When a Georgia decide convicted Jose Ibarra, Laken Riley’s killer, on 10 counts and sentenced him to life in jail with out the potential of parole, politicians and pundits throughout the nation expressed frustration that he was not sentenced to loss of life.
Over a virtually four-day trial, prosecutor Sheila Ross introduced 29 witnesses to the stand to show that Ibarra brutally attacked and killed Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta College nursing scholar who was jogging on the College of Georgia campus by bashing her head with giant rocks and presumably strangling her.
However Georgia Western Judicial Circuit District Lawyer Deborah Gonzalez determined to not pursue the loss of life penalty towards Ibarra in Could, about three months after Riley’s homicide, saying in a Could 31 press launch that the choice to hunt life with out the potential of parole as an alternative of loss of life was “reached after cautious deliberation with the senior prosecutor and the help of the sufferer’s household.”
“Our utmost obligation is to make sure that justice is served and that the sufferer’s household is an integral a part of the deliberation course of,” Gonzalez mentioned in an announcement on the time. “We perceive that there will likely be these outdoors this workplace who will disagree with our determination and search to use this case for political achieve. Nonetheless, the integrity of our judicial course of and the pursuit of justice should all the time transcend political issues.”
LAKEN RILEY MURDER: JUDGE SENTENCES COLLEGE STUDENT KILLER AFTER FAMILY ADDRESSES ‘MONSTER’ IN COURT
Soros-backed Georgia DA Deborah Gonzalez misplaced a re-election bid in 2024. (X)
Fox Information contributor and former felony and civil trial lawyer Ted Williams, who additionally labored as a murder detective in Washington, D.C., known as Gonzalez’s determination “completely outrageous.”
“This particular person ought to burn her bar card,” Williams mentioned. “Every case, and this case, ought to have been dominated, and a call on the loss of life penalty ought to have been made on the deserves. That is friggin’ outrageous.”
He added that “capital punishment is left to the discretion of the native prosecutor underneath Georgia legislation.”
Jose Ibarra seems at his trial on the Athens-Clarke County Superior Courtroom Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Structure through AP, Pool)
“A prosecutor ought to decide on whether or not to hunt the loss of life penalty on how egregious and violent the homicide was,” Williams defined. “Political leanings ought to by no means issue into that call. Sadly, prosecutor Deborah Gonzalez failed Laken Hope Riley in loss of life by not looking for the loss of life penalty towards Jose Ibarra. If there was ever a case that known as for the loss of life penalty, it was this case.”
“Ibarra violently murdered Laken Riley. He stalked Laken and took a rock and bashed her cranium in.”
Republican Georgia State Rep. Houston Gaines advised Fox Information Digital that had the loss of life penalty been on the desk, Ibarra could have chosen a plea deal as an alternative of life with out parole, and a trial exposing the graphic particulars of Riley’s homicide wouldn’t have been needed.
Deborah Gonzalez, the DA for Georgia’s Western Judicial Circuit, takes half within the inaugural Athens Delight Parade in downtown Athens, Ga., June 12, 2022. (Joshua L. Jones/USA Right now Community)
“[I]f there was ever a case to pursue the loss of life penalty, that is one to think about,” Gaines mentioned. “At the least depart it on the desk … make the defendant plea to life with out parole.”
LAKEN RILEY MURDER: FAMILY OF SLAIN UGA STUDENT SOBS IN COURT AS WITNESSES DESCRIBE CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE
In 2020, when the George Soros-backed prosecutor — a former state consultant — took workplace as DA, she expressed opposition to the loss of life penalty.
“I don’t help the loss of life penalty. It’s merciless & in humane.”
“I don’t help the loss of life penalty. It’s merciless & in humane,” Gonzalez mentioned in a Sept. 23, 2020, publish on X. “As DA of #athensga I can’t search it in any prosecution. The attention for an eye fixed argument doesn’t make our group entire. Restorative justice does that.”
Laken Riley’s final moments have been caught on a UGA path digicam Feb. 22. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Structure through AP, Pool)
On her first day in workplace, Gonzalez’s workplace outlined a few of her new initiatives, which included not looking for the loss of life penalty, in a memo her workplace despatched to the Georgia state legislature on the time. Gaines shared elements of the memo on X in February after Riley’s homicide, urging the DA to pursue the loss of life penalty.
In that memo, Gonzalez mentioned she would “consider collateral penalties to undocumented defendants,” or, in different phrases, the unfavourable impacts of felony convictions for unlawful immigrants.
“District Lawyer Gonzalez is incorrect for factoring into her determination to not search the loss of life penalty ‘collateral penalties to undocumented defendants,'” Williams mentioned. “It’s outrageous to imagine that any DA sworn to uphold the legislation trying on the info of this case would think about how undocumented defendants are to be handled within the felony justice system. A choice to hunt the loss of life penalty ought to be based mostly solely on the person deserves of a case and never whether or not an individual is undocumented.”
Gonazlez, who misplaced re-election in 2024, determined to not prosecute the Ibarra case and handed it to particular prosecutor Ross, who scored a hasty conviction after the almost four-day trial.
Gonzalez acquired criticism from Gov. Brian Kemp and different native politicians for her failure to get a single conviction in a jury trial for a felony case over the course of her time period, WSBT-TV first reported in February.
LAKEN RILEY’S ALLEGED KILLER JOSE IBARRA FLEW FROM ‘GROUND ZERO’ OF MIGRANT CRISIS TO GEORGIA
Houston Gaines has criticized Deborah Gonzalez’s determination to not pursue the loss of life penalty in Jose Ibarra’s felony case within the homicide of Augusta College scholar Laken Riley. (Gaines/ © Joshua L. Jones/USA Right now Community)
“She made the choice earlier than the case even occurred,” Gaines mentioned of Gonzalez’s anti-death penalty stance. “If you come into workplace and also you make blanket coverage statements, that is the difficulty. … Once more, you could have people who come into our group like Jose Ibarra as a result of … we’re a group that has welcomed people who’re on this nation illegally and who commit critical crimes. And so they know that violent criminals usually tend to get off straightforward in Athens than somewhere else.”
Gaines additionally famous that Gonzalez “solely has a few attorneys left within the workplace as a result of they’ve had 35 resignations for 17 positions over the past couple of years.”
“They’ve had an over 200% turnover,” the state consultant mentioned. “So, she actually has no attorneys left in her workplace, and so they weren’t in a position to deal with this case.”
Gonzalez’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Prosecutor Sheila Ross presents her closing arguments earlier than Superior Courtroom Decide H. Patrick Haggard throughout the trial of Jose Ibarra at Athens-Clarke County Superior Courtroom Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Structure through AP, Pool)
Ibarra illegally crossed into america by El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was launched into the U.S. through parole, ICE and DHS sources beforehand advised Fox Information. He briefly lived in New York Metropolis, the place he was arrested in 2023 for endangering a baby. He and his 29-year-old brother, Diego Ibarra, have been additionally beforehand cited for shoplifting in Athens.Â
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPÂ
Jose, Diego and their youthful brother, Agenis, lived in an residence constructing lower than a half mile from the on-campus park the place Riley was operating the morning of Feb. 22. Their residence complicated backed as much as a shortcut that results in operating trails alongside UGA’s campus the place Riley was discovered useless in a wooded space, partially bare and coated in leaves, that afternoon. She died of blunt drive trauma and asphyxiation, in accordance with a Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical expert.
Diego, who labored briefly at a UGA cafeteria earlier than his arrest in February, had ties to a recognized Venezuelan gang within the U.S., Tren de Aragua, in accordance with federal courtroom paperwork.
