A new judge was appointed Dec. 27 to hear the murder case involving a National City man who admitted stabbing his 19-year-old wife to death in 2010 now that an appeals court reversed his conviction.
Armando Gabriel Perez, now 43, is still acting as his own attorney in the slaying of Diana Gonzalez in a City College bathroom and last week asked San Diego Superior Court Judge Charles Rogers to step aside.
The 4th District of Appeals struck down the guilty plea by Perez, saying Rogers should not have allowed Perez to continue acting as his own lawyer despite Perez’s persistence to remain his own attorney.
Judge Fred Link was appointed to replace Rogers and scheduled a Jan. 17 hearing. Perez remains in jail without bail.
The appeals court said Perez should have been appointed a competent attorney and not allowed to plead guilty to first-degree murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait. Rogers sentenced Perez to life without parole, and the sentence was reversed.
Perez had problems with many of his attorneys and he successfully persuaded Rogers to act as his own attorney despite warnings that he should not do it. The opinion said Perez’s education did not go beyond the 11th grade.
Perez had a history of conflict at many of his court hearings and even at his 2012 arraignment he yelled “I’m guilty” when an attorney tried to enter a not guilty plea for him.
Perez was brought back to San Diego from Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad in Monterey County where he had been serving his term.
Diana Gonzalez had lived in National City. She was allegedly kidnapped some weeks before her death by Perez. Perez was arrested, but released after District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis didn’t file any charges, saying it could not prove a kidnapping had occurred.
After the slaying, Perez fled the area to Mexico. He was arrested at a Tijuana bar at 3:30 a.m. in Feb., 2012, about 16 months after becoming a fugitive in the murder.
