From CBS News: A judge has rejected a request for a new trial for a Venezuelan man convicted of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration.
Jose Ibarra was found guilty on all counts in Riley’s death and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2024.
Ibarra’s lawyers had argued his constitutional rights were violated when the judge declined two defense motions before trial. One was a request to delay the trial to give an expert witness time to review and analyze DNA data. The other would have excluded some cellphone evidence.
Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who presided over the trial, wrote in an order Monday that the evidence of Ibarra’s guilt presented by the state was “overwhelming and powerful.”
Ibarra’s attorney’s have also argued that hey believe Ibarra suffers from “congenital deficiency” that could make him “incapable of preparing a defense and standing trial.” Prosecutors have countered that there were “no challenges or concerns” about Ibarra’s competency before the trial began.
Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela, attacked and killed 22-year-old Laken Riley on February 22, 2024, while she was out for a morning run on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Georgia. He reportedly dragged her off the trail, choked her, and bashed her head in with a rock.
Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally in 2022, and was allowed to stay by the Biden administration.
READ MORE from CBS News.
Laken Riley murder: Judge denies Jose Ibarra’s request for new trial https://t.co/dWGtu5cEaY
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) March 11, 2026
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