Bryan Kohberger’s attorney takes on death penalty — again. This time in a different case.

The lead attorney for Bryan Kohberger is once again challenging the death penalty – this time in another one of her client’s criminal cases.

In a flurry of motions filed in the last few months, Anne Taylor asked 2nd District Judge Michelle Evans to remove capital punishment as an option for 32-year-old Skylar Meade using the same legal playbook that she tried – and failed – to use in her attempts to squash the death penalty in Kohberger’s quadruple homicide case.

Taylor has been representing Meade, charged with the first-degree murder of a North Idaho man, since August. She has filed nearly a dozen motions challenging the death penalty and related proceedings. In one motion she argued for the criminal proceedings to be broken up into three phases – trial, death penalty eligibility and sentencing – instead of two.

In other motions, Taylor argued the death penalty was unconstitutional as it violates the country’s “contemporary standards of decency” along with international law.

“Idaho’s continuing effort to execute its own citizens, including Mr. Meade, does not comport with the evolving standards of a civilized, modern society,” Taylor wrote in one of the filings.

A little more than half of the county, or 27 states, still use the death penalty including Idaho, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The other 23 states have banned the sentencing option, though four of the states that still use capital punishment – including California and Oregon – have halted the practice due to gubernatorial holds.

While Idaho hasn’t executed anyone in over a decade, state officials have made a concentrated push in recent years to restore the practice, including the failed execution of 74-year-old Thomas Creech and the passage of a state law that will allow someone to be executed with a firing squad if lethal injection drugs can’t be obtained.

The Nez Perce County Prosecutor’s Office announced its intent to seek the death penalty against Meade in August after he was charged with the murder of 83-year-old James Mauney.

“After long and careful consideration I have decided to seek the death penalty in this case,” prosecutor Justin Coleman said in a news release at the time. “The senseless and random killing of Mr. Mauney and the facts surrounding what led to his death, warrants this determination.”

In March, Meade and one of his co-conspirators Nicholas Umphenour ambushed correctional officers at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise in a coordinated plan to free Meade, who was serving a prison sentence at the state’s maximum security prison.

The pair led law enforcement on a 36-hour-long manhunt before they were apprehended in Twin Falls. They are now linked to two North Idaho homicides – the one in Nez Perce County and another in Clearwater County – that happened in that window, according to Idaho State Police.

Neither Meade nor Umphenour has been charged in the death of 72-year-old Gerald “Don” Henderson, who was found in his cabin outside of Orofino. State police have repeatedly said that the case is still under investigation.

Filings questioning the constitutionality and arbitrariness of the death penalty were just some of the similar motions Taylor lodged and argued in Kohberger’s criminal case. Kohberger is accused of killing four University of Idaho in an off-campus house in November 2022 and faces four counts of first-degree murder.

Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler in November denied 12 motions filed by the defense, collectively referred to as the death penalty motions, challenging the prosecution’s intent to seek the state’s most severe punishment against 30-year-old Kohberger.

“There is no basis to depart from settled law upholding Idaho’s death penalty statute as constitutional,” Hippler wrote in the 55-page order.

Taylor accuses prosecution of discovery violations

The prosecution by and large opposed Taylor’s motions challenging the death penalty in Meade’s case and argued that the motions weren’t “ripe” – or timely– since Meade hasn’t been sentenced to death and it’s “hypothetical at this point,” according to an objection filed in December.

“It would be a waste of this court’s time to review and rule on all of defendant’s death penalty motions where the death penalty has not yet been imposed,” Nez Perce County Chief Deputy Prosecutor April Smith wrote in objection.

In the same filing, Smith added that if Evans decided to take up the defense’s motions the judge should deny them all because the issues have already been settled in other criminal cases including Kohberger’s.

Smith said Taylor’s motion alleging the death penalty violates international law was “frivolous” and shouldn’t be considered. And, to the argument that the death penalty was unconstitutional, Smith said it was an “unsupported” idea.

She also pushed back against Taylor’s notion that the death penalty was arbitrary and argued that, while capital murder cases are broadly defined in Idaho, the prosecution is expected to establish aggravating factors – or an additional stipulation that narrows the number of people eligible for a death sentence.

While many of the motions filed in Meade’s case resembled arguments in Kohberger’s case, Taylor also took aim at the Nez Perce County Prosecutor’s Office for failing to disclose “massive amounts” of evidence that could potentially prove Meade’s innocence, according to a motion.

Taylor added that the prosecution wasn’t “living up to their constitutionally mandated standards.”

To remedy that, she asked Evans to dismiss the indictment against her client, or if not then, suppress any evidence that was disclosed after late October, and strike the death penalty to avoid any “unfairness and unreliability,” according to the motion.

Taylor pointed to the Lori Vallow Daybell case, where 7th District Judge Steven Boyce removed the death penalty as an option after the prosecution submitted thousands of documents and hours of audio files weeks before the trial. While Boyce didn’t remove the sentencing option to penalize the prosecution – as he said they had acted in good faith – but that “death is different” and there is a heightened standard that has to be applied in capital cases, according to the motion.

Lori Vallow Daybell is guilty of 2 murders. Why Idaho won’t pursue the death penalty

Prosecutors are the ones who receive evidence for a criminal case, and it’s their responsibility to turn over any evidence they gather to the defense. If the evidence is late, it impacts the defense’s ability to properly prepare for trial.

Taylor said in her December motion that the defense wasn’t able to fully prepare for her client’s February 2025 trial because she still hadn’t received records from electronic devices seized by law enforcement. She also asked that any evidence disclosed after late October be suppressed by the judge because of the impending trial.

“Mr. Meade has been prejudiced by the state’s failure to abide by their constitutional obligations and provide full, timely discovery,” Taylor wrote.

The judge last month granted a request to push back Meade’s criminal trial until 2026, and any pending motions will be heard in May.