99.5% of the time. On rare occasions there might be an irregularity in the sentencing process that leads to an appeal.
So the plea deal implies that Kohberger and his lawyers admit not just that he’s guilty, but also that they realize that there’s enough evidence to show that he’s guilty?
Asking because apart from going in for jury duty once and being dismissed, I don’t know much about the process.
Sometimes plea deals are “plead guilty to [smaller crime] or be tried for [larger crime]”.
So from the defendant’s point of view it comes down to e.g. a guaranteed 10 years in prison or a chance at trial for either freedom or 50 years in prison. If the trial option is looking especially grim for the defendant, taking the sure thing may be the smarter move. So it’s not that the defendant is certain they’ll be convicted, merely that they’re highly concerned about that possibility.
Of course the prosecutor knows the quality of their case, and the more confident they are of a win at trial, the larger a lesser crime they’ll accept. For low profile cases, a win is a win, and they may “sell” cheap to avoid the hassle and expense of a trial.
For high profile cases like this one, the prosecutor is not going to want to “sell” the conviction for cheap. So Kohberger’s deal is probably pretty unfavorable to his side. Just less unfavorable than 4 premeditated murder convictions would be.
From what I’ve heard, the State only gave up the death penalty. I don’t know Idaho law (and haven’t read the articles) but I’m guess he’s looking at life without parole or something similar.
It implies that, but it’s not a formal admission regarding the strength of the State’s case. He either has to admit guilt for a straight plea, or for an Alford Plea, has to admit that the State has enough evidence to convict him.
I also heard on the radio that at least one of the families has requested the plea be delayed because it’s a hardship for them to get to ID this week. Apparently its being rammed thru so fast the family isn’t even being given reasonable time to make travel arrangements to get there to hear him admit to the murders in court.
He’ll be sentenced to four consecutive life terms for the murders, plus 10 years for burglary. As I understand it the Goncalves family’s complaint is presumably never being able to hear “why he did it.”
I think a death sentence would have resulted in years (decades?) of appeals and such, and a (hypothetical) speedy execution would have let BK off easy. Spending the rest of his life in a concrete room will be a worse fate.
FWIW, I live one mile from the murder scene.
There isn’t much chance they’d learn that from a trial. He probably wouldn’t testify and certainly wouldn’t confess.
Agrred. The trail would not have any reason to discuss that issue.
The “why” will come out in his book. If there is one.
Of course, it’s also possible for a defendant to just plain plead guilty, on the original charges. This could be because of remorse, or because they recognize that the evidence is so overwhelmingly against them that they don’t have a realistic chance, or because they think that the trial itself would be worse than the sentence.
And there is always the small chance of a hung jury.
So, a one-man prisoner’s dilemma.
Clever. 
Not quite game-theoretically correct, but certainly in the general ballpark.
A CBS article says that one of the families, the Mogens, was fine with the plea deal. “We can actually put this behind us and not have these future dates and future things that we don’t want to have to be at, that we shouldn’t have to be at, that have to do with this terrible person,” said Ben Mogen, dad of Madison.
But the Goncalves family, who said yesterday that they were “beyond furious”, released another statement today saying
“At a bare minimum, please - require a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, & the true facts of what happened that night.”
Idaho murder victims' families divided over Bryan Kohberger plea deal - CBS News
Tonight’s news was covering this, and brought up that he was working on his PhD in criminology. I haven’t heard if the plea deal includes that he can’t profit from writing a book about his crimes. I hope most states have such a law on their books.
This appears to be the relevant Idaho statute:
Distribution of moneys received as a result of the commission of crime. (1) Every person, firm, corporation, partnership, association or other legal entity contracting with any person or the representative or assignee of any person, accused of a crime in this state, with respect to the reenactment of such crime, by way of a movie, book, magazine article, radio or television presentation, live entertainment of any kind, or from the expression of such person’s thoughts, feelings, opinions or emotions regarding such crime, shall pay over to the state treasurer any moneys which would otherwise, by terms of such contract, be owing to the person so convicted or his representatives. The state treasurer shall deposit such moneys in an escrow account for the benefit of and payable to any victim of crimes committed by such person, provided that such person is eventually convicted of the crime or is acquitted on the ground of mental disease or defect excluding responsibility and provided further that such victim, or his personal representative, within five (5) years of the date the escrow account has been established, brings a civil action in a court of competent jurisdiction and recovers a money judgment against such person or his representatives.
Agreed. Especially since he comes from a relatively well-off family and is a young man with a potentially good future ahead of him, doubtless sheltered from much of the realities that have shaped his future prison mates, having to spend the rest of his natural life caged, confined, controlled, amid men who’ll consider him a chew toy, will likely be a soul-crushing existence for him.
Blockquote
“At a bare minimum, please - require a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, & the true facts of what happened that night.”
Those aren’t really things the DA can require. They can certainly require a statement from him, but even if he gives some facts, how does anybody know they are true? If he says he acted alone, do you believe him? If the court compels him to say “I am sorry,” is that sorry he did it or sorry he got caught or what?
This sounds like a family in grief who really desperately want to believe something will make them feel better.
I agree. I can’t imagine what they’ve gone through already these past 2.5 years.
His parents both worked for the school district, his dad in maintenance & his mom as an aid; they declared bankruptcy twice. I wouldn’t call that relatively well-off.
Gotcha. Still, better off than a number of his future prison mates.