A 31-year-old man whose murder conviction was reversed by an appellate court over police interrogation tactics was sentenced Friday, Aug. 29 to 14 years in prison after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors for the 2012 slaying.
Ismael Avalos, now 31, pleaded guilty earlier this year to voluntary manslaughter and participating in street gang activity for his role in the killing of Angel Rivera on an Anaheim street, court records show.
Avalos in 2019 was convicted of second-degree murder after jurors determined that he killed Rivera not as part of a gang war but because of a longstanding personal beef between the two then-teenagers.
During his 2019 trial, prosecutors alleged that another man drove Avalos, then 18, to the parking lot of an Anaheim liquor store. Avalos, armed with a .38 revolver, then walked into rival gang turf, prosecutors alleged, where he ran into 19-year-old Rivera and opened fire, shooting Rivera in the back of the head.
Avalos’ attorney denied the shooting was gang-related, telling jurors during the trial that Avalos believed Rivera was “making moves on” a woman Avalos was romantically linked to.
Police, working off a tip, arrested Avalos the morning after the shooting was he was driving away from his home. They found .38 caliber ammunition in his bedroom, as well as a receipt for a Del Taco restaurant near the crime scene that had a time stamp of just after the shooting.
Speaking to detectives shortly after his arrest, Avalos gave what amounted to a confession in the shooting of his romantic rival. But that confession was prompted by a police detective after Avalos had already invoked his right to an attorney, the appellate ruling found.
Avalos, following his second-degree murder conviction, was sentenced in 2020 to 40 years to life in prison.
Two years later, a panel of Fourth District Court of Appeals judges reversed the murder conviction, determining that the judge who presided over Avalos’ trial should not have allowed into evidence anything Avalos said to police after he asked for a lawyer.
Avalos’ recent plea agreement was reached more than two years after his murder conviction was reversed on appeal.