Student to Be Tried as Adult in Slaying : Courts: Youth linked to Ace of Spades military club will be arraigned Monday. Decision on another defendant is postponed.

A 17-year-old youth associated with a militaristic group at a Long Beach high school will be tried as an adult on charges of murdering a fellow student, a Juvenile Court commissioner ruled Friday.

The youth, whose name has not been released because of his age, will be identified Monday when he is arraigned as an adult, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Carbaugh, the prosecutor in the case.

He and three other students at Polytechnic High School are accused of strangling and stabbing 16-year-old Alexander Giraldo in February. At least one of the teen-agers was a member of the Ace of Spades, while the other youths were influenced by the club, according to police and club members.

Giraldo, a Polytechnic student and alleged Ace of Spades member, violated the club’s loyalty oath by cooperating in the investigation of a car burglary, according to police. His body was found by a jogger Feb. 2 in a San Pedro ravine.

“This was a coldblooded, execution-style murder,” Carbaugh said. “Because of the extreme sophistication, because of the coldbloodedness, he should be tried as an adult.”

The youth, who faces life imprisonment if convicted, remains in custody at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

Defense lawyer Leonard A. Matsuk argued that the youth should stay in the juvenile justice system.

“If the allegations are true, which we believe they are not, he could receive more rehabilitation in the juvenile system,” Matsuk said after Friday’s hearing. “The adult system is strictly punishment.”

Long Beach Court Commissioner Anthony Jones was also supposed to rule on whether another 17-year-old should be tried as an adult. But Jones postponed the decision until Aug. 7 because the youth’s attorney needed more time.

The four youths were arrested June 12 in connection with Giraldo’s death.

Schuyler MacPherson, 19, has been charged with murder and is being held without bail in County Jail awaiting an Aug. 18 preliminary hearing, Carbaugh said.

A 16-year-old is in custody awaiting trial in Juvenile Court on a single murder count. Carbaugh said that under state law the youth cannot be tried as an adult because he was 15 at the time Giraldo was killed.

Ace of Spades members interviewed by The Times have said that only the 16-year-old was a club member. MacPherson and the two 17-year-olds were would-be members who were never admitted to the organization, club members said.

But police suspect that the 17-year-old whose hearing was postponed also was a full-fledged member while the other two youths were associated with the club.

Police theorize that the four teen-agers committed the murder Feb. 1 because Giraldo told police that he and another club member had burglarized some cars.

The club was formed by students who belonged to the school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Program. An ROTC spokesman acknowledged that a couple of members were in ROTC but he said they were no longer part of the program at the time of the killing.

Police said the Ace of Spades had about a dozen members who enjoyed war games and fired at one another with pistols loaded with paint balls. Police allege that the games progressed to mock military missions and car thefts.