Bryan Kohberger will have an opportunity to argue in court that his guilty plea in the University of Idaho murders case should be overturned after a judge granted him both a status conference and an evidentiary hearing.
Kohberger, 31, is currently serving four life sentences without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to murdering University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
Judge Steven Hippler, who presided over Kohberger’s guilty plea and later sentenced him, approved the request for additional proceedings. The status conference has been scheduled for June 3, 2027, while the evidentiary hearing is set for June 17, 2027.
The hearings stem from a handwritten petition for post-conviction relief that Kohberger filed from prison.
In that petition, Kohberger claims he received ineffective assistance from his defense attorneys and argues that his guilty plea was not made knowingly or voluntarily.
Among his allegations is that his attorneys failed to disclose what he describes as “exculpatory discovery” before he agreed to the deal with prosecutors.
Kohberger also alleges that his plea was the result of unfulfilled promises and threats made by members of his legal team.
Prosecutors have pushed back against his claims. The state has filed a response to Kohberger’s petition along with a motion asking the court to dismiss it. Kohberger and his newly appointed public defender had not yet responded to those filings at the time of the court’s latest order.
The former criminology student faces a significant legal hurdle in trying to undo his conviction.
As part of his original plea agreement, Kohberger signed a written factual basis acknowledging responsibility for the four killings. In that document, he stated that he was willing to “hereby admit responsibility” for the deaths.
He also acknowledged that the killings were “willful, unlawful, deliberate, with premeditation and with malice afterthought.”
Those admissions were made before Judge Hippler sentenced him on July 23, 2025.
Kohberger was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without parole for the murders, along with an additional 10-year sentence related to burglary. He was also ordered to pay $270,000 in fines and civil penalties.
His guilty plea came three weeks before the sentencing hearing and spared him the possibility of facing the death penalty.
Now Kohberger is attempting to reverse that decision.
His petition specifically challenges the representation he received from Anne Taylor, the defense attorney who represented him through the plea proceedings. Kohberger claims that mistakes by his legal team prevented him from making a fully informed decision about whether to plead guilty.
The court’s decision to schedule an evidentiary hearing does not mean Kohberger has been granted a new trial or that his allegations have been proven. The upcoming proceedings will give both sides an opportunity to present evidence and arguments concerning his claims.
Kohberger’s family has previously been described as closely involved in discussions surrounding his case. In a separate affidavit accompanying his post-conviction petition, he said his parents and sisters were present for many of the attorney-client discussions that preceded his plea.
It remains unclear whether any family members will provide evidence in support of his latest claims.
Kohberger’s case dates back to Nov. 13, 2022, when Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin were found stabbed to death inside a home near the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho.
Kohberger was arrested in December 2022 and subsequently charged with the killings.
For more than two years, the case moved toward what was expected to be a closely watched murder trial. But in 2025, Kohberger unexpectedly accepted a plea deal that eliminated the possibility of a death sentence.
He is now attempting to undo that agreement.
Because the plea deal also required Kohberger to waive his right to appeal, post-conviction relief represents his route toward potentially obtaining a new trial.
If Judge Hippler ultimately agrees to vacate Kohberger’s guilty plea and allows the case to proceed to trial, prosecutors could once again seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
For now, however, Kohberger remains behind bars serving his four life sentences while he waits for his chance to challenge the plea that brought his long-running murder case to an end.
