July 8 (UPI) — A Georgia judge ordered a mental evaluation for Jose Ibarra, the man convicted in the 2024 murder of 22-year-old university student Laken Riley.
It will determine if Ibarra, a native of Venezuela, was mentally competent at the time of the crime and later at trial, including whether he understood the legal consequences of waiving a trial by jury and if he is mentally equipped to assist in his own appeal.
In November, Ibarra was convicted of malice murder and other related charges in the February 2024 attack that left Riley, a nursing student, dead near a wooded trail on the campus of the University of Georgia.
It was the impetus behind the Laken Riley Act, decried as a political move by opponents and which passed the Senate and was signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 29.
The decision to call for the mental evaluation was issued last week by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who sentenced Ibarra to life in prison with no chance of parole.
Haggard’s order filed on Thursday instructs officials to figure out if the undocumented migrant was “capable of understanding the nature and object of pretrial proceedings, including waiver of jury trial rights.”
Ibarra, 27, is hoping to vacate his guilty sentence or secure a new court trial after his attorneys filed a new-trial motion only weeks after his conviction late last year.
His legal team argued that the guilty verdict was “contrary to law” and evidence.
Ibarra, who speaks Spanish as a first language and possibly faced a language barrier, was characterized as “a slow learner” last month during a virtual hearing by defense attorney David Dodds.
The state, for its part, did not oppose the evaluation request but filed a separate motion to seek public money to retain expert witnesses for a possible court appeal.