I spent some time reading Bryan Kohberger's memorandum asking the court to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. As a lawyer, I found it interesting. As someone who has spent decades in criminal courtrooms, I found it predictable.
That's not a criticism of the defense. If there are legitimate constitutional issues surrounding a guilty plea, defense counsel has an obligation to raise them. The filing identifies several concerns that deserve to be addressed by the court, and they should be.
But after reading it, I keep coming back to the same conclusion. I don't think the motion is likely to succeed.
Why a plea is so hard to take back
People often assume that if a defendant claims he was pressured, misunderstood something, or received poor legal advice, a guilty plea can simply be undone. That's not how the system works. The law starts from a different place. It starts with the plea hearing itself.
Before accepting a guilty plea, a judge doesn't simply ask, "Do you plead guilty?" The judge walks the defendant through a lengthy series of questions designed to make sure the plea is voluntary, knowing, and intelligent. Does the defendant understand the charges? Has he discussed the case with his attorneys? Does he understand the rights he's giving up? Has anyone forced him to plead guilty? Is he doing this of his own free will?
Every answer is given under oath. That matters.
Those answers become part of the official record, and courts are understandably reluctant to disregard them months later. If withdrawing a plea were as simple as filing an affidavit saying "I changed my mind" or "I felt pressured," plea hearings would lose much of their purpose.
That doesn't mean defendants never win these motions. They do. But it's uncommon, and for good reason. The justice system depends on the finality of guilty pleas. If every defendant could revisit a plea after having second thoughts, criminal cases would rarely end.
Legitimate questions are not the same as a defective plea
What struck me about Kohberger's memorandum wasn't that the arguments were frivolous. I don't think they are. Some of the issues raised deserve careful consideration, particularly those involving the advice he says he received before entering the plea. Courts should never brush aside constitutional claims simply because a case has captured national attention.
Every defendant is entitled to due process. Every defendant.
But there's a difference between raising legitimate questions and proving that a guilty plea was legally defective. That's where I think this motion runs into trouble.
The judge who accepted the plea personally observed Kohberger throughout the hearing. The judge heard his answers, watched his demeanor, and concluded that the plea satisfied the legal requirements. Asking that same judge to reverse course is asking the court to conclude that what appeared reliable at the time was, in fact, not reliable. That's a difficult argument to make.
It's also worth remembering that difficult choices are not the same as involuntary choices. Defendants sometimes plead guilty because the evidence against them appears overwhelming. Sometimes they plead guilty to avoid the uncertainty of trial. Sometimes they make strategic decisions they later regret.
Regret alone isn't enough.
Whether I agree with every argument in the memorandum isn't really the point. The defense is doing exactly what defense lawyers are supposed to do — advocate aggressively for their client. The prosecution will respond, and the judge will weigh the competing arguments against the record created during the plea hearing.
If I had to make a prediction today, I'd expect the motion to be denied. Not because the issues are insignificant. Not because the defendant is unpopular. But because withdrawing a guilty plea after it has been knowingly and voluntarily entered has always been an uphill battle, and nothing I've seen so far convinces me that this case is likely to be the exception.
We'll know soon enough whether the court agrees.