Mark Duenas to remain in prison, serving 25 years to life sentence, for murdering his wife
Mark Duenas, the Cottonwood man convicted of killing his wife in 2013, will remain in prison serving a 25-year-to-life sentence after a Shasta County judge on Tuesday denied a petition challenging Duenas' conviction and sentencing.
Judge Daniel Flynn issued the ruling, which denied the petition that Duenas filed in 2017.
Called a writ of habeas corpus, the petition considers whether the jury was able to consider all the facts in the case.
Those issues "cannot be raised on appeal and usually involves something that happened outside of the record," the Shasta County District Attorney's Office said in a Facebook post. If the writ had been granted, the post said, a new trial could have been granted.
Duenas has been through two criminal trials since his wife’s death.
The first trial ended in a hung jury that was unable to reach a verdict. But he was convicted in a second trial and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Duenas was arrested five months after his wife was found stabbed in the couple’s Cottonwood home on May 5, 2012. Karen Duenas had suffered two stab wounds to her back and a fatal wound to her chest that severed her aorta and windpipe, according to the District Attorney's Office.
Related: After his conviction, Mark Duenas seeking a new trial in wife's murder
In the petition filed earlier this year, Duenas’ attorney Matthew Izzi of Redding alleged that his client's original attorney failed to have blood experts and an audiologist testify during the second of the two murder trials.
Appeal denied: Mark Duenas, the Cottonwood man convicted of killing his wife, loses appeal bid
Duenas’ trial attorney also did not hire consultants to properly challenge testimony presented by the District Attorney’s Office, Izzi alleged.
An evidentiary hearing on the matter was held in June 2022. Witnesses were called, evidence was presented and additional arguments were filed in writing, according to the District Attorney's Office.
Duenas appealed his conviction on some of the issues Izzi highlighted. The California 3rd District Court of Appeal rejected that appeal in 2018 after looking at whether legal issues in the trial were properly handled.
Duenas has no further pending matters before the court at this time, according to the District Attorney's Office.
Michele Chandler covers criminal justice issues for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Follow her on Twitter at @MChandler_RS, call her at 530-338-7753 or email her at michele.chandler@redding.com. Please support our entire newsroom's commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Mark Duenas to remain in prison for murder of his wife in Cottonwood
