Fairness issues loom over trial in Iowa student's slaying

The Mexican national facing trial Monday for the fatal stabbing of a University of Iowa student has been portrayed by former President Donald Trump as a criminal who exploited lax immigration laws.

Rivera's arrest inflamed anger over illegal immigration ahead of the midterm elections, with Trump weighing in to declare Rivera guilty almost immediately and Iowa's governor calling him a predator. The case also deepened anxieties about random violence against women, since Tibbetts was brutally attacked while going for a run in her small town of Brooklyn, Iowa. Nearly three years later, the 26-year-old Rivera will participate in the trial through a Spanish-speaking interpreter as he faces a jury likely to be predominantly white, in a state that Trump carried in the 2020 election. Jury selection will begin Monday at an events center in Davenport, where lawyers for both sides will work to whittle a 175-person jury pool to 12 jurors and three alternates. The trial is scheduled to last two weeks.