Who is the Georgia judge who will decide fate of migrant accused of killing Laken Riley?

The judge who will decide the fate of an undocumented migrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley is a no-nonsense, silvery-white-haired jurist whose father was killed in an armed robbery.

The judge who will decide the fate of an undocumented migrant accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley is a no-nonsense, silvery-white-haired jurist whose father was killed in an armed robbery. Starting Friday, state Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard will preside over the trial of 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan migrant who authorities said crossed the border illegally before Riley’s killing in the college town of Athens thrusted him into the raging national debate over immigration. Haggard, appointed to the Superior Court bench in 2011 by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, is no stranger to high-profile cases. A year after his appointment to the judicial circuit that covers Athens, Haggard was assigned the death-penalty trial of an admitted cop killer, Jamie Hood, who represented himself. During a pretrial court appearance, Hood asked Haggard – who is White – if the man who fatally shot the judge’s father in 1992 was Black, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. When Haggard said he was, the Black defendant suggested the fatal shooting could affect his handling of the case. “I killed a White man,” Hood said, according to the Banner-Herald. “Professional folks say it don’t have no bearing on what’s going on, but in this neck of the woods it do.” Newell Hamilton Jr., who was part of Hood’s defense team at the trial, recalled that day in 2012.