China News Service, June 23. According to the US "World Journal" report, in July 2014, the murder of Ji Xinran, a Chinese student at USC, which shocked the Chinese community in the United States, came to an end in 2020. Three men and four women were punished.

Afterwards, there were defendants who were underage at the time of the crime and received a re-sentencing hearing in accordance with the new sentencing regulations on "mitigating factors related to the age of minors". During the crime, they attacked the victim with a wrench and other deadly weapons, made the victim Alejandra Guerrero, who had been hit in the head by a baseball bat and eventually died of serious injuries, was not able to get a commutation at a re-sentencing hearing last year, but now it is very likely that the original sentence will be reduced from life imprisonment without bail to commutation. 25 years, early release.

　　Assistant Attorney General Jason Lustig of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said on the 21st that the Los Angeles County Attorney's Office and the prosecutor in the Ji Xinran case have been notified by the California Court of Appeals to hold a new sentencing hearing for Alejandra Guerrero , which means that at that time, 12 jurors unanimously convicted him, and the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole, which may be reduced to 25 years, and let him be released early through parole.

Rustin said that although the date for the rehearing has not yet been finalized, the news caused a stir in the prosecutor's office.

　　A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeals ruled that a new hearing must be held in the presence of defendant Alejandra Guerrero.

Three judges believe a new hearing on her sentencing in 2021 will take place in court in her absence when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli refused to commute her life sentence without parole.

The ruling therefore also called for a new hearing not to be heard by Judge Lomeli.

　　Alejandra Guerrero, the only woman of the four defendants convicted in Ji Xinran's murder, is 23 years old and 16 at the time of the crime.

In the July 2014 murder of Ji Xinran, Guerrero, along with Alberto Ochoa, then 17, and Andrew Garcia, 18, beat the victim with a wrench and a baseball bat, and the victim died after returning to the apartment, prosecutors said.

A fourth defendant, Jonathan Del Carmen, was convicted of assisting the killer's escape in a car.

At a new hearing in 2021, a judge reconvicted Carmen under California's new felony murder law, downgrading his previous second-degree murder charge to attempted robbery.

Carmen is understood to have been released from prison last year after serving his sentence.

　　The California Court of Appeals in September 2020 ordered Guerrero's case to be sent back to the trial court for a heavy sentence, and asked the Los Angeles court to consider mitigating factors related to the inmate's age.

But Judge Lomeli at the time overruled Guerrero's lawyer's objection, disagreed with Guerrero's right to appear at the hearing, and did not think his age at the time of the crime should be taken into account before he sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

　　According to investigators' testimony, in Ji's murder, Guerrero was armed with a wrench and after Ochoa hit the victim with a bat, she got out of the car to confront Ji and slammed him with the weapon.

Garcia also hit Ji Xinran in the head with a bat.

　　The group left the scene when Ji Xinran was covered in blood and had a fractured skull.

Ji Xinran managed to get up and go back to his nearby apartment, where he died shortly after from a head injury.

Footage of the attack, captured on surveillance cameras, was played to the jury during the trial.

　　It was not until Del Carmen was about to drive away that Guerrero stopped attacking Ji Xinran and returned to the car.

The group continued to drive to Dockweiler Beach, where they robbed a man and a woman.

　　Southern California Chinese groups said that if the court re-sentences Ji Xinran's case, they will organize to go to court to support Ji Xinran and demand justice.

(Yang Qing)