WEST PALM BEACH — A boy pleaded guilty to murder Thursday for stabbing an older teen to death at a birthday party more than one year earlier. He stood in the courtroom where adults normally do — wore the red jumpsuit that distinguishes child offenders from grownup ones — but was charged as an adult all the same.
Manuel Marcos Cardona risked being sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder had he fought the charge at trial and lost. Instead, he made a deal with prosecutors that cemented his conviction but kept the penalty under two decades.
“Ordinarily, this would not be the kind of plea that would be agreed upon,” Assistant State Attorney Francine Edwards told Circuit Judge Cymonie Rowe. Cardona’s youth, she said, and the circumstances of the crime prompted her to extend the offer anyway.
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Cardona’s family and that of his victim, 19-year-old Andres Perez-Alvarado, sat on opposite sides of the courtroom Thursday. They listened with the help of a Spanish interpreter as Edwards detailed the attack.