Alleged murderer Jose Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela, faces life imprisonment without parole if convicted.
The trial in the murder of Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was brutally killed back in February while jogging on the University of Georgia (UGA) campus, got underway Friday morning.
The accused is Jose Ibarra. The murder case has gotten intense publicity because Ibrarra, 26, is an illegal alien from Venezuela who should not have been in the country, let alone at liberty.
It is alleged that Ibarra was prowling around seeking women to accost. One of the charges against him is a “peeping Tom” count: It’s alleged that he was peering through a window at a UGA residence hall in Athens, Ga., on the morning of February 22, spying on a university staff member. A male fitting his description was also captured on surveillance footage trying to open a UGA graduate student’s room early that morning (the student called 911 and the male fled).
Later that morning, it’s alleged that he saw Riley jogging while lying in wait, attacked her, and tried to rape her; when she fought him off, prosecutors say he repeatedly bashed her head with a rock, killing her. Prosecutors allege, based on a 911 call and heart-rate data from Riley’s watch, that the struggle was lengthy — about 18 minutes. The victim’s body was found by police shortly after noon.
Ibarra was “encountered” by border agents while illegally crossing into the U.S. at El Paso, Texas, in September 2022. I use the mock-quotes advisedly: encounter is the euphemism government officials use to obscure the fact that, under federal law, illegal entrants into the United States are supposed to be arrested and detained through the conclusion of legal proceedings; but the government does not follow the law — officials instead say they “encounter” the people they’re supposed to apprehend and hold in custody.
Federal authorities released Ibarra into our country in accordance with Biden-Harris administration policies that regard such release as “parole.” These policies, however, are also lawless. As I’ve explained a few times (see, e.g., here, here, and here), under long-standing immigration statutes, parole is a narrow executive authority that can only be granted legitimately “on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” The Biden-Harris administration, to the contrary, has granted mass-parole for non-urgent reasons to the American public’s significant detriment — and, in so doing, has unconstitutionally usurped Congress’s power to legislate parole conditions.
Reportedly, Ibarra and his family have connections to the vicious Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua. He is said to have made his way to New York City after entering the country. In August 2023, he was arrested in Manhattan for illegally riding a gas-powered moped with a five-year-old in tow. Naturally, he was released: New York does not detain criminal aliens (or most anyone else) upon arrest, and is a sanctuary city that does not assist federal immigration authorities (not that the feds do much — they are the ones who released him in the first place). After being released, Ibarra apparently made his way to Georgia where his brother, Diego, was living. The brothers were arrested for robbing a Walmart in September 2023. It is not clear what happened to that case. They were living about a half-mile from the spot where Laken Riley was murdered.
Not surprisingly, Jose Ibarra waived his right to a jury. Instead, Judge H. Patrick Haggard will render the verdict in a bench trial. Judge Haggard is an experienced trial judge who sits in Georgia’s superior court. He was appointed by a Republican governor, Nathan Deal, in 2011 and is reputed to be a no-nonsense jurist. While granting the bench trial application, Haggard denied a motion by Ibarra’s defense counsel to sever the peeping Tom charge — meaning prosecutors will be permitted to lay bare the entire course of conduct, placing the alleged murder in its context. Haggard also rebuffed defense motions to exclude DNA, fingerprint, and cellphone-data evidence, and to delay the trial to give defense counsel more time to prepare.
Ibarra faces ten counts, including malice murder, kidnapping, and aggravated assault. Georgia has capital punishment but, for reasons unclear, state prosecutors opted not to seek the death penalty. Ibarra thus faces the possibility of life-imprisonment without parole if convicted on the most severe charge.