‘I do not support the death penalty’: Why the prosecution in Laken Riley’s murder trial asked for life in prison

By Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — When Deborah Gonzalez ran to be elected District Attorney of Georgia’s Western Judicial Circuit in 2020, she made no bones about her position on capital punishment.

“I do not support the death penalty,” Gonzalez wrote on Twitter, now X, in September 2020. “It is cruel & inhumane. As DA of Athens, GA, I will not seek it in any prosecution. The eye for an eye argument does not make our community whole. Restorative justice does that.”

She has stayed true to that position in her four-year term as district attorney – including in the recent murder trial of Jose Ibarra, the 26-year-old migrant convicted of killing nursing student Laken Riley.

The prosecution in court recommended Ibarra be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, as did members of Riley’s family.

“Your Honor, I’m asking you to please give Jose Ibarra the same thing he gave us when he made the choice to take Laken’s life and destroy ours. He showed no mercy on Laken when she was begging for her life,” her mother Allyson Phillips said in court. “I’m asking you to please give this monster life without any chance of parole, so that he never gets the chance to hurt anyone else ever again.”

Judge H. Patrick Haggard agreed and delivered the sentence Wednesday afternoon.

That was no surprise for those in the courtroom. In May, three months after the killing, the Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office said it would not pursue the death penalty in Ibarra’s case. The decision was made “after careful deliberation with the senior prosecutor and the support of (Riley’s) family” and “underscores our unwavering commitment to pursuing justice for the most heinous crimes,” according to a press release.

The punishment stopping short of the death penalty, though, earned criticism from some right-wing firebrands like US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“Jose Ibarra deserves the death penalty,” the Republican from Georgia wrote on X. “Just as Laken’s mother Allyson asked the judge, Laken’s evil murderer deserves exactly what he gave to Laken.”

A spokesperson for the DA’s office defended the decision to seek a life sentence in an email statement Thursday.

“Life without parole is an appropriately serious sentence and is a decision supported by the family, as heard in the impact statements during yesterday’s sentencing,” spokesperson Dawn Brinkley said.

‘I am a progressive prosecutor’

Gonzalez’s positions against the death penalty and for criminal justice reform fit her among a wave of progressive prosecutors elected across the country in 2020.

In the final days of the Donald Trump’s first administration, Gonzalez co-wrote an opinion for USA Today criticizing the administration’s “disregard for human life” and use of the death penalty.

“The death penalty represents the worst of us — revenge and cruelty — and does nothing to deter crime or make our communities safer,” Gonzalez and two others wrote. “It is long past time to abolish capital punishment, once and for all. And Americans as well as states are increasingly embracing this reform and aligning with other Western democracies.”

Gonzalez laid out her views further in a January 2022 interview with the magazine VoyageATL.

“I am a progressive prosecutor – which means I understand my power and have committed to use it to address the injustices of the criminal legal system – to reduce mass incarceration, reduce the harm to the community because of the prison industrial complex, to hold people accountable for what they have done through restorative measures and diversion programs, to assist in the healing of my community by every single decision I make,” she said.

Those views were put to the test in February, when Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student was killed while out for a run on the University of Georgia campus. The suspect in the killing was Ibarra, a migrant from Venezuela who entered the country illegally.

Four days after the killing, Gonzalez brought in Sheila Ross from the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council to join a task force in the murder case.

“We welcome her back as a knowledgeable and well-respected trial attorney with the expertise ready to bring justice on behalf of Laken Riley,” Gonzalez said in the statement.

Three months later, Gonzalez released the statement announcing prosecutors would not seek the death penalty.

“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. “We understand that there will be those outside of 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.”

Four years since the 2020 election, that wave of progressive prosecutors has crashed ashore. Across the country, a sharp rise in murders from 2020 to 2022 helped spur a backlash against officials like Gonzalez.

Earlier this month, she was booted from office. She garnered just 41% of the vote in a loss to independent Kalki Yalamanchili, who had criticized her leadership of the office and her opposition to the death penalty.

“I don’t think that you should categorically rule out the death penalty, and if I saw a case where I thought it was appropriate, our office would seek it,” he said in an interview with Athens Politics Nerd.

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