Death Penalty Still on Table for Kohberger Despite Autism

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    On Thursday, a judge determined that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against Bryan Kohberger if he is found guilty of the 2022 murder of four University of Idaho students, despite his recent autism diagnosis.

    Kohberger, age 30, faces charges for the fatal stabbings of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Kaylee Goncalves at a residence near the university campus in Moscow, Idaho on November 13, 2022. Prosecutors have expressed their intent to pursue the death penalty should Kohberger be convicted during the trial scheduled for August.

    Kohberger’s legal team filed a request with Judge Steven Hippler to exclude the death penalty as a punitive option, citing their client’s autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Additionally, they have submitted various other motions contesting the death penalty, including one alleging procedural misconduct by the state regarding evidence submission.

    Defense attorneys argued in court documents that Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diminishes his culpability, undermines the punitive and deterrent objectives of capital punishment, and poses an undue risk of wrongful conviction and execution. They maintained that executing an individual with autism would be an infringement of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments.

    However, prosecutors countered by referencing U.S. Supreme Court decisions, which only prohibit the death penalty for individuals with intellectual disabilities, contrasting Kohberger’s mild autism diagnosis, which lacks intellectual impairment. The judge concurred with this perspective.

    “The defendant has not demonstrated that ASD equates to an intellectual disability for the purposes of the death penalty exemption,” Judge Hippler wrote. “ASD may indeed serve as a mitigating factor when considering the application of the death penalty, but it is not classified as a disqualifier for capital punishment.”

    At the time of the incident, Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminal justice at Washington State University in Pullman, approximately 10 miles from Moscow. He was apprehended in Pennsylvania several weeks later. Investigators have linked his DNA to genetic material obtained from a knife sheath left at the crime scene.

    Autopsy reports revealed that the victims were likely asleep during the attack, with some bearing defensive wounds, and each having suffered multiple stab wounds.

    Subsequent to Kohberger’s arrest, his defense attorneys arranged for a clinical neuropsychologist, Dr. Rachel Orr, to evaluate him. She diagnosed Kohberger with “Autism Spectrum Disorder, level 1, without accompanying intellectual or language impairments.”

    In a separate decision on Thursday, the judge ruled that a large portion of the 911 call made by two surviving roommates roughly eight hours after the killings would be admissible in court. The call was made when the roommates discovered one of them was unresponsive. Nonetheless, an unidentified woman’s remarks on the call, conveying information not observed firsthand, will be excluded, the judge stated.

    Moreover, the judge announced that jurors could review text messages exchanged between the two surviving roommates around the time of the incident, after 4 a.m., when one of them allegedly spotted a masked man inside the house. The texts will be admissible if the prosecutors provide an appropriate foundation for their inclusion as evidence.