Judge rules on Kohberger motion to remove death penalty over autism diagnosis
Bryan Kohberger’s autism spectrum diagnosis won’t prevent him from facing the death penalty if the 30-year-old is convicted at his upcoming capital murder trial, the presiding judge ruled Thursday.
Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler concluded that Kohberger’s attorneys failed to show how his neurological and developmental disability is equivalent to an intellectual disability. They also didn’t prove that there is a national consensus against subjecting people with autism to the death penalty, Hippler said.
Autism could be a “mitigating factor to be weighed against the aggravating factors” in deciding whether Kohberger should receive the death penalty, but doesn’t disqualify him from such a sentence, Hippler wrote in the 15-page order.
Lead defense attorney Anne Taylor argued in a March motion that a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on intellectual disabilities should be expanded to include people with autism since Kohberger’s diagnosis shares similarities and “exposes him to the unacceptable risk” that he’ll be wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder in the killing of four University of Idaho students, and if he’s convicted, prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty.
This is one of the latest — and likely final — attempts by Kohberger’s attorneys to remove the death penalty as an option. His public defense team has filed a slew of motions to prevent the possibility, which included arguments that capital punishment is unconstitutional, breaks with evolving standards of decency, violates international law and is arbitrarily applied.
But Hippler, who presides over cases in Ada County, where the case was moved after a change of venue from Latah County was granted, wasn’t persuaded. He denied each one of the defense’s requests to keep their client from possibly being on death row.
One other motion filed last month, looking to remove the death penalty over allegations that the prosecution “shirked its responsibility” to disclose evidence on time and violated the court’s discovery deadlines, is still pending.
This most recent order was one of several that have dropped in the last week since Hippler took up dozens of motions at an all-day hearing in early April. Some of the orders are still pending, but two other issues, including a request to admit portions of the 911 call, were also resolved Thursday.
The homicide victims were Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The three women lived at the off-campus home with the other two female roommates, while Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and slept over for the night.
Kohberger’s murder trial is scheduled to begin at the Ada County Courthouse with jury selection in late July.
Defense looked to U.S. Supreme Court ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment regarding cruel and unusual punishment, setting a precedent in Atkins v. Virginia. And one of Kohberger’s attorneys, Elisa Massoth, argued in court earlier this month that the ruling should “apply with equal force” to people with autism and specifically to Kohberger.
But an intellectual disability isn’t the same thing as a neurological or developmental disability, Hippler said. He added that while many people with autism can have an intellectual disability, Kohberger was diagnosed with level one autism without intellectual impairments.
“This is an apple-to-oranges comparison, however,” Hippler wrote. “While intellectually disabled and ASD individuals may share some of the same adaptive impairments, the intellectual deficit — an essential feature of an intellectual disability — is not diagnostic element of ASD.”
Two legal experts told the Idaho Statesman this month that, absent of cognitive or mental deficits, the precedent set in Atkins v. Virginia likely wouldn’t be enough to take the death penalty off the table for Kohberger. But they didn’t discount the challenges people with autism face in the legal system.
Another expert, University of Virginia research assistant professor Rose Nevill, a licensed clinical psychologist whose research focuses on enhancing evaluations for people with autism, said she saw strong reasoning to expand Atkins v. Virginia to include people with all intellectual and developmental disabilities — including autism.
Someone with autism might easily have an above-average IQ, Nevill said, but that doesn’t always translate to them having above-average adaptive functioning or the ability to perform everyday tasks. Kohberger’s IQ of 119 is also far above the required IQ of 70 or lower to prove Idaho’s legal definition of an intellectual disability.
“His lawyers can and should emphasize impairment in adaptive functioning,” she told the Statesman. “Many autistic people have adaptive functioning scores lower than intellectual quotient — in other words, many autistic adults have a reduced ability to function independently in society and that ability does not match their overall intellect.”
But Hippler ruled in the order that an autism diagnosis “fails to satisfy” the exemptions for those with intellectual disabilities.
Prosecution: Autism doesn’t prevent death penalty in any state
Arguments that other states, such as Ohio and Kentucky, expanded their laws to bar people with serious mental illness from facing the death penalty don’t apply, Hippler said.
“At best, this evidence demonstrates growing societal sensitivity to mental disorders generally,” Hippler wrote. “However, evidence of evolving standards of decency must come from legislative and executive actions.”
On top of the legislation applying only to schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and delusional disorder, Hippler said that two states barring individuals with severe mental illness from execution is not a national consensus. His ruling fell in line with the prosecution’s response that the defense’s own arguments contradict precedent set by not only the Idaho Supreme Court, but also the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Not a single state has said that someone with ASD cannot be executed,” Special Assistant Attorney General Jeff Nye said in court earlier this month.
Taylor also argued that the hundreds of thousands of online commentators have “developed a cottage industry” to analyze Kohberger’s every move, and have said that things like lack of facial expression or abnormal eye contact are “sure signs of his guilt.” But instead, they are indications of his autism, which he’s being vilified for.
“These widely viewed and highly prejudicial media reports, draped in the language of ‘expertise’ and ‘analysis,’ demonize Mr. Kohberger for his disability,” she wrote in the court filing. “In an environment so tainted by rampant and vitriolic conjecture, it is impossible for Mr. Kohberger to receive the individualized sentencing determination — including full and careful consideration of mitigation evidence — that the constitution demands whenever the state seeks to extinguish a human life.”
Hippler said that there is no precedent for striking the death penalty over media coverage, and that those concerns could be mitigated through the jury selection process and expert testimony.
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 4:38 PM.
