BROOKLYN, Iowa — EDITOR'S NOTE: The above video is from July 2023
The Iowa Court of Appeals has affirmed the murder conviction of Cristhian Bahena Rivera.
The opinion comes more than two years after Bahena Rivera was found guilty in the 2018 killing of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts.
Bahena Rivera appealed his conviction, claiming statements he made to law enforcement in August 2018 should not have been admissible in court. He also asserted he should have been granted a new trial and alleged the state committed a Brady violation by failing to disclose new evidence.
In regard to the statements to law enforcement, Bahena Rivera noted that some statements he made should have been suppressed as they were made prior to being read his Miranda rights. However, the Court rejected this claim, writing in part, "...Bahena was not in custody at the time, Miranda warnings were not yet required, and his statements were admissible."
Bahena Rivera also believed his statements made to police after Tibbetts' body was discovered were not admissible, claiming the language barrier between himself and investigators made the Miranda warnings "inadequate" and he waived his rights involuntarily.
Even in evaluating the language barrier and other concerns, such as fatigue, the Court failed to conclude in Bahena Rivera's favor on the issue of Miranda rights, writing, "We conclude that Bahena's statements to law enforcement after the second Miranda warning were an essentially free and unconstrained choice, made by the subject at a time when that person's will was not overborne or the capacity for self-determination critically impaired."
Beyond the issue of Miranda warnings, Bahena Rivera said the district court wrongly denied his motion for a new trial on the basis of "newly discovered evidence", and that the state suppressed an investigation into a separate suspect.
However, the Court responded the "newly discovered evidence" did not carry sufficient weight to change the outcome of Bahena-Rivera's trial. Furthermore, the court cited prosecutors who said the allegations against James Lowe, who Bahena Rivera believed could have murdered Tibbetts, were "baseless".