The first of five alleged teen gang members who were accused of attacking and killing a 15-year-old boy at San Jose’s Santana Row shopping center in February has been sentenced.
Following an emotional hearing Tuesday in a San Jose court, the unnamed 16-year-old implicated in the February 14 death of David Gutierrez was sentenced to two years in a secure facility at Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall, as the Mercury News reports. This was the maximum sentence sought by Gutierrez’s family, who have been seen regularly protesting outside hearings — and the real drama in this case has yet to unfold when both an 18-year-old accused in the assault will be tried as an adult, and when a 13-year-old juvenile will be tried for committing the fatal stabbing.
The family is not likely to be successful in their plight, but they have been protesting for months over the state’s laws that ensure relative leniency for juvenile defendents — and California’s Prop 57, passed in 2016, guarantees that juvenile offenders under the age of 14 are tried in juvenile court. Gutierrez’s family has called for an “urgent amendment to California laws” that would allow a young juvenile accused of murder, as in this case, to be tried as an adult…