{"id":94245,"date":"2019-05-02T18:36:55","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/murderer-tries-to-fire-public-defenders-before-sentencing\/"},"modified":"2019-05-02T18:36:55","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:36:55","slug":"murderer-tries-to-fire-public-defenders-before-sentencing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/murderer-tries-to-fire-public-defenders-before-sentencing\/","title":{"rendered":"Murderer tries to fire public defenders before sentencing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Martinez-Perez\"
Martinez-Perez<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Durango man convicted of first-degree murder tried to fire his attorneys Thursday at the La Plata County Courthouse in a hearing to review a competency report requested by public defenders.<\/p>\n

Silvano Martinez-Perez demanded District Court Judge Suzanne Carlson allow him to dismiss his public defenders Jonathan Jourdane and John Moran and represent himself, expressing a desire to get the case over with. Carlson denied his request, citing Jourdane\u2019s demand for a second competency interview and a competency hearing.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez was scheduled for sentencing in November<\/a>, but the hearing was continued after Moran suggested his client may not be competent to understand the proceedings. The medical analysis, which is not available to the public, found Martinez-Perez competent, but Jourdane asked Carlson to continue the case to get a second opinion.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez, who needed a English-to-Spanish translator to fully understand the hearing, told Carlson he wanted to move forward with sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need justice and I\u2019m here for that,\u201d he said into a microphone without consulting his attorney. \u201c(Waiting means) more time that those kids have to wait for justice for the death of their mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, Martinez-Perez admitted in a 911 call that he had strangled his wife, Crystal Martinez-Perez, 33, after a lengthy argument about a divorce. The couple had three children, all younger than 10 at the time of the murder.<\/p>\n

Jurors listened to the recording of the 911 call<\/a> and unanimously convicted Martinez-Perez of a crime that carries a mandatory life-in-prison sentence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez cooperated with law enforcement throughout the investigation<\/a>, even offering incriminating evidence that may have not been discovered otherwise, including that he had sex with his wife\u2019s body after she died.<\/p>\n

The public defenders representing him argued throughout Martinez-Perez\u2019s trial that he had acted under intense emotional distress and did not plan the attack. First-degree murder conviction requires a finding of premeditation in the accused.<\/p>\n

Jurors convicted Martinez-Perez of first-degree murder, abusing a corpse and three counts of child abuse. They could have convicted him of lesser counts, including second-degree murder, manslaughter or criminal negligence resulting in homicide.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Perez is scheduled to next appear in court the afternoon of May 9.<\/p>\n

bhauff@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silvano Martinez-Perez is facing a minimum of life in prison for strangling his wife<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[168,867],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-crime","tag-la-plata-county-courthouse"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94245"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}