A Wayne County man convicted in a shooting that left one person dead and two others injured will not see his time behind bars reduced, following a ruling handed down Monday by the Ninth District Court of Appeals.
Jonathan Perez, who is currently serving a 12-to-15-year prison sentence, lost his bid to have his convictions merged, with the appellate judges affirming the original judgment of the Wayne County Common Pleas Court.
The case stems from a violent episode where Perez pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and two counts of felonious assault involving three separate victims. The trial court stacked his sentences, ordering the terms for felonious assault to run concurrently with each other, but consecutive to the manslaughter charge. Mandatory prison time for using a firearm was also added to the total.
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Representing himself in the appeal, Perez argued that his constitutional rights against “double jeopardy” were violated. His filings claimed the trial court erred by failing to treat his crimes as “allied offenses of similar import”—a legal standard that typically prevents a defendant from being sentenced multiple times for the same criminal act.
However, the appeals court rejected the argument on procedural grounds rather than the facts of the crime.
Writing for the court, Judge Jennifer Hensal noted that Perez failed to raise the issue of merging the offenses during his original sentencing hearing. Under Ohio law, failing to object at the trial level forfeits the right to argue the point later, unless the defendant can prove “plain error”—a mistake so obvious that it fundamentally altered the outcome of the case.
The appellate panel found that Perez failed to make a case for plain error in his filings.
“When an appellant forfeits an allied-offense argument and fails to argue plain error on appeal, this Court will not develop an argument on his behalf,” Hensal wrote in the decision.
With the dismissal of both assignments of error, the original sentence stands.
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