Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Shocking Twist in Georgia Nursing Student Laken Riley's Murder Trial

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

The trial for Jose Ibarra, the undocumented migrant accused of murdering nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia, is scheduled to begin this week. On the eve of trial, the district attorney announced that Ibarra was opting for a bench trial — rather than a jury trial. The move has left legal observers scratching their heads. Ibarra has pleaded not guilty. Customs officials have said he was in the country illegally. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Georgia lawyer Phil Holloway in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Phil Holloway  https://www.youtube.com/@InsideTheLawCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The man accused of murdering nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia makes a major decision about his upcoming trial. I take a look at what it could mean and why he may have made this decision. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Jose Antonio Abarra's trial will begin later this week for the murder of Laken Riley, and the trial will likely go more quickly than initially thought. I'll tell you why in a bit with Georgia attorney Phil Holloway. He's going to join me. But first, I want to give you a little bit of background on the case and how we got to this point. Lake and Riley was a vibrant 22-year-old nursing student who went out for a run last February on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. She didn't come back. Riley's roommate knew that something was wrong when she didn't return. She had simply been gone too long. It wasn't like her to not return from her run after a certain amount of time. Within 30 minutes, police found Lake and Riley's body in a wooded area. She didn't have a pulse, so an officer started CPR. UGA police launched a search for a killer. It was the

school's first homicide investigation on campus in nearly 30 years. Police Chief Jeffrey Clark said video from campus security cameras led them to Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old man in the country illegally from Venezuela. Ibarra was living at an apartment building in Athens. Investigations suggest that they had no relationship. He did not know her at all. I think this was a crime of opportunity where he saw an individual and bad things happened. A grand jury indicted Ibarra on 10 charges including murder, kidnapping, and aggravated assault with intent to rape. The indictment said that Lake and Riley had been hit in the head multiple times with a rock, dragged to a wooded

area, and asphyxiated. Ibarra pleaded not guilty to the charges. Lakin's murder was even more tragic and senseless because the man accused of killing her wasn't supposed to be in the United States. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed that Jose Ibarra was arrested in September of 2022 after entering the country illegally. He was paroled and released. Then the NYPD arrested Ibarra in August of 2023 for acting in a way that could injure a child younger than 17. But he was released before an immigration hold could be placed on him. Ibarra then made his way to Georgia with his older brother, Diego Ibarra, who had ties to a Venezuelan gang. But back to this criminal case in Lakin's murder.

Jose Ibarra's attorneys had asked the judge to suppress evidence in the case. They claimed law enforcement searched Ibarra's phones before getting a warrant. They also tried to suppress DNA samples, or at least asked the judge to do so. But the judge in the case denied those motions, saying that the police acted lawfully. Now to the big twist in the case. On the eve of trial, Jose Ibarra has waived his right to a trial by jury and will have the judge, Judge Patrick Haggard, decide his fate instead. The state was contacted by the defense last week and they let the state know that they wish to waive the defendant's right to a trial by jury. And instead, this defendant wishes to seek a trial by judge only, a bench trial. right to a trial by jury,

and the state has agreed to a bench trial so long as the trial remains before your honor and no senior judges are brought in. And I believe we're going to commence the trial very shortly, so I don't think that will happen. So both the state and the defense have a plea to proceed with a bench trial on this matter. I have prepared a waiver. I a bench trial on this matter.

I have prepared a waiver. I believe they have executed the waiver. Judge Haggard then went over Ibarra's decision with him through an interpreter. Do you have any questions about your decision to waive a jury trial in this case? No questions. The Press Have you had enough time to talk to your lawyers about that? Yes, Your Honor. The Press Do you understand that if I grant this request, it cannot be revoked by you going forward? Yes, Your Honor. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Mr. Kirby, let me ask you on the record, have you had sufficient time to go over this waiver with your client? I have, Judge. And can you say collectively, you and the other defense counsel, are you all in agreement with your client's decision to make this election?

We are, Judge. Phil Holloway is a former assistant district attorney in Cobb County, and he has been following the Lake and Riley case very closely. So, Phil, I'm interested in your thoughts about why Jose Ibarra would opt for a bench trial rather than a trial by jury. This is going to be a judge who knows the law front and back deciding his fate. Yeah, great to be with you guys as always. Look, it's a very strange and bizarre decision that he made. I don't know why he made it because honestly, I can't think of any tactical or strategic advantage. I have seen it in cases where maybe a prosecutor agrees to

take maybe the death penalty off the table. And so you basically just have what's this, it's like a slow plea of guilty or a bench trial so that everybody can just move on to the appeal. But in this case, you know, the only shot that Ibarra would have had, in my view, was like a Hail Mary pass, hoping that maybe one juror might hang the jury in the event of an indecision and they might have to do it again. But look, why give up your Hail Mary, your only shot? Why give that only shot up if you get nothing in exchange for it? So it's a very perplexing and bizarre decision. I don't really see much of an advantage, if any. Yeah, you would think that maybe his attorneys would want to roll the dice with a jury of 12 rather than, you know, somebody who's been on the bench and who knows the law.

That's what I don't quite understand about it, especially on the eve of trial. Jury selection was supposed to start on Wednesday. And so now this bench trial was supposed to start on Wednesday. And so now this bench trial is going to start on Friday. Yeah, I mean, the prosecutor is the only one that gets a big advantage out of it, because to your point, they only have to prove his guilt now to one individual. I usually say one person wearing a robe, but the judges in Athens-Clarke County don't ever wear robes. But look, it's a legal professional. You've got to prove guilt to that man beyond a reasonable doubt, but you don't have to prove it to 12

citizens. So I think the advantage goes to the prosecutor there on the law. But as a practical matter, their job is now much easier because they can streamline their evidentiary presentation in very significant ways so that they can get right down to the issues. You don't have opening statements. You don't have charge conferences. You don't have jury charges. You don't have a lot of the predicate things that go along with even some of the expert witnesses. So a lot of this can be tried by stipulation, which makes the prosecutor's job much easier. And it's going to go a lot more quickly because of all of the things you just mentioned. No jury selection. The judge is probably going to say, let's just get

this going and get to the point. You don't need to go through all of these other things. One thing, the police chief, Police Chief Clark, when this arrest was made, said that they basically had a solid case, that the evidence was very compelling. But his attorneys, Abarra's defense attorneys, have challenged some of that evidence. You know, they've called into question the DNA evidence in this case. We know that the police chief had said there was security footage, and that's how they tracked Ibarra back to his apartment. How do you see that playing out, Some of the challenges to the DNA evidence and other evidence in the case? Yeah, well, the judge has ruled all that stuff is coming in. Look,

the police chief's right. They actually had him on video tossing, you know, the shirt contaminated with mixed DNA all over it. They got him tossing that in a dumpster near a convenience store, very close to where the crime is said to have occurred. And when you add all of the circumstantial evidence on top of the physical evidence and, of course, the scientific evidence, the case against him is quite overwhelming. lot about it. And I've got no doubt in my mind that he's on a fast track now to a Georgia prison where he will most likely spend the rest of his life. The issue of deportation, notwithstanding that, because I don't think he's ever going to get to the point of being able to be deported. Is there anything you can share with us about the evidence in the case, aside from what you just did. You said you have sources there on the ground. Yeah, there's not really a lot I'm at liberty to discuss right now, but

suffice it to say, you know, I always keep an open mind and I always say, look, there's no trial that can't be won or lost by either side, depending, no matter how strong the evidence might be. But when you take the jury out of that equation, the opportunities, if you will, for a prosecutor's train to run off the tracks, those opportunities by and large disappear. So definitely advantage to the state. I want to go back to the deportation issue that you just brought up. I mean, this has been a very contentious case. It's a tragic, sad case. Jose Ibarra was in the country illegally. He came here from Venezuela. He had, I think, been detained and then released at some point in 2022.

And, you know, Lake and Riley went out for a run one day and didn't come home. I mean, within a short amount of time, the prosecution says her life was taken. This has become a hot button issue down there in Georgia, her murder. You know, if he is sentenced to life in prison, if he is convicted, you know, you're not deported until after you serve your sentence. So if he were to get life in prison, he is going to die in a Georgia prison, as you just said. But if he were to get anything in prison, he is going to die in a Georgia prison, as you just said. But if he were to get anything less than that, he wouldn't be deported until after he served his sentence. So that would be years and years and years, decades down the road.

This has been, though, talk to me about how this has impacted that community down there, because this was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. And it was snuffed out in a matter of moments. Yeah, so this case, obviously, it's permeated the national political conversation, but even on the local level, the now outgoing District Attorney Gonzalez, some would refer to her as a Soros-type DA, someone who has, let's just say, a very different view on the criminal justice system. She came to office at the beginning having been an entertainment lawyer, and her track record on winning jury trials is abysmal, almost like zero or very much next to it in her term in office. So what happened in the general election, there was a write-in candidate that beat her, and he beat her handily. He even won more than 50% of the vote in deep, deep blue Athens-Clarke County as a right-end candidate. So that should tell you that even the local community in Athens-Clarke

County has really kind of fed up with it. Part of me wonders, you know, does that have something to do with the decision to waive a jury trial? But I still just don't see any real advantage in it. You might find one person that's sympathetic. So, you know, we'll see how it plays out, but the odds are not in his favor. Now, there are questions about whether the election of a new district attorney may have had something to do

with the Barra's decision to go forward with a bench trial. Could a new district attorney may have had something to do with Ibarra's decision to go forward with a bench trial. Could a new DA taking over possibly decide to pursue the death penalty in this case? That was a theory that I came up with. I actually did a live stream on my YouTube show this morning about it inside the law. And I said, look, it's theoretically possible

for the new DA to, if the case were to get continued, for example, which is what the defendant had been asking for, if the case were to get continued, it's theoretically conceivable that a new DA might do a superseding indictment, maybe change the charges around, maybe seek the death penalty. But I think getting to that point would have been very, very difficult. Maybe that had something to do with their calculus. We don't know, but we know that in the future, at some point, when there's a motion for new trial and the defense, the appellate defense team is going to look at whether or not

there was ineffective assistance of counsel. I'm not saying that this is ineffective. I'm just saying the defense always has to look at that on appeal. These trial attorneys will testify and they will testify under oath and they will state their reasons. And I'm sure it's a tactical one, but we just don't know what it is. They will explain it on the record for the Court of Appeals or in this case, the Georgia Supreme Court, since that's where all murder cases go right out of the gate. We will know what their reasoning was, but it's probably going to be a few years from now. Well, Phil Holloway, we will see how it all plays out. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much for coming on. You bet. Happy to be here. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.