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Anne Taylor warned the court that Bryan Kohberger’s defense needed more time to properly prepare his case. Six days after a judge refused, he took a plea deal.
Bryan Kohberger’s attempt to undo his guilty plea has gained a potentially important piece of ammunition from his own former defense team: weeks before the deal, attorney Anne Taylor warned the court that more time was necessary to provide him with effective legal representation.
Taylor filed for a trial delay in May 2025, saying the defense still faced substantial investigation, unfinished discovery review and expert evidence requiring analysis. She specifically invoked Kohberger’s Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel, arguing the team could not complete the necessary work without additional time. Judge Steven Hippler denied the request on June 26.
Six days later, Kohberger pleaded guilty to murdering University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, avoiding the death penalty in exchange for four consecutive life sentences. Kohberger now claims that plea was involuntary, alleging ineffective counsel, threats and promises that were not honored.
His new attorney is seeking to remove Hippler from the post-conviction proceedings, while prosecutors want Kohberger’s petition dismissed. Arguments over the judge are scheduled for October 15, with an evidentiary hearing on Kohberger’s wider claims set for June 2027. His plea agreement waived a conventional appeal, making post-conviction relief his route to securing the trial he now says he wanted.
**Hot Take: **Kohberger faces a mountain convincing a court to unwind four murder confessions. But his former lawyer warning that the defense could not effectively prepare, followed six days later by a plea deal, gives him something more substantial than buyer’s remorse to argue about.
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The comedian says executives responded to Brian Thompson’s killing by hiding photographs and hiring security instead of examining why public anger toward their industries became so intense.
Bill Burr has returned to the Luigi Mangione controversy, arguing that corporate executives drew the wrong lesson from the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by focusing on their own security rather than the anger directed toward them.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Burr questioned why executives responded by removing photographs from the internet and increasing protection rather than examining the business practices that had produced such hostility. His comments follow previous remarks in which he joked “Free Luigi!” and said CEOs being frightened after Thompson’s death “should be.”
Mangione admitted killing Thompson and has become a polarizing symbol in the wider argument over the American healthcare system. Burr’s comments do not erase the killing or Thompson’s death; his point is that corporate America cannot treat the extraordinary public reaction as merely a security problem and ignore what produced it.
Hot Take: Murder is not healthcare reform, but neither is hiring another bodyguard. Corporate America can condemn what Mangione did while still asking why his case struck a nerve with millions of people. Burr’s point is that they seem much more interested in the first part.
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A judge has approved unusual access arrangements so David Anthony Burke’s new public defenders can privately review the enormous volume of evidence against him.
David Anthony Burke, better known as D4vd, will be allowed private face-to-face meetings with his new defense team inside jail, with attorneys permitted to bring a laptop so they can review the evidence prosecutors intend to use at trial.
Deputy Public Defender Walid Kandeel said the arrangements are necessary because of the scale and nature of the discovery, including social-media material and possible video evidence. Judge Charlaine Olmedo ordered jail officials to provide a private meeting area without glass or fencing separating Burke from his attorneys.
Burke is charged with murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, continuous sexual abuse of a minor and mutilation of a corpse, with special circumstances exposing him to life without parole or potentially the death penalty. Prosecutors presented extensive digital, DNA, financial, Tesla and medical evidence at his preliminary hearing. Burke has pleaded not guilty.
Hot Take: This isn’t about giving D4vd VIP treatment behind bars. Prosecutors have built a digital mountain of evidence and his new lawyers have inherited it halfway up the climb. If California wants this conviction to stick, the defense needs to see every inch of the mountain too.
Michael Desronvil’s spokesman claims almost every juror retained access to a cellphone, complicating Kevin Reddington’s attempt to investigate the lone juror who refused to acquit.
The lone holdout in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is pushing back against Kevin Reddington’s focus on his alleged cellphone use, claiming nearly the entire jury had access to phones during the seven days of deliberations.
Ray Marcel, speaking publicly on Michael Desronvil’s behalf, told NewsNation that “almost everybody” had a phone and claimed some jurors were allegedly posting on social media. Reddington has sought access to Desronvil’s cellphone records after the jury deadlocked 11-1, but Desronvil’s attorney argues that singling out his client ignores what the rest of the panel was doing.
Desronvil has maintained that he believed prosecutors proved Clancy knew what she was doing when she strangled Cora, Dawson and Callan. Reddington previously tried unsuccessfully to remove him during deliberations and later accused the juror of having “robbed” Clancy of an acquittal. Judge William Sullivan refused to remove Desronvil after every juror affirmed they could follow the law.
**Hot Take: **Reddington couldn’t get the holdout removed, so now he wants his phone. If Desronvil is right that almost everyone had one, that fishing expedition suddenly needs eleven more rods. You don’t investigate the juror because you hate his verdict.
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Court files concerning a 2009 child-luring case may disappear while investigators examine Horsch’s possible connection to missing women and disturbing material recovered from his former home.
Potentially significant court records involving Raymond Horsch are reportedly in danger of destruction just as Philadelphia investigators attempt to reconstruct the dead pornographer’s history and determine what happened to women connected to his home.
Horsch was convicted in Municipal Court in 2009 of luring a 9-year-old girl into a vehicle and corrupting a minor, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. After he sought another trial, prosecutors dropped the case when the girl and her mother reportedly became too frightened to testify again. Horsch successfully had the matter expunged in 2015, and a court clerk has now said the remaining records are due for deletion.
The Inquirer has asked Philadelphia judges to preserve and unseal the material, arguing that Horsch’s death and the enormous public interest surrounding the current investigation justify saving it. Police are investigating at least five missing women connected to the house where Raymond and son Eugene Horsch lived, while the FBI works through more than one million recovered digital files.
**Hot Take: **Police are trying to reconstruct the life of a dead man now linked to one of Philadelphia’s darkest investigations, while the courts may destroy records from his only known sex-crime prosecution. Whatever is in that file, shredder day can wait.
