Youth Pleads Guilty in Tay’s Beating Death : Courts: 17-year-old’s plea bargain means he will be tried in Juvenile Court. He promises to testify against the other suspects.

Charles Bae Choe, 17, one of five teen-agers accused in the New Year’s Eve slaying of Foothill High School honor student Stuart Tay, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in Juvenile Court, promising to testify against the other youths.

Choe, who told police he helped plan the killing and then stood in an adjacent room as Tay was beaten with baseball bats and a sledgehammer for 20 minutes, was the only defendant offered a plea bargain, defense attorneys said.

By pleading guilty and testifying about the killing, Choe was assured that his case would remain in the juvenile justice system, where the maximum penalty would keep him imprisoned until his 25th birthday.

Two other defendants who already have been ordered to stand trial as adults face the possibility of life in prison without parole. The accused ringleader in the slaying, 18-year-old Robert Chan, is eligible for the death penalty.

As Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Francisco P. Briseno reviewed Choe’s rights one by one, the defendant softly answered “Yes,” and “Yes, I do,” indicating that he waived the opportunity for a full hearing and admitted that he had committed the crime.

With his parents crying behind him, the handcuffed youth agreed that he had joined the other defendants “in the premeditated and deliberate murder of Stuart Tay, a human being.”

Neither Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis Rosenblum nor Choe’s lawyer, Angela Oh, would explain why Choe was offered the deal or disclose the details of the agreement, though Rosenblum did say Choe would be a prosecution witness in the other defendants’ trials.

“You could say it’s a great victory, but on the other hand it’s very bittersweet. I’m not feeling very victorious right now,” Oh said after Choe’s hearing. “A life has been lost and it was a brutal killing. But no amount of sacrifice on the parts of these kids is going to bring the life of Stuart Tay back.”

Upon hearing Choe’s admission of the murder, Sook Kim, the mother of defendant Kirn Kim, burst into sobs and ran from the courtroom. Later Wednesday, she and her husband took the stand to describe their son’s immaturity and beg the judge to keep him in the juvenile court.

They noted that he has never had a girlfriend, likes to play with small children, snuggles with his father while watching television and still sleeps with his baby blankets. Kim’s attorney also presented petitions signed with more than 25,000 signatures asking that Kim remain in the juvenile system.

“He should be treated as a juvenile,” Kim’s mother pleaded with Briseno, showing him the white quilt trimmed with lace and the raggedy white cotton blanket that her son has slept with since he was a child.

Dr. Young Kim, the suspect’s father, testified that “compared to other children, he is very childish, very immature.”

On Tuesday, the judge ordered that the remaining two defendants, Abraham Acosta and Mun Kang, be tried in adult court, explaining that despite evidence of their mental limitations, the gravity of the crime made them unfit for the juvenile system.

Attorneys expect Briseno to make the same decision regarding Kim when his fitness hearing closes today.