ATHENS, Ga. — The third day in the trial for the man accused of murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley wrapped up on Tuesday, as emotions ran high in the courtroom while the state wrapped up its testimony.
Jose Ibarra is charged with murder, kidnapping and aggravated assault with intent to rape in connection to Riley's death, among other charges. He waived his right to a jury trial -- meaning his fate will be decided by the judge.
"It's rare to see a trial of this caliber, like of this magnitude, something so serious as a homicide, be handled by just a judge. I haven't seen any cases where I can tell you, 'Oh, the judge is going to come back in an hour,'" said Surinder Chadha Jimenez, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, when asked how long it could take until the court hears a decision. "Usually, bench trials are little traffic violations. That's my experience. So I expect this judge to take his time because whatever decision he reaches, he needs to make sure that it's a solid decision."
As the prosecution rests and defense attorneys now make their case in the murder trial of 26-year-old Jose Ibarra, Jimenez, who is unaffiliated with the case, is breaking down arguments and evidence presented.
"If for some reason I go missing tonight, and they find my DNA in your fingernails, I think you're in trouble," Jimenez said.
As the third day wrapped up, the defense is still leaning on the argument that evidence against Jose Ibarra is "circumstantial at best".
"Legally, circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence," Jimenez explained. "The distinction is: direct evidence is what I can see, what I can smell, what I can taste, what I can touch with my own senses. Circumstantial is whatever's happening in the context that I didn't get to see directly."
Jose Ibarra was asked by Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard if he understood that he had the right to testify and that no one can make him testify. Ultimately, Ibarra chose not to testify.
Jimenez said that's typical when it comes to homicides.
"Usually when we are dealing with homicides, when we're dealing with cases where there's only two people involved, the accused and the victim, well one of them cannot testify, and the other one is going to refuse to testify," Jimenez explained. "So we cannot go with direct evidence because there's nobody that observed it directly other than those two people, and these cases are proved with circumstantial evidence."
However, on Tuesday, a state's witness testified that Ibarra's DNA was found underneath Riley's fingernails.
"This great young lady did not go away silently. She fought to the end. And you can see it by the evidence. Again, her fingernails show that she tried to fight him off. She tried to get away (from) whoever was attacking her. And the science points only at one person," Jimenez said.
Jimenez explained, as a defense attorney, DNA is tough to fight.
"It's very difficult to fight with the audience of one judge, one judge that has seen probably hundreds of trials in his career, and he knows what is good evidence, what's not good evidence. A great thing about having a trial with just a judge is that they know when somebody is lying. They know when witnesses get up there and just say whatever they want to say, whether it's for the state or for the defense. Problem is that they also know what is legit," said Jimenez.
He explained that to fight DNA, you have to at least cause doubt that the client committed the crime.
"I can't just say some other dude did it. I have to present at least a little bit of evidence to show that somebody else had access and the opportunity to do the crime," Jimenez said. "And, in this case, it was a man that was living with their client, had access to his phone to steal his phone, access to his clothes. He wanted to pretend to be him. All of these things are great, but for the fact that there's DNA."
Court will pick back up on Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m., with just two witnesses left to testify -- including Jose Ibarra's brother, Diego. The defense is expected to rest its case following the testimonies.
"As you can see, (the judge) has granted some motions to the defense. For example, he excluded some evidence of music videos. He also excluded the translations of some jail calls because the interpreter was not just translating, they were adding a little too much of their own. And there's a Confrontation Clause issue there. So he's actually ruled in favor of defense in many points," explained Jimenez. "This goes, in essence, to preserve the integrity of the trial and to show that he's taking it seriously. He's not just there as just another agent of the state; and he's listening to the evidence, and he's only going to consider the evidence that's admissible. I think he'll probably come back in maybe a day or two."