(CNN) – An unspecified defensive proposal in the murder case against the Brian Cuperger has made the most detailed image of the suspect’s personality to appear since his arrest in the brutal killings of four students of the University of Idaho.
The Kohabarger attorneys claim that the 30-year-old is suffering from the Autism-or ASD-or ASD-and his execution will violate a ban on the eighth amendment to “harsh and unusual punishment.”
Kohberger shows “very rigid thinking, persevere in specific topics, addressing information based on a meal, and fights for planning for the future” and “explains a little insight to his behaviors and emotions”, deposit notes, citing a medical evaluation commissioned by his lawyer.
“Because of ASD, Mr. Kohberger can not simply comply with the societal expectations of normal life. This creates an unreasonable danger that he will be executed because of his disability instead of his responsibility.”
Prosecutors said that they will request the death penalty for his trial – scheduled for August.
Cuperger is accused of killing Madison Min and Kylie Gonclavis, and they were Kernodel and Ethan Chapheen at a house outside the campus in November 2022. No guilty appeals were made on his behalf.
Unlimited deposit is the latest in a wave of defensive suggestions aimed at removing the death penalty from the table for the only suspect in the deadly stabs that spared the small college community in Moscow. The investigation was crowned with the arrest in Pennsylvania in Cuperger, a student of graduate studies.
A legal expert told CNN that the US Supreme Court refused to hear previous arguments by the defendants in capital who seek to use some development disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, for the article against the death penalty.
What the new deposit says about Cuperger
It is not clear whether – or when – Kohberger was previously diagnosed with ASD, but the new deposit is cited evaluating by a nervous psychiatrist, it was found that Kohberger “continues to show all the basic diagnostic features of ASD, with a major impact on his daily life.”
In her evaluation of Kohberger, a neural psychologist, who rented his defense, has shown a deficit in social, emotional and “impulsive trends”, including “constraints about hand washing and other cleaning behaviors.
In the deposit, Kohberger’s lawyers describe him as a “very spreading” man “intensive look” that shows a little insight of his behaviors and emotions, “noting that the medical evaluation performed by Dr. Rachel Ur.
Cuperger lawyers said that the provisions of the former Supreme Court decided that young people and mental disabilities “create an unacceptable threat from illegal implementation because they hinder the defendant’s ability to provide evidence of mitigation.”
When ASD likelizes mental disability, they argue that these defendants are unable to “make a convincing offer to mitigate in the face of the prosecution evidence.”
While the evaluation was found that Cohperger had strong oral abilities, “his language was often comprehensive, unorganized, very recurrent, and excessive formal”, and was “greatly attention to.”
Cuperger was a student of graduate studies in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington University, and finished the first semester as a doctorate. A student in the school’s criminal justice program in December 2023, previously reported CNN.
The police tape is surrounded by housing where four students of the University of Idahu were killed, while Moscow police monitor the scene on November 30, 2022 – (Lindsay Wason/Reuters/File)
Kohberger “shakes his upper trunk, especially while participating in a cognitive mission or listening to another person,” and “non -typical contact, including an intense look,” appears, a neural psychologist, according to the deposit.
His facial expressions – including a concentrated view – “are already set as a wicked meaning by observers,” the Kohbar fighter lawyers claim, citing media coverage before the trial. A judge in the state of Idaho has already agreed to transfer the place of the trial, citing the media coverage of the case and concern that the local community is biased against the suspect.
“The jury in this case will be immersed through real allegations, and simultaneously look at the defendant who appears to be emotionally invested and is not affected and cannot behave convincingly in his own defense …
Legal fencing for the death penalty
Kohberger’s lawyers made countless suggestions last year to include reasons they believe that the state’s intention to search for the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Ann Taylor, the Brian Cuperger lawyer, accused of killing four students of Idahu in November 2022, appears in a hearing in the Latah Province Court in January 2023.
One of them focused on what the Kohabger defense team calls an “ideological shift” and “advanced standards” in the way the Americans view the death penalty. Other requests have argued that the death penalty law in Idahu is a violation of international law and the basic principles of international human rights.
The suggestion that was neglected this week also follows an attempt by the failed defense team to persuade the judge to suppress evidence of investigative genetic genealogy, which is a relatively new technical authorities that you use to download the suspect’s DNA definition to an attempt to identify potential relatives.
In a proposal submitted last Monday, the defense was once again requested that the DNA guides be kept in the case of the jury in the trial because jury could believe that the DNA gathered by the public prosecutors is Kohabarger, and according to the defense – not.
Cohbertger’s lawyers, led by Ann Taylor, refers to the new deposit of the Supreme Court’s ban on the death penalty in cases where the defendant has any characteristic “he puts it less if he is affected, denies broad goals and deterring the punishment in capital, or risk the presence of wisdom for death.” They argue this applies to the defendants with autism spectrum disorder.
ASD is a nervous and developmental disorder that can affect how people interact with others, communicate, learn and act, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
“Persons with ASD, including Mr. Kohberger, offer a deficit in almost all areas that the court killed in the conclusion that it is unconstitutional for persons with mental disabilities to be sentenced to death because such sentences are not commensurate and cannot be reliable.”
“The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is related to the police and legal procedures such as the diagnosis of mental retardation or mental illness, regardless of the extent of poor performance, and/or verbal that the person may be.”
When ASD likelizes mental disability, Kohberger’s lawyers also argue that these defendants are unable to “make a convincing offer to mitigate in the face of prosecution’s evidence.”
The Supreme Court refused to hear previous claims based on the defense of autism in capital cases
The Cuperger’s defense team cited a against Virginia in the new deposit – A case in which the Supreme Court prohibits the executions of persons with mental disabilities, with many characteristics that make these defendants “less conclusive than the ordinary criminal.”
The ban includes those who have “decreasing capabilities to understand and process information, communication, abstract errors and learning from experience, engaging in logical thinking, controlling impulses, and understanding the reactions of others.”
However, the Supreme Court refused to review every attempt by the defendants in the capital to extend the access of Atkins to other developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder.
Even if the proposal does not succeed in preventing the death penalty, Dunaham sees “good strategic reasons” why defense might raise the case.
“Not only because people with severe autism have the same type of adaptive deficit, they have the same type of problems that work in society, which individuals with mental disabilities suffer. Here, there is also a reason to raise the issue because autism in Kohberger will actually affect every aspect of the issue.”
“They want the judge to know that autism weakens his ability to benefit from him about the strategy. They want the judge to know that the jury will look at him and his behavior and make judgments about the sins or his potential innocence, when it has nothing to do with his behavior with that-it is everything, instead, to do some behaviors that are appropriate to autism.”
“They want to educate the judge that the things that should be considered reasons for life, in this case, may misrepresent them as reasons for death.”
Austin Sarat, a law professor at Amhurst College, said that if the court in the state of Idahu accepts a request for Cuperger as a valid legal argument, the prosecutors will have to know whether he is eligible for ASD.
In a previous file, public prosecutors of the state law, which provides for “a mental state that is not defense of any criminal behavior”, was martyred, with the exception of “experts guide on cases of any mental state, which is an element of crime.”
“Part of the problem in death cases, especially with their allegations about disabilities of thinking, is a distinction between the claim that the defendant is not responsible, for the claim that although the defendant is responsible, the conditions they behave must reduce the punishment … and this is what I think is in this,” Sarat told the CNN.
Jean -Casarerez from CNN, Holly Yan, and Jimmy Gombercht contributed to this report.
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