(NewsNation) — A year after pleading guilty to the murders of four University of Idaho students, Bryan Kohberger is challenging his conviction.

According to a handwritten post-conviction petition, the criminology student claims he was "convinced to falsely confess" to the crimes. He claims he was swayed into the plea deal that landed him life in prison through "coercion, disinformation, false promises, and the withholding of exculpatory discovery."

While Kohberger claims he had ineffective counsel who "misrepresented" what life in prison would be like, NewsNation contributor Ashleigh Banfield told Hena Doba on Monday she believes Kohberger's just bored.

"Life in prison is really awful," she said. "And when you're his age, you're facing about 70 years of this last one year that he's had. He didn't like his last year. He's been in solitary. It's boring. He's tired of it."

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Banfield also believes it's not just prison life getting him down, but that Kohberger misses the spotlight he had during his trial.

"He's got a massive ego, and he wants to be relevant again, and he wants to be heard."

As for his claim that his attorneys coerced him into pleading guilty to the murders of Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, and Kaylee Goncalves in November 2022 — Banfield doesn't believe that for a second.

"This is a criminology student who was in a Ph.D. program and who intelligently, according to the judge's own words, made them freely and voluntarily in court," Banfield said. "You do have the right to appeal when you think your attorney may have screwed you. The truth is, Anne Taylor could not be a better attorney. She saved that man's life."

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Banfield noted that if a judge decides to look into reversing his guilty plea, Kohberger would need a robust argument to prove his attorney was ineffective or withheld evidence that could have proven his innocence.

"You can't just say, 'I was cheated. I didn't get it.' You can't do that," she said. "And I don't believe for an instant that there's some magical discovery that was somehow suppressed from his view."

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