A prosecutor told jurors Friday that an 18-year-old woman was among a group of young people involved in the beating death of a USC graduate student from China who was attacked near the campus, while her attorney countered that she was not the group's leader and never inflicted a "death blow."
In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney John McKinney told the Los Angeles Superior Court panel that Alejandra Guerrero, then 16, was in a car with a group of young people who had decided to rob someone near the USC campus on July 24, 2014.
The prosecutor said Guerrero and two other people got out of the vehicle to attack Xinran Ji as the 24-year-old electrical engineering student walked home from a study session. "They visited an act of violence on him that is so brutal that it is almost incomprehensible," McKinney said, telling jurors that Ji was "literally beaten to death with a baseball bat and a wrench."
Guerrero's attorney, Errol Cook, said the "evidence will show that this is tragic, that this is nothing short of horrific what happened to Xinran," but told the panel that he intends to show them that "my client is not guilty and not responsible for the murder of Xinran."
Along with the murder charge, which includes the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of an attempted robbery, Guerrero is charged with one count each of robbery, attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon for an alleged attack on a woman and a man at Dockweiler State Beach less than two hours later.
She is being prosecuted as an adult. Guerrero's co-defendants -- Jonathan Del Carmen, 21, Andrew Garcia, 20, and Alberto Ochoa, 19 -- are awaiting trial separately in connection with Ji's killing. Garcia and Ochoa are also charged with robbery, attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon involving the alleged attack at Dockweiler Beach.
Prosecutors have opted not to seek the death penalty against Del Carmen and Garcia. Guerrero and Ochoa could not face the death penalty because they were both under 18 at the time of the crime. Ji's assailants had driven to the area near USC to rob someone, driven around for at least eight to 10 minutes in the area before they "found that victim in Xinran," who was walking alone after escorting a female USC student home from a study group about 12:45 a.m., McKinney said.
"They confronted him, they demanded money and then they assaulted him," the prosecutor said, noting that the victim was punched and struck with a baseball bat before running from his assailants, who managed to catch up to him. "The beating that he took was absolutely horrific," McKinney said. "They did not get anything from Xinran."
He noted that the victim suffered multiple skull fractures among other injuries, and left a blood trail behind as he made it back to his fourth-floor apartment, where he was found lifeless by one of his roommates. She called 911 after he failed to respond when she called out his name.
Guerrero and her friends were "not disturbed enough" by what had happened and went soon afterward to Dockweiler Beach, where everyone in the group but Del Carmen -- who had stayed in the vehicle during the robbery near USC -- agreed to rob a couple sitting by the curb, the prosecutor alleged.
Ochoa and Garcia were taken into custody while walking by the Hyperion Treatment Plant after the man they allegedly attempted to rob summoned a patrol car at nearby Dockweiler State Beach. Del Carmen and Guerrero were arrested later that day. The prosecutor said Ji's blood was found on a pair of jeans Guerrero was wearing when she was booked. She subsequently acknowledged being involved in the attack on Ji and said she had hit him on the hand with a wrench, and admitted being involved in the subsequent robbery of a woman at Dockweiler State Beach, he said.
Guerrero's attorney told jurors that his client had just turned 16 at the time of the crimes and was not the "leader" of the group in the car, which was driven by Del Carmen, whom he described as a "grown" man. He said the evidence would show that Ochoa was the first to attack Ji. "My client never punched Xinran, never caused a death blow to Xinran," Guerrero's attorney told the panel. Cook told jurors that his client "never, ever intended for this result, this tragedy to occur ... that a death could be foreseeable," and said he believed the evidence would show that "my client's level of culpability is not commensurate with the charges."
Guerrero later told police that she had been "high" at the time of the crime, Cook said. Ji's killing occurred two years after two other USC graduate students from China were shot to death during an April 2012 robbery as they sat in a car that was double-parked on a street near the USC campus. Two men -- Javier Bolden and Bryan Barnes -- convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killings of Ying Wu and Ming Qu, who were both 23.
