COEUR d'ALENE — The death penalty remains a possible sentence for accused cop-killer Jonathan Renfro.

Additional motions to take the sentence off the table for Renfro were denied Wednesday by District Court Judge Lansing Haynes during a pre-trial hearing at the Kootenai County Safety Building.

Filed by Renfro’s public defense attorneys after several similar motions were denied last month, the motions considered Wednesday argued a variety of reasons Renfro, 27, should be spared execution if convicted of the May 2015 killing of Coeur d’Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore.

One of the motions called for the judge to preclude the death penalty because the Public Defender’s Office receives inadequate funding to do its job effectively. Public defenders argued their case load in Kootenai County is too high, making it difficult for them to provide adequate representation for any defendant.

"Based on the evidence and those arguments, the court is going to deny the defendant's motion to preclude the death penalty," Haynes ruled.

Renfro was present at Wednesday's hearing at the Kootenai County Public Safety Building, donning a red-and-white striped jumpsuit.

Also in an another attempt to avoid the death penalty, Renfro's defense motioned to suppress video evidence gathered during Moore’s interaction with Renfro, claiming it shows an unreasonable seizure. 

According to police reports, Moore stopped Renfro around 1:30 a.m. when he walked down the sidewalk of a dark and quiet Coeur d'Alene neighborhood which had been targeted by car prowlers. Moore reportedly called in Renfro's driver's license information over the radio shortly before the shooting.

Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams said an unconstitutional seizure ruling would bump the first-degree murder charge down to a second-degree murder charge. The death penalty cannot be invoked with a second-degree murder case. That motion was also denied.

"This court finds that Mr. Renfro was never detained or if he was, slightly detained, during the call-in of information to the dispatch center," Haynes said. "That was a reasonable action by the police as it led the learning that Mr. Renfro was on probation and that further inquiry was reasonable police conduct.”