BREAKING: Bryan Kohberger Gets Another Shot in Court — He Wants to Take Back His Guilty Plea

A stunning new development has emerged in the Idaho murders case.

Bryan Kohberger, who is already serving four consecutive life sentences without parole for the killings of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, has been granted a future court hearing as he attempts to undo his guilty pleas and obtain a murder trial.

 

Kohberger filed a petition for post-conviction relief from prison, claiming that his guilty plea was not made knowingly or voluntarily. At the center of his argument is an allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel.

He claims his defense attorneys failed to provide him with certain “exculpatory discovery” before he agreed to the plea deal.

But that’s not all.

In his handwritten petition, Kohberger also alleged that his plea was influenced by unkept promises and threats from his own legal counsel.

Now Judge Steven Hippler, who presided over Kohberger’s original case and sentencing, has granted both a status conference and an evidentiary hearing.

The dates are still far away.

The status conference is scheduled for June 3, 2027, followed by the evidentiary hearing on June 17, 2027.

And prosecutors are already fighting back.

They have filed a response to Kohberger’s petition and a motion asking the court to dismiss it. Kohberger and his public defender have not yet responded, according to the report.

There is another major obstacle facing Kohberger.

 

When he originally accepted the plea agreement, he signed a factual basis document in which he admitted responsibility for the four killings. The document stated that the murders were willful, unlawful, deliberate, premeditated and committed with malice aforethought.

He then appeared in court in July 2025 and received four life sentences without the possibility of parole, along with an additional 10-year sentence for burglary and $270,000 in fines and civil penalties.

The original plea deal spared him the possibility of a death sentence.

But now, Kohberger is attempting to reopen the case through post-conviction proceedings — the route available to him after agreeing that he would not appeal the case as part of his plea agreement.

And there’s a potentially enormous consequence if he succeeds.

If the judge ultimately allows Kohberger to withdraw his guilty pleas and grants him a new trial, prosecutors could once again seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

For now, however, nothing has been overturned.

Kohberger remains convicted and imprisoned, and the upcoming hearing will determine whether his claims about his legal representation and guilty plea have enough merit to move the case forward.

The Idaho murders case may not be over yet.