Laken Riley’s killer got a free ride for a while – but now has gotten a sentence of life imprisonment
Jose Iberra has been convicted of murdering Laken Riley and sentenced to life imprisonment (which I suppose, in a way, is another sort of free ride, but a less pleasant one):
Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge Patrick Haggard found Ibarra guilty of 10 total counts, including one count of malice murder, three counts of felony murder, one count of kidnapping, one count of aggravated assault with intent to rape, one count of aggravated battery, one count of hindering a 911 call, one count of tampering with evidence and one count of being a “peeping Tom.” Ibarra pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Haggard then sentenced Ibarra to life without the possibility of parole after Riley’s family read victim impact statements aloud before the court on Wednesday afternoon. Ibarra showed no emotion as a translator repeated Haggard’s sentencing to him in Spanish.
“Your honor, on February 22nd of 2024, our family and friends were given a life sentence without a chance of parole. Jose Ibarra took no pity on my scared, panicked and struggling child,” Riley’s mom, Allyson Philips said in a victim impact statement on Wednesday. “There is no end to the pain, suffering and loss that we have experienced or will continue to endure on that horrific day. My precious daughter was attacked, beaten and shown no mercy. She fought for her life and dignity and to save herself from being brutally raped. This sick, twisted and evil coward showed no regard for Laken or human life.”
This is what John Hinderaker of Powerline had to say two days ago on the subject of how Ibarra got to be in a position to murder Laken Riley:
Nor is it just prospective jurors: every sane American must be appalled by the Biden Administration policies that welcomed an illegal alien, a Venezuelan gang member, into the U.S.; disabled ICE from kicking him out, after he was apprehended; allowed him to roam freely within our country; and bought him a plane ticket to the destination of his choice, Athens, Georgia. In a sense, it is hard to blame Jose Ibarra for thinking he could get away with anything, and the crazy American authorities would only reward him.
Kamala Harris, Biden’s laughable “border czar,” would have continued these disastrous illegal immigration policies. Many factors contributed to Harris’s decisive defeat, but her identification with Biden’s anti-American immigration policies may have been the most important.
It comes across as madness by the Biden administration. Fools or knaves? I say: both.
Justice would have been a hanging next month. Sadly, this option is not available. Also, the administration which facilitated the entry of so many criminal illegal aliens will never face justice for the injustice it has done to people living here legally.
Maybe Biden and Harris should be imprisoned with the scum
As the Esteemed Philosopher Homey da Clown might put it, “Let I see about dis. A dude from Venezuela comes into America, gets busted for bustin’ in but turned loose, then he gets a plane ride to the locale of his choice and soon’s he gets settled, he up and rapes and kills some lady jus’ mindin’ her own bizness? Den he gets to live out the rest o’ his life in a guvmint hotel wit’ three squares a day, a crib and no worries ’bout nuttin’ instead of havin’ a cap busted on his _ss. Dat’s some crazy sh_t, man.”
The smart money says the McMichaels and Wm. Bryan are more likely to die in prison than this loathsome character from Venezuela. Our courts are a scandal.
I vote for “knaves”. They are evil, not foolish.
Don’t know, Art. Unless he seeks protection from a gang, he just my see justice.
He should be executed. Life imprisonment is a gift. Plus it sends a message. We need to go back to frontier justice.
Maybe Biden and Harris should be imprisoned with the scum
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Nope. Mayorkas and Garland and the ‘immmigrants rights’ shysters.
Texas is going to give ICE some land near the border for their use. It would be nice to build that El Salvador super prison that that government has sent the worst of the gangs. There is a video on CNN about the prison.
Then all these creatures can go there to serve their term.
Fools or Knaves: You forgot to mention Obama’s HATRED of all things American.
Speaking of a Venezuelan illegal alien: From Caracas Chronicles, the only remaining oppo English language blog on Venezuela that still publishes stuff. Why Would Venezuelan-Americans Vote for Trump?
The article goes on to list some reasons. Surprisingly for the Caracas Chronicles, which has a long history of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the article gives reasonable explanations why Trump supporters born in Venezuela would vote for him.
1. “Es La Economía, Estúpido” (even non-Spanish speakers can figure this out.)
2. Lived Immigrants (legal versus illegal immigrants)
3. The S word (socialism. Say no more…)
(catire= blond[e])
Speaking of “left-leaning Venezuelans,” I recently met a “left-leaning Venezuelan,” an author pitching his books, at a local bookstore. I purchased 2 copies for childhood friends w ties to Venezuela. In the discussion, I stated that when working in Venezuela, I met people with names like “Vladimir…Ilych” (Lenin), which indicated to me that Venezuela was decidedly more left-wing- more Commie supporting- than the US. The author denied any political reason for such names– their European immigrant parents just happened to name them so. I didn’t want to hijack the discussion, so I kept silent.
While he autographed my books, I brought up Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez), the terrorist from the ’70s. I didn’t continue, but other examples are the Venezuelan oppo (against Chavismo) activist and legislator, Stalin Gonzalez. Also the author Vladimiro Dorfman, who changed his name to Ariel Dorfman. Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno. I would add that my elementary school’s classmates had about 40% Hungarian or Slavic surnames. Not a Vladimir/Ilich/Lenin in the crowd.
The author proved my point. He grew up in such a lefty environment in Venezuela that he saw nothing unusual about such names. I did. (His father help fund Teodoro Petcoff’s newspaper Tal Cual. Petcoff was a former guerilla who came in from the cold, embraced democracy, and decades later became a focal point of opposition to Chavez.)The author may be a lefty, but in the US is an entrepreneur.
Fools or knaves? I say: both.
–neo
I usually say both, but in this case I come down solidly on knaves — at least with the Biden administration, thought not the morons with the “No person is illegal” signs in their front yards.
This was a naked effort to shift the demographics of the United States in order to facilitate Democrat one-party rule — whatever the costs, including poor Laken Riley
Somehow there was almost no open discussion of this obvious fact.
______________________________________
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
–Bertolt Brecht (1953)
Those voting for Harris can’t deny they were voting for more of this.
We’ve taken a step against this kind of thing in the recent election, but don’t think for a minute there aren’t still prosecutors and border officials who will keep making it happen, particularly if we let up in 2026, 2028, or any future election.
@ Neo > “Fools or knaves? I say: both.”
I say: accomplices to murder.
Deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation because they KNOW this is happening, over and over.
Did you see the prosecutor’s reason for why she didn’t ask for the death penalty?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14107565/georgia-debroah-gonzalez-laken-riley-killer-death-penalty.html
Because it would cause ‘collateral consequences to undocumented defendants.’
I didn’t see any explanation of her explanation; maybe someone else can decode it.
Did she meant that executing Ibarra would frighten (IOW deter) other murderers and rapists, making them feel less inclined to follow their normal mode of operations in America? Or (perish the thought!) making them feel unwelcome and unincluded in America.
If so, I would say that is one of the major goals of capital punishment, the primary ones being dispensing requisite recompense for heinous crimes, and removing the perpetrator from society permanently.
Or, did she mean that some other illegals might be stigmatized as murderers and rapists when they were not guilty of murdering and raping, because they were part of the same identity group as Ibarra and the TdA gang?
(IOW, those mean conservatives would treat them the way leftists and Democrats treat conservatives and Republicans).
Given the well-documented activities of the cartels, gangs, and terrorists KNOWN to be present because of Biden’s Border Banditry, stigmatizing (aka being wary of and cautious around) a randomly-encountered illegal may not be nice, or correct, but it’s probably the way to bet.
A lot of people are upset that he didn’t get the death penalty. A death sentence would mean years of appeals, hearings and attempts at retrials and I think that would be too hard on her family. I’m good with multiple life sentences.
What’s disgusting is how many Leftie clowns I’ve seen on TV recently wanting to wring their hands over that walking piece of human fecal matter that killed her.
The prosecutor’s opinions on public policy should play no role. A comment like that should be grounds for the judge to replace the prosecutor.
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Whether or not a capital sentence should be applied should be a consequence of sentencing formulae specified in the statute.
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The task should not be assigned to the jury or to a judge acting as fact finder. The function of juries or judges as fact finders should be to issue a binary decision on each count – guilty or not. Since there will be lesser included offenses incorporated within some counts, some should be decided by a series of binary decisions.
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The function of a prosecutor should be to seek an information or indictment in preliminary hearings. Since grand juries provide almost no true screenings, the hearings should take place in front of a judge, magistrate, or panel of same. For something as serious as 1st degree murder, some sort of adversary process in the preliminary hearing should be the order of the day. Plea bargaining can commence when the indictment or information is obtained.
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It should be the judge’s decision on whether or not to accept a plea agreement (assuming the defendant did not enter a guilty plea to the charges as stated or insist on a trial).
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Once a conviction is secured, there should be sentencing hearings to make formal determinations on scalar quantities which are arguments in a sentencing formula (e.g. how much money you stole, the weight in mary jane you vended, &c). These decisions should be made by a panel consisting of a judge and two assessors. The assessors should be drawn at random off a roll of those in certain occupational guilds other than law (e.g. occupational therapy, pharmacy, accounting). The hearings could incorporate an adversary process.
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Once the sentence for the offense is determined, enhancements or dispensations which are a function of the properties of the offender should be stated in a pro-forma hearing. The most consequential would be the defendant’s point-accumulation from previous convictions, which would be specified in a manual compiled by a state sentencing board; any points requiring clarification (such as in re convictions in foreign jurisdictions) could be submitted to the state board. Another would be his precise age at the time each offense on the bill was conferred (if he were at the time under the age of 25). Another would be a fudge factor between 0.5 and 1.0 for each count specified in the plea agreement or taking on a default value if the defendant pled guilty without negotiation or the defendant was convicted at trial. The date on which a defendant is first subject to a parole review will be a function of the sentence, as will the frequency of subsequent reviews.
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If the defendant is not eligible for parole for 50 years and the defendant has a history of 1st degree murder, a capital sentence should be automatic.
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Appeals through state and federal appellate courts should not take longer than seven years, if that, after which it’s the decision of the state governor on whether or not to exercise executive clemency. These 25 year long trails of motions by lawfare artists who object to punishing offenders are a scandal and should be ended by statute.
==
And quit with the veterinary methods. A firing squad in a public place at dawn should be the preferred method. You don’t have to announce the time and place beforehand.
The Athens, GA, prosecutor, who outsourced the Ibarra prosecution, lost her re-election bid and will soon be replaced.
https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/politics/elections/local/2024/11/05/new-district-attorney-elected-for-athens-clarke-and-oconee-counties/76052582007/
Those individuals with the US Govt that conceived the open borders agenda and that supervised this agenda, should be indicted for aiding and abetting the criminal activities – including murder – of these illegal aliens.
At the least, they should be imprisoned for life with no chance of parole. But justice would be far better served if they were tied to a wooden post and placed before a firing squad.
I have to say that the Defense Attorney that convinced that piece of trash Iberra to choose a bench trial chose well. Between the testimony during the trial and the victim statements Senor Iberra was very likely to have ended up with the death sentence from a jury. Honestly given our system and that Iberra is a Venezuelan national any death sentence would have been 20 years plus in getting the sentence carried out. Here the old UK sentence would be suitable
The sentence of this court is that you will be taken from here to the place from whence you came and there be kept in close confinement until [date of execution], and upon that day that you be taken to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul.
And to be honest part of me says we could skip the last sentence.
The fools/knaves question encounters probability. Fools’ missteps might be considered to be only randomly connected to the issue. Thus, from time to time, they do something right.
Consistently doing the wrong thing takes effort and planning. You have to avoid accidentally doing the right thing.
knaves and fools.
If they were not fools, they wouldn’t have exposed themselves.
If they allowed Trump a normal presidency he would be leaving office in several months and we wouldn’t know the extent of the deep state. At this point, no one trusts media or government.
Don
Agree, but perhaps they figured what we suddenly learned wouldn’t matter, since we’d be without any chance of influencing issues.
Life in Prison isn’t a “free ride,” IMHO. Anyone here ever do 6 month in Jail? 1 month in Jail? Usually sentences over 1 year are spent in Prison.
If I was given a choice of Life in Prison or Death — I’d choose Death without a doubt.
Next time you go to a zoo – ask the animals there if they are enjoying the “free ride.”
Jose Iberra may or may not agree with me…
@Karmi:If I was given a choice of Life in Prison or Death — I’d choose Death without a doubt.
Maybe that’s true for you, but if that were actually generally true, why do criminals fight to get their death sentences commuted to “life in prison” (which is rarely actually for life)? I have yet to see one criminal who lobbied to get his life sentence changed to the death penalty, do you know of one?
Ibarra strikes me as the kind of guy who is very likely to die in a fight in prison, if he’s not killed deliberately by an inmate with a life sentence who is sickened by the killing of Laken Riley.
Richard,
They may have thought that, but I don’t think they are happy about Trump being POTUS again.
There are also other, more desperate means we can use to influence events, if all else fails.
Kate
Ibarra strikes me as the kind of guy who is very likely to die in a fight in prison,, if he’s not killed deliberately by an inmate with a life sentence who is sickened by the killing of Laken Riley.
My thought, also.
Niketas Choniates
No “Maybe” about it – and clearly stated so…
Humans are natural born killers—so good at it they even do it accidentally (Will not get into the various degrees of murder – nor degrees, categories, or aggravating factors of manslaughter.).
Did time with one killer – who had purchased one of those wading or small swimming pools for his daughter. He placed it into the backup of his pickup, and then his daughter into the pool. Yes, somewhere on the way home the pool blew outta the truck along with his daughter who was ran over by a following car. Was the driver of the following car charged with manslaughter? I dunno…
Met lots of killers in Prison. Drug dealers who had killed their girl friends for stealing drugs or cheating. Did time with a star Arkansas RB who had killed his girl friend. Did time with Drug Ring killers, a mafia hitman who had killed another mafia hitman, a Don Juan type who had been caught by the husband of the wife Don Juan was fuking—huge husband chasing and catching Don Juan who shot behind himself and killed the husband, many other killers also. Oh, and one killer whose murder were so *GRISLY* that it upset some commenters of this blog so much that I had neo delete that comment.
All those killings had different sentences.
Lots of lifers die in prison (“nearly a third”) – the guy with 5 years for manslaughter, or 10-20 for second degree or third degree murder isn’t even going to be offered a choice between such a low sentence or Death. I said ‘If I was given a choice of Life in Prison or Death… – I should’ve added Life without Parole (LWOP), which was what I was thinking, but didn’t ‘tHiNk’ to do so. LWOP’ers rarely get out.
Not that I can recall, but the choice of Life in Prison without Parole (LWOP) OR the Death sentence isn’t something that is usually offered.
Someone who has been released after 15-20 years has probably been institutionalized by then, so he probably wouldn’t want Death if convicted for murder. A new murderer sentence to LWOP doesn’t know what he is about to go thru, so would possibly be happy at first with that LWOP sentence.
Many “death-row inmates have been volunteering for their executions” – which is a clue.
Gary Gilmore, Rodney Berget, Herman Ashworth, James Barnes, Michael Passaro, Rocky Barton, Arthur Gary Bishop, Jesse Bishop, Gerald Bordelon, Scott Carpenter, Edward Castro, and Marco Allen Chapman are some names that came up on a quick Google search.
Anecdotes.
Something about the company you keep ….
When you rail about the Law of Man and then give examples of the Lawless Men well, best choose wisely when young or old.
The God of Copybook Headings
UPDATE: 10 minutes ran out before I found this:
New Analysis: Death-Sentenced Prisoners ?“Volunteer” for Execution at Ten Times Civilian Suicide Rate
I’m white…
Yeah, Niketas Choniates…to much to list, but one more:
Execution Volunteers…
LWOP ain’t a “free” ride – especially not for white prisoners…
Humans are natural born killers
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Go away.
@Karmi:
Your link says 165 death-row prisoners “volunteered” for execution from 1976 to 2024 (but of course all they mean by that is that at some point they stopped fighting their sentence, not that they never fought it, and fought it for decades in some cases):
About 3.5 prisoners per year, of all the prisoners who are sentenced to death and continue fighting it, or made a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty, or got their sentence reduced to life in prison. Of course most of those “volunteers” HAD been trying to get their sentence changed, for years, before they gave up, but lets’ pretend for the sake of argument that not one tried to do that.
That means, according to your own link, that 90% of them DO continue to fight their death sentences, and that’s a pretty obvious revealed preference that 90% of them prefer prison to death. And that doesn’t even count those who got a plea bargain or got their sentence reduced, so it’s MORE than 90%.
So you’ve convinced me: only at most 10% of criminals prefer the death penalty to life in prison, and at least 90% don’t. Consequently, death is a worse punishment than life in prison for at least 90% of criminals, as revealed by their actions. I will be sure to modify any future comments I make on this topic with this information you have shared with me.
Niketas Choniates
Over a couple of comments or so—I linked to more than 1 link. Links that I didn’t link to said “nearly a third” of lifers (not just LWOP) die in prison. One link that was linked to said:
That sounds like more than “10%” to me — at least for whites like me. Won’t get into black Americans since my opinion/experience there might be deemed “racist” or such…
Anyway, you can go ahead and pretend that LWOP for humans and zoo animals is just a lovely “free ride” for them, and they should all be grateful for humans like you…
@Karmi:you can go ahead and pretend that LWOP for humans and zoo animals is just a lovely “free ride” for them
I never said anything of the sort, don’t be a troll. Neo may have, but I didn’t. I never expressed any value judgement about death or life in prison, just pointed out that criminals obviously prefer life in prison to death based on their actions.
You said criminals ought to prefer death to life in prison, and you yourself provided the evidence that the vast majority of them don’t, in excess of 90% according to your citations. I learned something thanks to you.
Niketas Choniates
Here’s our conversation…Here’s my original comment:
Where did I say: ‘criminals ought to prefer death to life in prison‘? You apparently put you words into my mouth – are/were you Trolling me?
You replied with this this:
You are still apparently stuck in a classroom situation with you as a teacher, apparently. “Maybe” as in I’m either lying or don’t know what I’m talking about.
Then you said:
You said you “have yet to see one criminal” and then asked if I knew of one – to which I replied:
You said you “have yet to see one criminal” and then asked if I knew of one – I did a quick Google search and came up with some names…now do you remember what has transpired?
I had left out LWOP in my original comment, and corrected that – then said that I didn’t recall meeting any. Death-row “inmates have been volunteering for their executions” was mentioned, since in that “quick Google search” I had saw some links about that…in a later comment I linked to a couple.
Again…You had said ‘I have yet to see one criminal who lobbied to get his life sentence changed to the death penalty, do you know of one?’ – I did a quick Google search…gave you some names and links.
Then you said in another comment:
There you go again – apparently back to a classroom situation where you are a teacher needing convincing.
You have now gone from ‘have yet to see one criminal who lobbied to get his life sentence changed to the death penalty’ to ‘So you’ve convinced me: only at most 10% of criminals prefer the death penalty to life in prison’ – after I gave you some names and links to those you had not previously known about.
Again…you later wrote:
Show me where I said that…