It was every young woman’s nightmare come to life, and it ended in death. Augusta University student Laken Riley was jogging along some trails on the University of Georgia campus when 26-year-old Jose Ibarra attacked her, dragged her into the woods and killed her. He was sentenced to life in prison for a brutal crime that seems like it should warrant the death penalty. Does Georgia not have the death penalty? Let’s find out.
Prosecutors could very well have pursued the death penalty, but ultimately decided not to. Because Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial, his fate rested solely in the hands of Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard.
The judge found Ibarra guilty of all ten charges he was accused of, including murder, tampering with evidence, kidnapping with bodily injury, and aggravated assault. Defendants in Georgia who are convicted of murder have only three sentence possibilities: life with parole, life without parole, and death.
There are also some special circumstances that have to be met for a death penalty ruling. Georgia law states that a death penalty can’t be handed down without a jury finding “one statutory aggravating circumstance and a recommendation that such sentence be imposed.” Because there was no jury, the law is a little different.
It would be up to the judge in a non jury case to recommend the death penalty, but again, prosecutors did not ask for such a designation. Whether or not he deserved the death penalty is not for us to decide, but Riley’s death was especially heinous.
The murder happened on Feb. 22 of this year. Riley’s friends reported her missing after she never came back from her morning jog. In court, prosecutor Sheila Ross said Ibarra put on a “black hat, a hoodie-style jacket and some black kitchen-style disposable gloves” and went “hunting for females” on the campus.
Around 9 am. Ibarra grabbed Riley as she was running and dragged her into a nearby wooded area. She put up a fight. He tried to remove her clothing while she tried to fight him off. He hit her with a rock so many times on her head that it disfigured her skull. She was also choked. There was no evidence of a sexual assault.
“When Laken Riley refused to be his rape victim, he bashed her skull in with a rock repeatedly,” Prosecutor Sheila Ross said in court. She shared the voluminous amount of evidence tying Ibarra to the crime: surveillance footage of Ibarra peeping into windows before the attack, Ibarra’s DNA underneath Riley’s fingernails; his thumbprint on her phone screen and biometrics from her smartwatch revealing the exact moment her heart stopped beating.
The fight with Ibarra lasted almost 20 minutes. Ross said Riley fought “for her life” and “for her dignity,” but ultimately could not hold him off.
The case has been a political flashpoint, due to Ibarra having crossed the U.S./Mexico border illegally in 2022. His crime has been used as a talking point to vilify all undocumented immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom not only don’t commit violent crimes, but as a group, commit fewer than U.S.-born citizens, per a longitudinal study by the U.S. Department of Justice.
But true to form, President-elect Donald Trump responded to the verdict on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“JUSTICE FOR LAKEN RILEY!” he posted. “The Illegal who killed our beloved Laken Riley was just found GUILTY on all counts for his horrific crimes. Although the pain and heartbreak will last forever, hopefully this can help bring some peace and closure to her wonderful family who fought for Justice, and to ensure that other families don’t have to go through what they have.”
He also said it was time to “secure our Border” and “remove these criminals and thugs” from the country so nothing like this “can happen again.”