Laken Riley Case: Judge H. Patrick Haggard to go on trial for Jose Antonio Ibarra, the Venezuelan migrant accused of murdering a nursing student

The judge who will decide the fate of an undocumented migrant accused of the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley he’s a no-nonsense, silver-gray lawyer whose father was killed in an armed robbery.

Starting Friday, state Supreme Court Justice H. Patrick Haggard will preside over the trial of Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, a Venezuelan migrant who authorities say crossed the border illegally before Riley’s slaying on the Athens campus sent him into a raging national immigration debate.

Haggard, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2011 by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, is no stranger to high-profile cases. A year after his appointment to the judicial district that covers Athens, Haggard received the death sentence in the trial of self-represented self-confessed police killer Jamie Hood.

According to the Athens Banner-Herald, during a preliminary hearing, Hood asked Haggard how White he was, or whether the man who fatally shot the judge’s father in 1992 was Black. When Haggard said he did, the Black defendant suggested the fatal shooting might affect his trial.

“I killed a white man,” Hood said, according to the Banner-Herald. “Professionals say it has nothing to do with what’s going on, but in this mountain of woods it does.”

Newell Hamilton Jr., who was part of Hood’s defense team at trial, recalled that day in 2012.

“Man, you should have seen Judge Haggard’s face. Holy shit, he’s red,” Hamilton told CNN this week. “You should have seen how angry he was. You’re talking about, you know, red-faced… He got mad.’

However, Hamilton said, Haggard was careful in his response to avoid the appearance of bias.

“Judge, I have a question,” Hamilton recalled the defendant saying. “He says, ‘I want you to tell me … the man … the fact that a black man killed your father, you’re not going to hold that against me.’ The judge blushes and then says, “As a judge, I’m not biased.”

The Banner-Herald quoted Haggard as saying, “Mr. Hood, I came here to do my job.”

And that’s how Haggard is expected to handle the closely watched homicide case, which has become a flashpoint in the bitter debate over the border crisis, according to both Hamilton and the man who pursued the police shooter a decade ago.

“I don’t recall him ever losing his cool during this trial,” Kenneth Mauldin, a former prosecutor who now teaches at the University of Georgia School of Law, told CNN. “Judge Haggard maintained his composure and judicial demeanor, as he should, and maintained that temperament throughout the proceedings. . . . He was eminently fair.”

CNN has reached out to Haggard for comment.

Prosecutors will seek a life sentence without parole

Riley, a 22-year-old student at the Augusta University College of Nursing in Athens, was killed on February 22 while jogging on the University of Georgia’s Athens campus.

Ybarra on Tuesday waived his right to a jury trial and agreed to a trial, leaving it up to Haggard to decide his guilt or innocence. The prosecution agreed and Haggard approved the waiver. Through his interpreter, Ibarra told the court he understood he could not reverse his decision, which was made a day before jury selection began.

At trial, evidence and testimony from witnesses or experts will be presented to a judge, not a jury. Defense attorneys sought a mistrial after a judge denied a motion to suppress some evidence in the case pending trial, according to court records.

In a court session, the judge alone decides the facts of the case and the application of the law. According to CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson, defendants choose the trials in some cases because a judge is perceived to be able to shrug off negative publicity and press coverage and consider the facts of violent crimes with less emotion than a jury.

CNN has reached out to Ibarra’s attorneys as well as Western Judicial District District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez’s office for comment. During Tuesday’s hearing, Haggard barred the attorneys and the defendant from speaking to the media.

Ibarra was indicted in May on 10 counts, including charges related to Riley’s death and another incident in which Ibarra allegedly entered a University of Georgia residence hall the same day as the murder, peered through a window and spied on a student. it is said in his indictment.

Prosecutors intend to seek life in prison without the possibility of parole if Ybarra is convicted of the most serious charges, Gonzalez said, according to court records.

“Would I ever put something in the hands of a judge like that? The answer is: “I’m just not comfortable with that,” Hamilton said of the decision to go to trial in Ybarra’s case. “I will always trust juries over judges… But I will say this: I don’t remember Judge Haggard being unfair.”

Mauldin said Ibarra’s attorneys would not have sought a mistrial if they believed Haggard could not be fair to his client.

Haggard is currently serving his third term on the Supreme Court. He was the chief judge from 2017 to 2020. He previously served as a municipal court judge for the city of Winterville from 1992 to 2011, according to his judicial webpage. He practiced both criminal and civil law in the Athens area and was a certified mediator.

Haggard founded the Western District Veterans Treatment Court in 2013, which provides therapy, substance abuse treatment and other services to veterans with criminal records, according to the page. The judge is a member of the Athens First United Methodist Church.

“Judge Haggard will treat this man fairly,” Hamilton said, referring to Ybarra. “I think he will give him a fair trial. It will be difficult for him. I don’t think he’ll pull any slack… That’s been my experience with Judge Haggard. He’s always been a gentleman, but don’t give us any slack.”

The storm around crime and illegal immigration

Ibarra’s case reignited a raging national debate over immigration.

Republican President-elect Donald Trump said the Biden administration’s immigration policies contributed to Riley’s death. On the eve of his election, Trump promised to carry out large-scale deportation of undocumented migrants. Riley’s parents attended a Trump rally in March and met with Trump backstage, according to campaign manager Chris LaCivite.

Democrats also mentioned Riley’s name. While campaigning for presidential candidate Kamala Harris in October, former President Bill Clinton supported President Joe Biden’s push for border security and criticized Trump for rejecting a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

During her presidential campaign, Harris promised to revive the bill and sign it if elected. Clinton said the bill would lead to “full pre-entry screening” at the US-Mexico border. “Now Trump has closed the account,” Clinton said before mentioning Riley’s death.

Ibarra was arrested in September 2022 on suspicion of illegally entering the United States, and was “preliminarily released and released pending further processing,” according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In September 2023, he was arrested by police in New York City and charged with “acts resulting in bodily injury to a child under 17 years of age and vehicle violations,” according to an ICE press release. But police released Ybarra “before a detainer was issued,” ICE said. Asked about Ibarra’s arrest and release in New York, the NYPD’s public information office told CNN in an email: “Based on the information provided in your request, no arrests have been made.”

Until February 2024, Ibarra lived in Athens, home of the University of Georgia where Riley was killed.

On Feb. 22, she went for a morning jog on the UGA campus, where she will attend until May 2023 before transferring to Augusta University. The search for Riley began after authorities received a call around noon from a friend who said she had not returned from a jog, UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark said. Later, her body was found near the lake.

Ibarra was linked to Riley’s murder based on campus surveillance footage, physical evidence and information from the community, Clark said.

With the case now fueling a political firestorm over crime and illegal immigration, Haggard will face intense scrutiny as he presides over one of the most politically and racially charged trials since he oversaw the Hood murder trial nearly a decade ago .

According to his indictment, Ybarra hit Riley in the head with a rock several times and choked her. He was arrested the day after Riley’s death. Authorities said there was no evidence that Ybarra and Riley knew each other and called the killing a “crime of opportunity.”

According to his appeal, which was rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2021, Hood was convicted of 36 counts, including murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping, carjacking. The charges against Hood relate to the 2010 shooting death of a man named Kenneth Ray and the fatal shooting of Athens-Clarke County Police Officer Elmer Christian during a crime spree the following year. In July 2015, Hood was sentenced to life without parole.

In 2012, during a court appearance with his new defense attorneys, Hood asked Haggard about the fatal shooting of the judge’s father.

Haggard’s father, Harold Philip Haggard, was a 59-year-old salesman who was fatally shot in the chest in 1992 during a shootout with two men who tried to rob him outside a Georgia apartment complex, according to local press reports at the time and court documents .

After Haggard insisted he was there to do his job, Hood told the judge, according to the Banner-Herald, “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, sir, but I’ll tell you right here. : I’m willing to face the death sentence before I come in here and let someone screw me.”

“I think he was a gentleman most of the time,” Hamilton told CNN, referring to Haggard in court. “I think Jamie judged him in a way that judges never expect to be judged… But I have to say that there was nothing personal during the trial. There was nothing when I came back and said, “This is bad m *therf**ker.'”

The former prosecutor in the case agreed.

“I think that sometimes you can read the judges. Sometimes you can see that they’re probably hovering, you know, and they have a right to be upset and all that. They might be upset, and you can probably tell they might be, but they’re not. Don’t show it, I think he is,” Mauldin said of Haggard.

Before he was sworn in as a Superior Court judge in 2011, Haggard told the Banner-Herald that his father’s killing had not changed his perception of defendants in the courtroom.

“It happened, it was a tragedy, but it went through the legal process and justice was served,” Gaggard told the newspaper.

At the time, it was Haggard’s most high-profile case as a judge.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal one way or the other,” Judge told the Banner-Herald. “It might be big for other people, but I’ll take it as it comes and deal with it.”

Hamilton, who was working for the Georgia Capital Defender at the time, believes Haggard will handle the Ybarra trial in the same way.

“Do I think Haggard will be fair? Yeah, but let me tell you, he’s not going to give this guy any breaks and he’s going to convict him. He’s a tough dude. But I have no reason to think that he would treat this person any differently because of the color of their skin or the fact that he is Hispanic,” he said.

Holly Yang, Rebecca Riess, Sean Nottingham, Eric Levenson, Priscilla Alvarez, Rafael Romo, Kaanita Ayer, Jason Morris, David J. Lopez and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.