Once in a blue moon some aspects of criminal law make me scratch my noggin till it bleeds.

Take the case of Bryan Kohlberger, a young man charged with the brutal murder of four college students in Moscow, Idaho. Kohlberger was set to stand trial for the brutal stabbing deaths. He had said initially he didn’t do it.

Now he has changed his tune. He pleaded guilty today to doing the crime that caused a nationwide manhunt in 2022. The cops found Kohlberger holed up in Pennsylvania. They brought him back to Idaho to stand trial. If convicted he faced the death penalty; I don’t know they do it in Idaho … but that’s beside the point now.

You see, by entering the guilty plea in a deal worked out with prosecutors, Kohlberger is going to avoid the ultimate punishment for the ultimate crime.

Here’s where the head-scratching commences. How do defendants accused of such horrifying crimes skate clear of the executioner simply by admitting they did the deed for which they would have stood trial?

I’ll have to stipulate that I am not a death penalty proponent. I am glad Kohlberger now will spend what’s left of his life in prison. My philosophical opposition to state-sponsored killing of defendants, though, is beside the point I am seeking to make with this post.

If someone admits to committing a crime as horrifying as what Kohlberger has admitted to committing, then why lessen the penalty the law requires him to pay?

I’ve heard official reasons. A guilty plea saves a state a lot of money. He won’t have any avenues for appeal. It costs the state a lot of money to put defendants to death.

However, I am still puzzled by the notion that admitting to a crime as horrifying as what Kohlberger did saves him from paying the ultimate price.