BOISE, Idaho — The public defense for Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger recently asked that his Boise trial be postponed, citing highly prejudicial publicity for their client and insufficient time to prepare.

“While prompt administration of justice is important — to both the state and Mr. Kohberger — the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial outweighs modest delay,” lead defense attorney Anne Taylor wrote. “And, because the majority of cases ending in the death penalty are later overturned for error, the public interest lies in ensuring a fair trial in the first instance.”

If Kohberger, 30, a former Ph.D. student of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, is found guilty on four counts of first-degree murder, prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. His much anticipated trial at the Ada County Courthouse is scheduled to start in early August — more than 2 1/2 years after the November 2022 stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho undergraduate students in Moscow.

Judge Steven Hippler, of Idaho’s 4th Judicial District in Ada County, has yet to rule on the defense’s request for a continuance. But have the majority of death sentences in the U.S. really been overturned on appeal over legal or procedural mistakes?

The seminal report on the issue — produced by the law school at Columbia University — found a 68% reversal rate nationally of death penalty convictions because of serious error, but that report is decades old, having come out in 2000. The study included about 4,600 fully reviewed cases across the U.S. between 1973 and 1995, and on average death sentences were thrown out in nearly seven out of every 10 convictions because of a reversible error.

The most common errors the study found were incompetent defense attorneys, faulty juror instructions and prosecutorial misconduct, which included incidents of evidence suppression of innocence.

“The death penalty system is one in which lives and public order are at stake, yet for decades has been fraught with more mistakes than we would tolerate in far less important activities,” the study’s lead author, James Liebman, said in a statement when it was released 25 years ago.

Idaho ranked second for how often homicides led to death sentences, and also landed in the top 10 states for its overall error rate of 82%, according to the study. Reversals entailed direct appeals, state post-conviction proceedings and federal review.

Some of the more high-profile death sentence reversals in the state include Donald Paradis and Charles Fain. Both were wrongfully convicted of murder and eventually released from prison after years spent on death row.

Paradis served 21 years in the death of a 19-year-old woman near Post Falls in 1980, but then-Gov. Phil Batt later commuted his sentence over questions of guilt. Paradis was released from prison in 2001.

Fain spent more than 17 years on death row in the rape and murder of a 9-year-old Nampa girl in 1982. He was released from prison in 2001 and exonerated after DNA evidence pointed to another man, who last year was tried and convicted of the crime.

New analysis lowers death penalty reversal rates

The Death Penalty Information Center maintains the largest national death sentence database. Of nearly 10,000 cases nationally since 1972, about 49% were later reversed, according to an analysis by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. Those cases include court appeals, sentence reductions and exonerations, many of which remain under judicial review.

“Our data that is accurate through Jan. 1, 2025, shows that nearly half of all death sentences have been reversed in some manner or another,” Robin Maher, the nonprofit’s executive director, told the Idaho Statesman in a phone interview. The analysis was not specific to reversals over legal or procedural error, on which the Columbia University study focused.

Specific to Idaho, 24 of 55 death sentences — about 44% — have been overturned, Maher said. Just three of those convictions have resulted in an execution, she added.

Idaho’s last execution was in June 2012, nearly 13 years ago. The state attempted to execute death row prisoner Thomas Creech by lethal injection last year, but failed to do so when prison officials were unable to locate a suitable vein for an IV. Idaho since paused all executions as it renovates its execution chamber to accommodate a firing squad as the lead method.

Kohberger’s defense asserted in its legal filing seeking a trial delay that a “majority” of death sentences are reversed over an error. That’s long been accepted since the Columbia University study was released, Maher said, but it might no longer be the case.

“I’m quite confident they were referring to the study that demonstrated that a majority of cases fully reviewed on appeal had been overturned,” she said. “So that was accurate for that time. Our data include death sentences that are still on appeal, so we don’t know how many have been or will be overturned for legal error.”

Several variables have contributed to the reduction of convictions being overturned in the U.S. since the study was completed, Maher said. For one, the number of death sentences sought in recent years has dropped dramatically, she said.

Fifteen U.S. states have abolished capital punishment since 1972, bringing the total to 23 without the death penalty. Another four states, including Oregon, have standing moratoriums on executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

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