Bryan Kohberger’s new attorney, Jason Goldman, has doubled down on his client’s decision to withdraw his guilty plea and take his case to trial after he previously pleaded guilty to killing Idaho college students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in 2022.
While reflecting on the public interest in the case, Goldman told People that those following the case should not jump to conclusions about what happened. Instead, he said he would “simply caution against assuming that everything the public believes it knows about this case tells the complete story.”
Goldman added that “there remain serious questions about how this case reached its present posture and a hearing will provide an appropriate forum to address those issues.”
Kohberger, 31, was sentenced to four lifetimes in prison without parole for the murders, as well as 10 years for a burglary charge and $270,000 in fines and civil penalties, after he pleaded guilty to the killings in July 2025.
One year after he accepted the plea deal, Kohberger filed to withdraw his plea. He claimed that he only accepted the plea deal because his legal counsel at the time “advised” him to “lie” so that he could avoid the death sentence.
“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” he wrote in a statement to the New York Times while discussing the petition.
In his handwritten post-conviction relief petition, Kohberger said that he had “ineffective assistance of counsel” at the time he entered the plea. He also argued that his plea was not entered “knowingly or voluntarily because [it] was induced by unkept promises” and “because of threats asserted by [his] legal counsel.”
Kohberger has since hired a new legal team and made moves to take his case to trial, including filing a motion seeking to dismiss Judge Steven Hippler from the case. Hippler previously gave Kohberger his sentence after he pleaded guilty.
“This is not about attacking the Court nor asking for special treatment. It is about ensuring that the serious constitutional questions now before the Court are heard in a forum whose impartiality and neutrality cannot be questioned,” Goldman told People of the filing.
Goldman went on to argue that “it would be an inherent conflict for the same presiding judge to decide these very issues.”
A ruling has not yet been made in response to the motion.
Despite the filing, Hippler has been involved in the latest iteration of the case. Not only has he granted Kohberger a status conference, but he also granted him an evidentiary hearing in his bid to retract his guilty pleas and be granted a trial.
