring hollow,' judge rules A judge in Idaho denied a motion from Bryan Kohberger's defense team asking to remove the death penalty as a potential punishment if he's found guilty. Kohberger is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of four students at the University of Idaho, including Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; and Ethan Chapin, 20. The former student at the University of Washington was also charged with one felony count of burglary.

Judge Steven Hippler ruled Wednesday that Bryan Kohberger, the man charged with killing four University of Idaho students, can face the death penalty. Kohberger is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022. Prosecutors announced that they intend to seek the death penalty in 2023, and Kohberger's defense team has been fighting to get it removed ever since.

After surviving a botched execution attempt in February, Thomas Creech (pictured) was scheduled for  execution a second time on November 13 in Idaho. On Wednesday, November 6, a federal district court issued a stay of execution to allow more time to consider Mr. Creech’s legal claims. The Idaho Department of Corrections announced that “execution preparations have been suspended” and the execution warrant will expire.

Idaho’s new firing squad law also included a one-time estimated cost of $750,000 for the prison system to renovate a cell block at the maximum security prison for the new backup execution method.  Convicted murderer Gerald Pizzuto has spent 37 years — more than half his life — locked up on Idaho’s death row. He’s dodged his scheduled execution by way of a needle five times over that period.  Since Pizzuto’s 1986 conviction for killing two people at a remote Idaho County cabin north of McCall, Idaho taxpayers have paid about $1.3 million to keep him imprisoned, according to an Idaho Statesman analysis of state prison cost records. The price to house another of the state’s death row inmates — the longest serving at more than 40 years — is nearly $1.5 million, applying 2022 per-day prison costs at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution outside Kuna. 

Prosecutors say they are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death late last year. Bryan Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of murder in connection with the deaths at a rental house near the Moscow, Idaho, university campus last November.  Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson filed the notice of his intent to seek the death penalty in court in Boise on Monday. A not-guilty plea was entered in the case on Kohberger's behalf earlier this year. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

Mullis has waived all his appeals and fired his attorneys. Travis Mullis, a 31-year-old Texas man who stomped his 3-year-old baby to death, has filed a request to fast-track his path to the death chamber, according to the Houston Chronicle . Mullis made headlines when he was sentenced to death row in 2011 after he stomped his little baby to death by the Galveston seawall in a ghastly culmination of what his attorneys said was a series of "stupid decisions."  His attorneys had previously pointed out that Mullis was an "emotional mental health quadriplegic," detailing his horrific upbringing and the result of his childhood scars on his mental being. According to the documents, Mullis' mother died when he was a toddler, and between the ages of 3 and 6, he was sexually abused repeatedly. He spent years in and out of institutions, and when he was 18, Mullis' adoptive mother kicked him out to live on his own. This is when he moved to Texas and s...