Soros-backed prosecutor under fire over death penalty decision for Laken Riley's killer

When a Georgia judge convicted Jose Ibarra, Laken Riley’s killer, on 10 counts and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, politicians and pundits across the country expressed frustration that he was not sentenced to death.

Over a nearly four-day trial, prosecutor Sheila Ross brought 29 witnesses to the stand to prove that Ibarra brutally attacked and killed Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was jogging on the University of Georgia campus by bashing her head with large rocks and possibly strangling her.

But Georgia Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez decided not to pursue the death penalty against Ibarra in May, about three months after Riley’s murder, saying in a May 31 press release that the decision to seek life without the possibility of parole instead of death was “reached after careful deliberation with the senior prosecutor and the support of the victim’s family.”

“Our utmost duty is to ensure that justice is served and that the victim’s family is an integral part of the deliberation process,” Gonzalez said in a statement at the time. “We understand that there will be those outside this office who will disagree with our decision and seek to exploit this case for political gain. However, the integrity of our judicial process and the pursuit of justice must always transcend political considerations.”

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Fox News contributor and former criminal and civil trial attorney Ted Williams, who also worked as a homicide detective in Washington, D.C., called Gonzalez’s decision “absolutely outrageous.”

“This person should burn her bar card,” Williams said. “Each case, and this case, should have been ruled, and a decision on the death penalty should have been made on the merits. This is friggin’ outrageous.”

He added that “capital punishment is left to the discretion of the local prosecutor under Georgia law.”

Jose Ibarra appears at his trial at the Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

“A prosecutor should make a decision on whether to seek the death penalty on how egregious and violent the murder was,” Williams explained. “Political leanings should never factor into that decision. Sadly, prosecutor Deborah Gonzalez failed Laken Hope Riley in death by not seeking the death penalty against Jose Ibarra. If there was ever a case that called for the death penalty, it was this case.”

“Ibarra violently murdered Laken Riley. He stalked Laken and took a rock and bashed her skull in.”

— Ted Williams

Republican Georgia State Rep. Houston Gaines told Fox News Digital that had the death penalty been on the table, Ibarra may have chosen a plea deal instead of life without parole, and a trial exposing the graphic details of Riley’s murder would not have been necessary.

Deborah Gonzalez, the DA for Georgia’s Western Judicial Circuit, takes part in the inaugural Athens Pride Parade in downtown Athens, Ga., June 12, 2022. (Joshua L. Jones/USA Today Network)

“[I]f there was ever a case to pursue the death penalty, this is one to consider,” Gaines said. “At least leave it on the table … make the defendant plea to life without parole.”

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In 2020, when the George Soros-backed prosecutor — a former state representative — took office as DA, she expressed opposition to the death penalty.

“I do not support the death penalty. It is cruel & in humane.”

— Deborah Gonzalez

“I do not support the death penalty. It is cruel & in humane,” Gonzalez said in a Sept. 23, 2020, post on X. “As DA of #athensga I will not seek it in any prosecution. The eye for an eye argument does not make our community whole. Restorative justice does that.”

Laken Riley’s last moments were caught on a UGA trail camera Feb. 22. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

On her first day in office, Gonzalez’s office outlined some of her new initiatives, which included not seeking the death penalty, in a memo her office sent to the Georgia state legislature at the time. Gaines shared parts of the memo on X in February after Riley’s murder, urging the DA to pursue the death penalty.

In that memo, Gonzalez said she would “take into account collateral consequences to undocumented defendants,” or, in other words, the negative impacts of criminal convictions for illegal immigrants.

“District Attorney Gonzalez is wrong for factoring into her decision not to seek the death penalty ‘collateral consequences to undocumented defendants,’” Williams said. “It is outrageous to believe that any DA sworn to uphold the law looking at the facts of this case would take into consideration how undocumented defendants are to be treated in the criminal justice system. A decision to seek the death penalty should be based solely on the individual merits of a case and not whether a person is undocumented.”

Gonazlez, who lost re-election in 2024, decided not to prosecute the Ibarra case and handed it to special prosecutor Ross, who scored a hasty conviction after the nearly four-day trial.

Gonzalez received criticism from Gov. Brian Kemp and other local politicians for her failure to get a single conviction in a jury trial for a criminal case over the course of her term, WSBT-TV first reported in February.

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Houston Gaines has criticized Deborah Gonzalez’s decision not to pursue the death penalty in Jose Ibarra’s criminal case in the murder of Augusta University student Laken Riley. (Gaines/ © Joshua L. Jones/USA Today Network)

“She made the decision before the case even happened,” Gaines said of Gonzalez’s anti-death penalty stance. “When you come into office and you make blanket policy statements, that’s the issue. … Again, you have individuals who come into our community like Jose Ibarra because … we’re a community that has welcomed individuals who are in this country illegally and who commit serious crimes. And they know that violent criminals are more likely to get off easy in Athens than in other places.”

Gaines also noted that Gonzalez “only has a couple of lawyers left in the office because they’ve had 35 resignations for 17 positions over the last couple of years.”

“They’ve had an over 200% turnover,” the state representative said. “So, she really has no lawyers left in her office, and they weren’t able to handle this case.”

Gonzalez’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross presents her closing arguments before Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard during the trial of Jose Ibarra at Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Ibarra illegally crossed into the United States through El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 and was released into the U.S. via parole, ICE and DHS sources previously told Fox News. He briefly lived in New York City, where he was arrested in 2023 for endangering a child. He and his 29-year-old brother, Diego Ibarra, were also previously cited for shoplifting in Athens. 

Jose, Diego and their younger brother, Agenis, lived in an apartment building less than a half mile from the on-campus park where Riley was running the morning of Feb. 22. Their apartment complex backed up to a shortcut that leads to running trails along UGA’s campus where Riley was found dead in a wooded area, partially naked and covered in leaves, that afternoon. She died of blunt force trauma and asphyxiation, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner.

Diego, who worked briefly at a UGA cafeteria before his arrest in February, had ties to a known Venezuelan gang in the U.S., Tren de Aragua, according to federal court documents.