Paramilitary Group Blamed in Execution : Court: Long Beach teen-agers accused in the death of classmate were not part of organization, attorneys say.

Attorneys for three Long Beach teen-agers accused of executing a 16-year-old classmate blamed the crime on a student paramilitary group, the Ace of Spades, and said their clients were not members.

Defendants Schulyer MacPherson, 19; Bryan Davis, 18; and Mike McDonald, 18, are charged with murder for allegedly strangling and stabbing Alexander Giraldo on Feb. 1, 1992, and tossing his body over a San Pedro cliff. All were students at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach.

In opening arguments Monday in Long Beach Superior Court, defense attorneys pledged to demonstrate that the wrong Poly High youths were on trial.

“Mike McDonald is the last person who would want to hurt, hit and kill Alexander Giraldo,” said attorney Chris Ayers, who represents McDonald. Like the other defense attorneys, he stressed that the defendants were friends of Giraldo with no reason to kill him.

“The Ace of Spades--these people had a motive to hurt, hit and kill Alexander Giraldo,” Ayers said.

The investigation into Giraldo’s death gained notice last June when police arrested the three defendants and another suspect and labeled the crime the work of a little-known gang called the Ace of Spades.

Members of the Ace of Spades, a rogue clan that grew out of a Junior ROTC class, have said in interviews that they admired military virtues and enjoyed war games. They also admitted launching a crime spree for kicks that included vandalism, car thefts and assaults.

Investigators initially expanded the group’s profile of mischief to the murder of Giraldo, but prosecutor Ken Lamb seems to have backed away from the Ace of Spades association.

In a closed pretrial meeting between attorneys and Judge Victor Barrera, Lamb sought unsuccessfully to exclude evidence regarding the Ace of Spades, defense attorneys said. Lamb would not comment on the matter.

Lamb’s opening statement made no mention of the Ace of Spades. Nor did he lay out his prosecution strategy. Lamb warned the jury of nine women and three men that the testimony would not solve the entire mystery surrounding Giraldo’s death.

The evidence “is not going to tell us how many people were involved, how the murder was committed or where the murder occurred,” Lamb said. “The defendants were involved in the slayings. The people will prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.”

It was left to the defense team to introduce the Ace of Spades as a group that had every reason and inclination to kill Giraldo.

Giraldo had cooperated with police on a burglary investigation, said attorney Leonard Matsuk, who represents Davis. That act alone was enough to get Giraldo killed because the Ace of Spades enforced a code a silence punishable by death, Matsuk said.

Defense attorneys also attacked the credibility of a 16-year-old expected to be an important prosecution witness. The juvenile, who confessed to taking part in the murder, has agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for a lesser sentence.

The defense labeled the witness a liar and a true member of the Ace of Spades seeking to blame the gang’s crime on innocent people.

Outside the courtroom, Luis Giraldo, Alex’s father, contested the defense contention that the defendants had no ties to youths in the Ace of Spades.

Davis and McDonald are in custody at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in lieu of $500,000 bail. MacPherson is free on $200,000 bail. They each face a sentence of 25 years to life in prison if convicted.