Laken Riley’s murderer, Jose Ibarra, “never stood a chance,” according to an article by MSNBC.
Ibarra, an illegal alien with a gang affiliation, was convicted on multiple counts for the murder of nursing student Laken Riley this week. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
MSNBC’s legal analyst, Danny Cevallos, wrote that “Riley’s murder became a political rallying cry at this summer’s Republican National Convention because Ibarra entered the country illegally in 2022.”
“But for all the political controversy, the outcome of this trial was never in doubt. The verdict was going to be guilty. The sentence was going to be life without parole.
“For the defense, this was a hopeless case. The defense did the best it could with bad facts. It almost surely knew it was going to lose. That’s probably why it requested a bench (judge-only) trial instead of a jury trial.”
Cevallos went on to complain that the judge “cut [Ibarra] no breaks—jury or no jury.”
Unsurprisingly, reaction to the article on social media was anything but favourable.
“What the f**k is this s**t,” Tweeted Joe Rogan to his 14 million followers. Rogan’s words were echoed by many, who called for the article’s author to be fired and questioned why the media outlet was expressing sympathy for the killer and not the innocent victim.
In the face of the backlash, MSNBC changed the headline of the article from the original “Laken Riley’s killer never stood a chance,” to “The guilt of Laken Riley’s killer was never in doubt.”