XPost: alt.fan.states.iowa, alt.politics.immigration, alt.journalism.newspapers XPost: sac.politics

The trial of the man accused of stabbing to death Iowa
university student Mollie Tibbetts in 2018 has been postponed
again due to COVID-19.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera had been scheduled to stand trial
beginning Jan. 25, but the Iowa Supreme Court in November
ordered that all jury trials statewide be put on hold until Feb.
1 due to the state's rapid growth of positive cases and
hospitalizations. On Wednesday, the court rescheduled the trial
to May 17, and moved a scheduled pretrial conference to April 15.

The trial will remain in Davenport, as previously ordered.

Tibbetts, a 20-year-old psychology student at the University of
Iowa, went missing in the summer of 2018 after going for a jog
in her hometown of Brooklyn. Her disappearance and the
subsequent monthlong search drew national attention. Tibbetts'
body was found Aug. 21, 2018, in a cornfield.

Authorities charged Bahena Rivera, a farmhand, with first-degree
murder, saying the undocumented immigrant confessed to abducting
Tibbetts while she was on a run July 18, 2018.

The trial has already been delayed at least three times from the
original date in April 2019. Questions have been raised about
whether Bahena Rivera's rights were violated during the
investigation or whether his conversation with law enforcement
should be used in court since English is not his first language.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can
be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on
Twitter at @DMRMorris.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and- courts/2020/12/10/mollie-tibbetts-trial-delayed-may-due-covid-19- murder-case-cristhian-bahena-rivera/3878861001/
 

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