Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan migrant charged with murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, was formally indicted on ten charges by a grand jury on Wednesday. The charges include malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, and tampering with evidence. Ibarra is eligible to receive the death penalty under Georgia state law, but it is unlikely that Deborah Gonzalez, the state’s progressive Democrat district attorney, will seek it.
Gonzalez, the DA for the Western Georgia Judicial Circuit, ran on an extreme criminal justice reform platform that included ending cash bail and capital punishment. Keeping good on her word, in a January 2021 memo, Gonzalez announced that her office would no longer seek the death penalty.
“This office will: No longer seek the death penalty,” Gonzalez wrote. “Cases which are legally eligible for the death penalty are eligible for sentences of life without parole and life with parole eligibility after serving thirty years. Both of these sentences constitute very substantial punishment. Decisions to seek the sentence of life without parole are a sentence of death in prison.”
In Georgia, for a murderer to receive the death penalty, the offender must meet an aggravating circumstance, such as aggravated battery — for which Ibarra was also indicted — or another capital felony. Ibarra’s charges meet the death penalty standard, and his indictment suggests he certainly deserves it.
According to court documents, Ibarra allegedly attempted to rape Riley before “striking her head multiple times with a rock” and “asphyxiating her in a manner unknown to jurors.” Regardless of what Gonzalez decides, Ibarra’s actions stand as a shocking testament to the dangers of mass migration and the crime that comes with it.
