A Sacramento man serving prison time for a 2007 Yolo County murder pleaded to a lesser charge last week after a federal court judge vacated his original conviction.
Luis Amparan Rodriguez, 34, was serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the July 8, 2007, death of Alexandra Marie Cerda of Sacramento, who was stabbed about 120 times by Rodriguez’s co-defendant, Jose Madrigal, in the back of a van while Rodriguez drove.
Facing a retrial, Rodriguez resolved his case Thursday by pleading no contest to felony voluntary manslaughter in exchange for a six-year state prison term, for which he waived his credits for time already served.
Yolo Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg is scheduled to sentence Rodriguez on Jan. 26.
Authorities said the defendants met the 39-year-old Cerda at a house gathering in Sacramento. Later, while the men were giving her a ride in Rodriguez’s van, Madrigal attacked her when she refused to have sex with him.
Her body was dumped along the side of Old River Road near West Sacramento, where it was discovered by several on-duty Yolo County probation officers who were driving through the area.
Madrigal pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on the eve of his November 2008 trial. Now 35, he is serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life.
A jury found Rodriguez guilty of murder in July 2009, rejecting his defense that he did not aid or abet the killing, as he was too stunned and afraid to do anything but drive while Madrigal carried out the impulsive crime.
Rodriguez appealed his conviction, exhausting his state-level appeals before his attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus — a challenge to the legal basis for imprisonment — in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
In it, attorney William J. Arzbaecher of the Central California Appellate Program cited insufficient evidence, as well as instructional error that he said prevented jurors from convicting Rodriguez of a lesser offense, as grounds for reversing the conviction.
“Mr. Rodriguez was unjustly convicted of first-degree murder in 2009 based on jury instructions that failed to adequately explain the law that applied in his case,” said Yolo County Public Defender Tracie Olson, Rodriguez’s attorney.
“The facts of this case are difficult because the evidence has always been clear that Mr. Rodriguez never planned to hurt nor did he ever personally inflict any harm against Ms. Cerda,” Olson added.
U.S. District Court Judge Troy Nunley ruled on the matter in August, granting the writ on the instructional error claim only and ordering either a retrial or plea agreement in the case.
“For the family of Alexandra, having the case sent back for a possible retrial was naturally very upsetting, in light of Rodriguez’s participation in the murder,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven said. “In light of the prospect of another trial which would have re-traumatized them, they were satisfied with the outcome.”
Olson said Rodriguez has been a model prisoner during his incarceration, “learning life skills necessary for successful re-entry into society.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene