Prosecutors say Judge Hippler's 'faceless coward' remarks don't disqualify him from Kohberger's plea challenge.

Judges say hard things at sentencing all the time, and they say them after hearing the evidence and a guilty plea. The question on a disqualification motion is not whether the judge was blunt. It is whether he is biased now, in a way that keeps him from fairly deciding the petition in front of him. That is a steep climb for Kohberger. The bigger date is Nov. 13, when his court-appointed lawyer has to file the amended petition that says what, exactly, was wrong with the plea.

Prosecutors are opposing Bryan Kohberger's bid to remove the judge who sentenced him in the University of Idaho murders, Fox News reported Friday, Oct. 9, 2026. Kohberger's new legal team filed a motion on Aug. 27 to disqualify Judge Steven Hippler, arguing he made biased statements at sentencing and rushed the case toward trial when Kohberger's former defense team was not ready. In response, prosecutors wrote that to remove a judge, "the motion must show that 'the judge is biased,'" italicizing the word "is." "None of petitioner's allegations against this Court — taken alone or together — have [met] that 'extremely high' bar," the filing says, according to Fox News. It was signed by outgoing Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson, who announced his retirement this week, and Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Keith Scholl.

At sentencing, Hippler called Kohberger, now 31, a "faceless coward," said he could find nothing "good or intrinsically human" about him, said he "slithered" into the victims' home and called the crime "the worst of the worst." He also addressed the fact that the plea deal did not require Kohberger to explain himself. "Even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, how could anyone ever be assured that what he speaks is the truth?" Hippler said. Prosecutors argue those remarks, made after Kohberger admitted guilt, were not unusual or out of line. "In our case, the sentencing remarks are not enough to show bias," they wrote, adding that the issues raised instead put Hippler "in the best position to adjudicate them as the legislature and the Idaho Supreme Court's rules intend," Fox News reported.

The fight is part of Kohberger's effort to undo his guilty plea. In a handwritten petition filed in July, he claimed ineffective counsel and said his plea was "not knowingly or voluntarily entered because it was induced by unkept promises" and "not voluntarily entered because of threats asserted by [his] legal counsel," Fox News reported. The court appointed Moscow, Idaho, attorney Greg Rauch to represent him, and his family has retained New York lawyer Jason Goldman. Hippler gave Rauch until Nov. 13, four years to the day after the killings, to file an amended petition. The virtual hearing on the disqualification motion is set for Oct. 15.

Kohberger pleaded guilty on July 2, 2025, to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the November 2022 stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, and Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20, at an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. On July 23, 2025, Hippler sentenced him to four consecutive terms of life without parole plus 10 years under a plea deal that took the death penalty off the table. Fox News noted that the change of plea came days after Hippler refused to give the former defense team more time for discovery. Kohberger's family said last month that it supports the plea-withdrawal effort.

Every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Kohberger gave up that protection when he admitted the killings under oath, and a post-conviction petition does not restore it unless a judge sets the plea aside. If Hippler stays on the case, he will be the one deciding whether that happens.