Bryan Kohberger is seeking to withdraw the guilty plea that spared him the death penalty for the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students. His petition alleges that his former lawyers pressured him into a false confession and failed to share potentially exculpatory evidence, reopening a case that had appeared settled.

Kohberger says immediate family members attended attorney-client discussions and that lawyers described Idaho’s death-row conditions in a misleading way to frighten him into accepting the deal. He pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to life imprisonment; on Wednesday, Judge Steven Hippler ordered that a new court-appointed lawyer be assigned for the post-conviction proceedings.