Judge Steven Hippler vacates three Bryan Kohberger hearings, canceling Thursday session

Judge Steven Hippler has vacated three scheduled court hearings for Bryan Kohberger, including the first hearing that had been slated for Thursday, according to press accounts.

The amended scheduling order that led to the cancellations has not been released publicly, and Kohberger’s family lawyer, Jason Goldman, described the move as the start of a longer post-conviction relief process. Kohberger, who was arrested on Dec.

30, 2022 in connection with the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, pleaded in July 2025 as part of a deal to avoid the death penalty and later filed to withdraw that plea, arguing ineffective counsel and that he had been misled into pleading out.

The filings and the amended schedule that prompted Judge Hippler to vacate the hearings have not been made available in the public record, leaving the precise procedural next steps opaque in the reporting.

Coverage notes that Kohberger’s legal team is pursuing post-conviction relief, which Jason Goldman framed as the beginning of a lengthy process; prosecutors’ positions on the vacated hearings were not reported in the available accounts.

Earlier courtroom coverage recorded Judge Hippler’s strong language during victim impact statements at Kohberger’s sentencing proceedings on July 23, 2025, when the judge described Kohberger as a "faceless coward" and used other pointed terms; that prior proceeding is part of the record that frames current filings.

The reporting also recounts the facts that led to Kohberger’s arrest: prosecutors say he broke into an off-campus house at 1122 King Road in Moscow in the early hours of November 13, 2022, and stabbed four students; those details appear in court records and contemporary reporting cited in accounts of the vacated hearings.

What remains unreported in the accounts collected here is the content of the amended scheduling order and any specific dates the court may set next, as well as any public reaction from prosecutors or the families of the victims to the vacatur.

Media outlets carrying the story framed the vacatur primarily as a procedural development that initiates a post-conviction phase of litigation on Kohberger’s behalf, citing his attorney’s statement that the move begins a longer legal process; outlets did not produce the underlying court document in the pieces available for this synthesis.