A judge set a retrial date Dec. 20 of March 21, 2023, for a man charged with stabbing a second police dog following a mistrial just before Thanksgiving.

Both Deputy District Attorney Clay Biddle and Dedrick Darnell Jones, 36, who is acting as his own attorney, asked the judge to delay sentencing on the one charge the jury convicted him of until after the retrial has occurred.

“We’ll wait and see what happens with the trial,” San Diego Superior Court Judge Aaron Katz.

Biddle said afterward that Jones faces a maximum sentence of nine years and eight months for the knife brandishing charge the jury convicted him of and the first police dog stabbing.

The jury deliberated 7 1/2 hours over two days before convicting Jones on Nov. 18 of brandishing a knife to police officers but deadlocked 7-5 over whether he assaulted a police dog, Hondo, by stabbing him.

Jurors also deadlocked 6-6 over whether the action of Dedrick Daknell Jones, 36, was felony animal cruelty in the 2021 incident in the Midway District. Jurors also deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt on a charge of resisting arrest from an executive officer.

Katz declared a mistrial on the deadlocked three charges. Jones remains in the central jail without bail.

Jurors began deliberations on Nov. 16, but they were interrupted on Nov. 17 by a mandatory fire drill at the criminal courthouse downtown in which everyone was evacuated mid-afternoon.

The jury was going to lose at least one member on the Monday before the Thanksgiving holiday, so they could not continue deliberations without an alternate juror replaces a juror. That would involve the jury starting over in deliberations.

On Dec. 20, Jones again pleaded not guilty to the three remaining charges. He also refused to agree to get a public defender and agree to continue to represent himself.

Jones has filed a motion seeking the judge to strike his previous felony conviction for stabbing the first police dog, Titan, who lost 6 inches of his colon and received approximately 100 stitches to close his wounds in the January 2021 incident near Barnett Avenue and Rosecrans Street.

Jones also waived his right to have a speedy trial and agreed to have the 5-day trial start on March 21.

Jones told jurors he acted reasonably towards officers, repeatedly saying he did not want officers to touch him in the police body-worn camera footage shown to the six-man, six-woman jury.

He was sentenced to a year in jail in May 2021 for the first incident and his probation was revoked after the second incident.