ATHENS, Ga. — Jose Ibarra, the defendant facing murder charges in the killing of Laken Riley, submitted a waiver of his right to a jury trial on Tuesday. A bench trial by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard will begin on Friday.
That proceeding will begin at 9 a.m. Jury selection had been originally scheduled to start tomorrow.
"By using a bench trial, a lot of the bias issues and the notoriety issues are removed from the calculus of the prosecution," said criminal defense attorney Joshua Schiffer, who is not involved with this case. "It's assumed that judges are going to be independent and unbiased because it's a core function of their job."
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Tuesday's court proceeding concluded around 11 a.m. You can re-watch it below:
Prosecutors had chosen not to seek the death penalty but said in a court filing that they intended to seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The move for a bench trial by Ibarra and his attorneys followed recent disputes between the prosecution and defense over evidence to be admitted at trial.
"It's a show of strength for the state to agree to a bench trial," Schiffer said. "[Special prosecutor Sheila Ross] doesn't have any fears about a judge not understanding the facts that she expects to present."
On Friday, the judge denied defense motions to suppress DNA evidence, which includes cell phone data, fingerprints from Riley’s phone, and DNA collected from her fingernails.
RELATED: Judge denies motion to suppress evidence in trial against man accused of killing Laken Riley
Prosecutors and defense attorneys argued their cases in a previous hearing, with the defense claiming that some of the data collection exceeded the warrant’s limits. However, the judge ruled the evidence would be allowed in the trial. Additionally, the defense's request to relocate the trial outside of Athens was previously denied.
A motion for a continuance on the matter was re-brought Tuesday in court by Ibarra's attorneys, as they argued they have not had enough time to find an expert in DNA evidence and fully analyze the full raw testing results they were given on Oct. 11. Prosecutors argued they'd had partial results as far back as May to prepare with, and Judge Haggard denied the motion.
Shortly after his arrest, federal immigration officials said Ibarra, a Venezuelan citizen, illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case. Immigration was already a major issue in the presidential campaign, and Republicans seized on Riley's killing, with now-President-elect Donald Trump blaming Democratic President Joe Biden's border policies for her death.
As he spoke about border security during his State of the Union address just weeks after Riley's killing, Biden mentioned Riley by name.
Riley’s body was found on Feb. 22 near running trails after a friend told police she had not returned from a morning run. Police have said her killing appeared to be a random attack. Ibarra was arrested the next day and is being held in the Athens-Clarke County Jail without bond.
The indictment charged Ibarra with one count of malice murder, three counts of felony murder, and one count each of kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, hindering an emergency telephone call, tampering with evidence and peeping Tom.
The indictment said that on the day of Riley’s killing, Ibarra peered into the window of an apartment in a university housing building, which is the basis for the peeping Tom charge.
Defense attorneys had tried unsuccessfully to have the trial moved out of Athens, to have the peeping Tom charge handled separately and to exclude some evidence and expert testimony.