Legal question re Idaho murders

[ex-khobar Andy]

This is about the 4 student murders in 2022, not the recent killing of two firefighters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/us/i ... -plea.html

Apparently the main suspect, who was arrested at the time and who has been in custody since, has been offered a plea deal under which he will plead guilty will give up the right to appeal, and will spend the rest of his life in prison and avoid the death penalty. The judge still has to OK the deal.

As a practical matter, what choice does the judge now have? Ignoring arguments about whether the death penalty is justified, it seems to me that he has two choice: accept the deal as it is, or reject it and go ahead with the trial. If he opts for a trial, my understanding is that the jury may not use the fact that a plea was offered and rejected as evidence of guilt. Fair enough, I understand that. But this plea has been publicized - so how could it be possible to find a juror, let alone 12, who could in honesty say that s/he was not influenced by the offer of a plea?

[Scooter]

I hadn't heard about this case before, but from what has been presented, it doesn't sound like any reasonable defense strategy could be based on "he didn't do it", but rather, would be aimed at avoiding a death penalty verdict. At the same time, it would seem quite unreasonable for a judge to reject a plea guaranteeing the defendant will die in prison, without any chance of appeal, and insist on going to trial solely to preserve the option of the death penalty. But the broader question remains, and I don't know if it is typical practice to publicize the existence of a plea deal prior to its approval in court. In this case, it became public because the family of one of the victims, informed of the deal out of courtesy and who clearly would not have been satisfied with anything less than an execution, chose to go to the press with it. Were I the judge in this case, I would be admonishing them by saying that any chance there had been of rejecting the plea and proceeding to trial to seek the death penalty had been torpedoed by their own actions.

[Burning Petard]

The USofA legal system has evolved into a system in which all participants pretend the jury is a mythical collective of human beings. The judge, the opposing legal teams all ritualistically act as if they believe the jury is able to only consider the information (the facts, the testimony) that is presented in their presence and even able to 'unhear' things that the judge states they will all pretend did not happen because a lawyer said "I object" and the judge said "sustained". They further pretend that the jury will not even think about anything related to the issue at hand which they might know about from personal experience beyond the trial itself. Maintaining that myth is a large part of the reason that the discussion among the jurors after they are instructed to determine their verdict is sacrosanct and never part of the official record.

The conflict between the real experience of the jurors, even before they became a jury, and the ritualistic pretense described above. is a powerful lever influencing all parties to accept a plea deal and not go to a jury trial.

snailgate.

[BoSoxGal]

The judge isn't going to reject the plea deal - it is exceedingly rare for a judge to reject a deal negotiated in good faith by prosecutors, and there is no reason for a judge to do so in this case.

Bear in mind that the death penalty is not an automatic sentence if he's found guilty of the crime at trial, there is a whole other trial that happens after the trial on guilt called the sentencing phase, and as with a finding of guilty or not guilty, it takes only one juror to hang the process and force a life without parole sentence.

By law a judge in Idaho CANNOT impose the death penalty on her own initiative, it is only imposed by a unanimous jury of twelve citizens.

Further it has been 23 years since Idaho last effectively imposed the death penalty; there are nine people on death row in Idaho and the last time they tried to effectively impose the penalty they couldn't get the IV line established and the execution was halted.

The entire case against this defendant is circumstantial save the touch DNA on the knife sheath and I suspect it might not be hard to convince one juror on a panel of twelve that the government might have planted that evidence - Idaho is quite possibly (certainly?) the most anti-government state in the Union.

Further even if found guilty, there is abundant evidence of this defendant's mental fitness being questionable and mitigating and again it only takes one juror to decide that he should be confined for the rest of his natural life without possibility of parole.

I wish we could abolish this Old Testament sickening form of punishment and just be done with these conversations altogether. FYI as of today's date there have been TWO HUNDRED death row inmates exonerated and released from prison since 1973. We can only guess at how many innocent people have been executed by states and the federal government in the course of having this abhorrent policy in effect in this country.

https://ejusa.org/resource/wasteful-inefficient/

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/a ... /innocence

[BoSoxGal]

I recognize that I skirted your question so I will just add this: yes juries are instructed that they cannot consider anything but the evidence presented at trial and if they have any knowledge of the defendant's prior willingness to accept a plea deal they cannot consider that any more than they can consider a defendant's decision not to testify at trial.

Practically speaking it is problematic, which is another reason why it is exceedingly rare for a judge to reject a good faith plea deal between the parties.

Beyond that one hopes that any reasonable juror can grasp the enormous power inherent in leveraging a man's life against him in persuading him to plead guilty to crimes whether he committed them or not.

[liberty]

I believe that the fact a defendant considered or accepted a plea deal means absolutely nothing. I am certain that many individuals accused of crimes have accepted plea deals and gone to prison for offenses they did not commit.

[Joe Guy]

.....I am certain that many individuals accused of crimes have accepted plea deals and gone to prison for offenses they did not commit.

Accepted plea deals for life in prison?

[liberty]

.....I am certain that many individuals accused of crimes have accepted plea deals and gone to prison for offenses they did not commit.

Accepted plea deals for life in prison?

I understand that a good prosecutor, with the help of a couple of compliant juries, can indict and convict a ham sandwich, so why couldn't he convince an individual that life in prison was better than death?

[BoSoxGal]

.....I am certain that many individuals accused of crimes have accepted plea deals and gone to prison for offenses they did not commit.

Accepted plea deals for life in prison?

Do you seriously think that nobody has ever agreed to plead guilty for a life sentence in order to avoid the death penalty despite being actually innocent?

Seriously?

[Joe Guy]

Do you seriously think that nobody has ever agreed to plead guilty for a life sentence in order to avoid the death penalty despite being actually innocent?

How would you know?

[BoSoxGal]

Do you seriously think that nobody has ever agreed to plead guilty for a life sentence in order to avoid the death penalty despite being actually innocent?

How would you know?

We know because people are getting exonerated by DNA evidence and released from death row, and some of them pled guilty in order to avoid being put to death for something they never did.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/dpic-analy ... th-penalty

It seems this is an area where you have your head planted firmly in the sand. Might want to start spending some time educating yourself about the massive failings in our criminal justice system.

Hundreds of death row inmates exonerated in my lifetime; with 95-97% of criminal cases resolving by plea agreement and chronic underfunding and shortcomings in the representation of indigent defendants, do you seriously believe that there aren't many more who haven't had the benefit of representation to reveal the inadequacies in their cases?

[Joe Guy]

It seems this is an area where you have your head planted firmly in the sand. Might want to start spending some time educating yourself about the massive failings in our criminal justice system.

I asked how you would know.

You answered.

Thanks.