Jose Ibarra listens to counsel during a hearing on a motion for a new trial in an Athens-Clarke County courtroom, Athens, Ga., on Jan. 30. A judge denied Ibarra’s request for a new trial on Monday. File Pool Photo by Mike Stewart/EPA
March 10 (UPI) — Jose Ibarra, the man convicted for the 2024 killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, will not receive a new trial.
Clarke County, Ga., Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard denied Ibarra’s request for a new trial on Monday, writing in his order that the evidence against Ibarra was “overwhelming and powerful.”
Ibarra’s attorneys argued that his constitutional rights were violated. He is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The attorneys said Ibarra’s rights were violated when a judge denied two pretrial motions in 2024. One motion was for a delay in the trial so the defense’s expert witness could review DNA evidence. Another motion was to exclude certain cellphone evidence from being presented in the case.
Ibarra’s attorneys have 30 days to appeal Haggard’s order.
Riley was found dead near the intramural fields on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Ga., on Feb. 22, 2024. Within months of her death, Ibarra was convicted and sentenced.
Riley’s killing and Ibarra’s identity as a Venezuelan immigrant gave the Georgia case national implications as Donald Trump, then a candidate for the 2024 presidential election, vowed to take action against illegal immigration in the United States.
The Republican majority in the U.S. Congress passed a law last year, signed by Trump, called the “Laken Riley Act.” The law authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to detain immigrants who have been arrested for nonviolent crimes including theft, burglary, larceny and shoplifting.
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