I am an attorney, author, and advocate for the rights and dignity of people confronting the life-altering force of accusation.

I currently serve as a Deputy Public Defender in San Diego County, where I represent people accused of crimes and work within the daily realities of the criminal legal system.

My work brings together legal practice, academic training, and public writing. Across each of these roles, I am concerned with due process, dignity, credibility, and the ways institutions exercise power over human lives.

You can find my updated LinkedIn page here. Prior to becoming a criminal defense attorney, I worked as a professor. If you are looking for my previous academic work or are interested in finding out more about my research on US Foreign Policy, International Relations, or Latin America, you can find it here.

MY CURRENT WORK

Today, my primary work is criminal defense.

I represent people facing prosecution, work to ensure that accusation never substitutes for evidence, and I defend their constitutional rights at the point where liberty, reputation, and human dignity are most at risk.

My role is to stand between the individual and the power of the state, to test the evidence, challenge assumptions, and insist that fairness means something in practice, not only in principle.

I believe fairness requires more than formal rules. It requires discipline, judgment, preparation, and a dedicated commitment to the principle that every person deserves to be treated as fully human. I work to ensure that accusation never substitutes for evidence

I also write about law, justice, human rights, and the moral consequences of how legal systems treat the vulnerable.

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Before entering the law, I built a career in academia. I earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from UCLA and later taught and published in the fields of political science, Latin American studies, and international relations.

My academic work focused on U.S.-Latin American relations, coercion, resistance, and political power. I am the author of Sandinista Nicaragua’s Resistance to U.S. Coercion, published by Cambridge University Press.

FROM SCHOLARSHIP TO LAW

I later entered the legal profession and earned my J.D. from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

Law changed the scale and urgency of my work. Questions that once occupied me in scholarship became immediate and concrete: proof, credibility, liberty, punishment, and the unequal force of institutions in ordinary people’s lives.

Public defense gave those questions a human face. It sharpened my sense of what is at stake when the state or institutions move too quickly from suspicion to guilt, and Constitutional rights to due process and fundamental fairness are treated as obstacles rather than safeguards.

PERSPECTIVE

My perspective on these issues is shaped not only by scholarship and legal practice, but also by lived experience.

Earlier in my life, I learned how quickly accusation can reshape public perception, and how fragile fairness becomes when process breaks down. That experience did not define who I am, but it deepened my commitment to due process, the presumption of innocence, and the defense of people whose humanity is too often overshadowed by accusation.

WRITING AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

In addition to legal practice, I write and speak about law, politics, democracy, and human rights. My interests continue to span the courtroom and the wider world, but they remain connected by a common concern: how power operates, how narratives shape judgment, and what justice requires.

A GUIDING QUESTION

Whether in court, in scholarship, or in public writing, I return to the same basic question:

What does justice demand when ordinary people confront institutions or systems more powerful than themselves?

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Hector Perla