People v. Perez CA4/2

Opinion

Filed 6/15/26 P. v. Perez CA4/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Appellant, E086153

v. (Super.Ct.No. RIF2004322)

JUAN MANUEL PEREZ, JR., OPINION

Defendant and Respondent.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Jason Armand, Judge.

Affirmed.

Laura Vavakin, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and

Appellant.

No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.

1 In this Anders/Wende matter,1 defendant and appellant Juan Manuel Perez, Jr.,

appeals from the trial court’s entry of judgment following a jury verdict convicting him

of second degree murder for slaying Dominic Santos, with a penalty enhancement for

personal use of a knife as a deadly weapon. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 12022,

subd. (b)(1)); all further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.) At

sentencing, the trial court imposed an indeterminate term of 15 years to life for the

murder, plus a year for the weapon enhancement.

On appeal, our independent review of the record and the law discloses no issues of

arguable merit on which to request briefing by the parties. (See People v. Johnson (1981)

123 Cal.App.3d 106, 109 [“an arguable issue” requires “a reasonable potential for

success” on appeal].) We therefore affirm the judgment.

BACKGROUND

Just before midnight on December 14, 2020, law enforcement and paramedics

responded to a 911 call that a nonresponsive male body lay in the street near a Taco Bell

restaurant on University Avenue in Riverside. The man, later identified as Santos, was

already deceased. In examining the body for signs of life, a paramedic observed

contusions on the decedent’s mouth and, upon opening the man’s clothing, discovered a

1 Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738; People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436. 2 “penetrating” chest injury, near the decedent’s heart.2 Police investigators discovered a

live bullet among other items in Santos’s pants pockets, but no wallet or cell phone.

An officer who responded to the scene contacted the restaurant employee who

called 911 about the body lying in the street. The employee initially assumed the man on

the ground was intoxicated and passed out, or possibly homeless. She did not recall

hearing any screams, gunshots, or other alarming noises before spotting the body. She

informed the officer, however, that a regular drive-thru customer named “Mario” shared

with her on the Snapchat app platform a video of a confrontation involving the man in the

street before he died.

The responding officer viewed the Snapchat video on the employee’s phone and

investigators several months later were able to locate Mario Baca, the “Mario” who

recorded and shared the video. Baca testified at trial about what he saw and recorded,

and didn’t record, that evening, as we summarize further below. The video was played

for the jury at trial, with transcripts of the audio that was discernible provided to the jury.

Meanwhile, law enforcement’s investigation in the immediate wake of the killing

included review of the Snapchat video, which the officer had the employee record for

him. The recording showed that a white car depicted in the video, a Toyota or Hyundai

sedan, had a front left wheel that stood out because it was black while the rest of the

2 An autopsy later confirmed Santos’s death was caused by a stab wound to the left side of his chest, inflicted by a single-edged knife. The knife wound penetrated through the heart, leading to Santos’s incapacitation within minutes and his death from internal bleeding. 3 wheels were chrome. It also lacked a front license plate. The video was also the source

of the description law enforcement used to try to locate the decedent’s assailant: a thin-

built, taller Hispanic male around 20-25 years old, wearing green pants and dark-colored

shoes with white laces and soles. The assailant also wore a black hat and a black hooded

sweatshirt.

By around mid-day or so after the killing, police investigators were able to

develop leads regarding a cell phone number that may have belonged to the victim.

Forensic technology to “ping” the phone’s location led law enforcement to an apartment

complex on Central Avenue. There, a resident noticed the officers onsite and turned in

the victim’s cell phone, which her husband had found ringing near a stairwell very early

that morning.

About 30 yards from the stairwell, the officers noticed the white Hyundai they

were seeking. It was backed into a parking spot and occupied by a woman, later

identified as Mary Madrid, defendant’s girlfriend. A red SUV was parked in front of

Madrid’s vehicle, blocking it into the parking spot. Defendant stood outside Madrid’s

driver’s side window. As the police approached, defendant said, “I already know. I

fucked up. Trust me.” Defendant matched the suspect’s description from the Snapchat

video, including his green pants and his shoes.

Red droplets that appeared to be blood stained the front of defendant’s pants.

There were also red droplets on the driver’s side door of the white vehicle. Defendant

had a cut on the top of his right hand and some droplets or stains on his hand that a

4 responding officer said resembled blood. Madrid told the officers she was afraid of

defendant. Both were transported to the police station, where Madrid was later released.

A detective confronted defendant with the Snapchat video while interviewing him.

Including by stating: “So watch this part. You kick him. Stab him. That’s probably

why you got blood on your pants right now.” Defendant denied he was in the area near

the Taco Bell that night, and denied he was involved in a fight. He denied he was

depicted in the video (“that’s not even me”) and claimed that the droplets were “paint.

It’s all paint.” When the detective responded with incredulity in light of defendant’s

clothing (“I mean those are those shoes. Those are the pants, right? I mean I showed

you, right man?), defendant maintained his denial. Defendant pointed to the popularity of

the shoe brand and disputed whether “those are really Jordans” in the video.

Defendant also claimed in the interview that the pants and shoes were not his, he

had only been “just borrowing them” as of that evening. He changed into them late that

night, when he saw his cousin passing by on a bicycle. Defendant explained: “He just

passed by quick on the bike, you know, the only reason he stopped is cuz I wanted the

shoes.” He added that because he was homeless, “I don’t have clothes like that, you

know so if my homie has some pants for me, I’m gonna take them.” Defendant insisted,

“I’m gonna give them back, hopefully.”

Defendant also explained that the cut on his hand and the blood on the car door

resulted from punching his girlfriend’s vehicle window, which was “really why I thought

the cops pulled up.”

5 It emerged early in defendant’s police interview that Madrid borrowed the white

car from her cousin, “Carla.” Investigators who examined the vehicle had learned that it

was registered to Carla Robles. The investigation had also yielded the decedent’s identity

and that, according to his probation records, he shared an address with Robles.

Additionally, two folding knives and an unregistered firearm were recovered from

the white Hyundai. Latex gloves were also found near the center console inside the

vehicle. DNA testing on swabbed samples from the handgun strongly suggested

defendant as a contributor, with “moderate” support for decedent as a contributor,

according to a DNA expert who testified at trial. Knife blade and handle DNA samples

could not be attributed to any known contributor. DNA samples recovered from the

white Hyundai door and defendant’s pants matched defendant’s DNA profile, but

excluded the decedent’s. A DNA sample from the decedent’s cell phone excluded

defendant as a contributor.

Other evidence at trial included surveillance footage from a business on University

Avenue that depicted a white Hyundai Sonata, with a black-painted front driver’s side

rim, traveling southbound towards University Avenue, and then eastbound on University

Avenue around 11:38 p.m. on the evening Santos was killed. The same vehicle was seen

on additional surveillance footage in the area 18 minutes later, just before midnight.

Other forensic evidence at trial indicated that call logs on Madrid’s cell phone showed a

call between that phone and defendant’s phone at 11:20 p.m., an unanswered call at

6 12:48 a.m., and another connected call at 12:53 a.m. No data could be recovered from

decedent’s phone due to it being locked with an unknown PIN.

Robles testified at trial. She disclosed that the day Santos was killed, she and

Madrid had spent the day with Santos and defendant, including driving around in her

(Robles’s) car. They spent time “hanging out” near University Avenue in Riverside.

Robles had known Santos for about a year before his death; they had been intimate

briefly, remained friends, and she allowed him to use her residence as his probation

address. She had been an illegal drug user at the time but was now sober. Madrid had

also known Santos for a couple months, and, through Madrid, Robles knew defendant.

On the day they had been driving around together, Robles recalled seeing a handgun in

the car, which she understood Madrid had obtained from Santos. Madrid had been

“looking for a gun” and had contacted Robles “for help to get one.” Robles did not at

any time see anyone waving the gun or acting violently with it.

Robles testified that in the evening, as it was getting dark, she took a rideshare

home to be with her daughter, but she left her vehicle with Madrid, which was not

uncommon between them, since they were “family.” Robles confirmed before departing

that Madrid was comfortable with Santos remaining with her and defendant. Robles went

home and went to bed.

Robles testified that when the police later contacted her, they showed her the

Snapchat video, and she recognized defendant and Santos in the video based on their

7 clothing and height. In particular, she recognized the green pants that defendant had been

wearing that evening.

Baca, who had originally recorded the Snapchat video, testified at trial. When he

was exiting the Taco Bell drive-thru, but before he started recording, Baca noticed two

people get out of a white car “arguing at first and then it led to fighting” by “the side of

the street.” Baca “pulled out [his] phone, started recording, seeing both of them fighting

each other. Looked like one was fighting and the other person was backing up while

trying to defend himself.” Baca summarized the “altercation” as a whole as beginning

with the men exiting the car, “trying to fight,” then “the person in gray tripped, the guy in

the black threw punches at him when he was on the [ground], hit him a couple of times.”

Then “the one in gray stood back up. After that, looked like the gray walked towards the

black. The black threw a punch.” Baca described this striking, “knockout” blow as

towards the “upper body,” in the “[c]hest area” or “above,” and then the man in gray

“fell.”

Baca clarified that he recorded the video in two clips, with a short gap of five to 10

seconds between the recordings. (He earlier estimated for the defense investigator before

trial that the gap was as long as 20 seconds.) Baca testified that during “[t]he portion not

recorded I saw the person in the black throw a punch towards the person in the gray. The

person in the gray fell.” Then Baca started recording again. Baca recalled that there was

something about the individual in black’s movement that made him think the man in gray

might have been trying to grab something from the man in black, although he was not

8 sure. Baca described what he termed the “knockout” of the person in gray, sending him

to the ground, as the “main highlight” of what he saw, and said he was disappointed it

was not recorded. Baca saw the man in gray, after he stood up, “walking towards” the

other person, but Baca did not see the man in gray “do anything aggressive” before the

final punch.

Baca did not hear any gunshots, did not hear anyone yell “gun” or otherwise

scream anything during the fight. After the man in gray fell to the ground the final time,

Baca saw the man in black “walking back towards [him] to grab stuff out of his pockets.”

Baca saw the man in black remove things from the other man’s pockets but did not know

what they were. Baca heard the woman in the white car screaming at the man in black to

get into the vehicle. The man did so and they drove off.

In closing arguments, the prosecutor and defense counsel argued for and against

whether defendant was depicted in the Snapchat video and debated defendant’s

credibility. The jury convicted defendant as noted above, and he appealed.

APPEAL AND REVIEW

Defendant received appointed counsel on appeal. Counsel’s review of the record

and legal research uncovered no arguable issues to raise on appeal, including after

consultation with Appellate Defenders, Inc. In reaching that conclusion, counsel noted

for our potential consideration in our independent review numerous issues she had

researched and rejected as arguable issues.

9 Those issues included whether the trial court erred and, if so, was there any

prejudice in: (1) excluding evidence that defendant’s girlfriend, who did not testify,

wanted to obtain a firearm to have someone unrelated to this case killed; (2) admitting

autopsy photos of the victim; (3) admitting defendant’s police interview, citing, e.g.,

Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436; and (4) denying for lack of evidence the

defense jury instruction request to include bracketed language in CALCRIM self-defense

instructions Nos. 505 and 571, regarding how to proceed if the jury found the victim

Santos previously threatened defendant. Other issues that appellate counsel suggested in

Wende briefing for our potential independent review included: (5) the sufficiency of the

evidence to support the jury’s murder verdict; (6) whether the court engaged in an

improper, prejudicial dual use of facts to find an aggravating factor true and to impose the

knife-use weapon enhancement; and (7) whether defendant unequivocally invoked during

his police interview his right to an attorney.

We gave defendant the opportunity to file a personal supplemental brief, and he

has not done so. Having independently reviewed the record for potential error, we are

satisfied defendant’s attorney has fully complied with the responsibilities of counsel and

no issue of arguable merit on appeal exists. (People v. Kelly (2006) 40 Cal.4th 106, 126;

Wende, supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 441-442.)

10 DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS LEE J. We concur:

CODRINGTON Acting P. J.

RAPHAEL J.