Orange Boy Sentenced in Death of Classmate

A 12-year-old boy who shot and killed a classmate while clowning with a handgun in a mall bustling with Christmas shoppers was sentenced Monday to a year in Juvenile Hall during a court proceeding that left parents on both sides in tears.

Juan Manuel Cardenas Jr. of Orange sat handcuffed to his chair as Superior Court Judge C. Robert Jameson announced the sentence. Cardenas had pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter with a firearm and could have received up to six years in the custody of the California Youth Authority.

Moments before the sentencing, the mother of 12-year-old shooting victim Jacalyn Calabrese delivered an emotional statement.

“Juan, I would like to know why you shot my daughter,” said Gloria Calabrese. “I would like to know what you think you deserve for punishment. My daughter didn’t deserve this.”

Before Monday’s hearing, Calabrese had written the judge, asking that Cardenas be imprisoned for life.

“I think (the punishment) doesn’t do justice to the honored dead,” Calabrese added in an interview Monday. “It sends a message to young people that you can get away with murder. What’s a year? It’s nothing compared to a life.”

In a similar letter to the judge a few weeks ago, the boy’s father begged for mercy and accepted responsibility for the shooting.

“I am the one who should be incarcerated and not my son,” wrote Juan Cardenas Sr. “Because if I had not permitted this firearm to be brought to my house, none of this would have happened.”

The father declined to comment at the hearing but later said he was glad the punishment was not worse.

“It’s only one year,” Cardenas said. “My son is still young. . . . He still has a life. . . . We have to go on. We have two other children to fight for and teach.”

On Dec. 18, the younger Cardenas had been showing off his uncle’s .25-caliber pistol to the victim and her girlfriend as they strolled through the Mall of Orange. When Jacalyn Calabrese taunted him by saying the gun wasn’t real, Cardenas removed a cartridge from the chamber, aimed the weapon at her forehead and pulled the trigger. He apparently had not realized that a new round had automatically sprung into firing position.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John D. Conley said the punishment was the stiffest possible without committing the boy to a California Youth Authority institution. Juvenile Hall is a county facility primarily for those who commit less serious crimes. Cardenas was also ordered to maintain contact with a probation officer until he turns 21, Conley said.

“Is a human life worth a year? Obviously not,” Conley said. “But is it a fair sentence for a 12-year-old who did something stupid but not intentional? And I think it is.”

Cardenas “said he did not realize a bullet was in the chamber. And he said he thought the safety was on,” Conley added. “He was deadly wrong. . . . It was just a stupid but deadly error.”

Deputy Public Defender Chris Hilger also said the punishment was fair.

“The philosophy of the law is that children should be rehabilitated,” he said. “They are not held as responsible as adults.”

Hilger said two psychologists have found that Cardenas is emotionally numbed and withdrawn, suffering from stress similar to that experienced by victims of war or traumatic accidents.

“What compounds this is that he brought it on himself, and he knows it,” Hilger said. Witnesses to the shooting said Cardenas stared for a moment at the slain girl before dashing through horrified shoppers, yelling, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Once taken into custody, he could hardly sleep and had nightmares when he did sleep, Hilger said.

The elder Cardenas said his son stumbled upon the weapon in the family’s garage. The father said he had allowed his brother, who visits regularly from San Francisco, to hide it in a jumble of old clothes.

Friends had said the boy flaunted the gun for weeks in front of classmates from Cerro Villa Middle School and talked of joining a local gang, the Highland Street Crips.

But behind the braggadocio, friends said, Cardenas was a good-natured youngster who cried when he struck out in baseball and even had a romantic interest in the girl he killed.

“When you combine a deadly object with a kid who doesn’t understand the reality of that object, then there’s going to be a tragedy,” Hilger said.

“There’s no way the girl can be brought back,” Hilger said. “There’s no way the family of the girl can have solace. There’s no way the family of Juan can ever be what it was before. There’s no way Juan can ever forget this.

“It just transcends the whole criminal court system.”