Student Found Guilty in Reseda High Slaying : Courts: The conviction means that the boy, 15, may be incarcerated until age 25.

A 15-year-old Panorama City boy was found guilty Wednesday of fatally shooting another student on the Reseda High School campus Feb. 22 and of attempting to rob a second teen-ager about a block away from the school.

Commissioner Jack Gold of the San Fernando Valley Juvenile Court sustained the petition, which is the equivalent of finding a defendant guilty of first-degree murder. Unlike adult criminal matters, in Juvenile Court there are no jury trials.

The teen-ager, whose name was withheld because of his age, faces a maximum sentence of confinement in a California Youth Authority facility until his 25th birthday when he is sentenced May 12.

The teen-ager was not tried as an adult because under state law a juvenile must be at least 16 at the time the crime is committed.

The defendant and several of his schoolmates testified in the daylong trial that the teen-ager and the victim, Micheal Shean Ensley, 17, exchanged words before the shooting.

Witnesses testified that the two were from opposing “crews,” which one teen-ager on the stand described as neither graffiti taggers nor gang members, but admitted that “crews” also deface walls and retaliate if any member of their group is attacked.

A 10th-grader, who said he has been friends with the defendant since third grade, said he saw the two teen-agers exchange words and appeared as if they were going to get into a fight. He said Ensley was removing his backpack when the defendant approached him.

“He reached into his pocket and shot real fast,” said the witness, whose name is also being withheld because of his age. “I only heard one shot. I asked why he did it. He didn’t say nothing.”

The defendant admitted shooting Ensley in the chest with a single shot from a .22-caliber derringer with a 2-inch barrel, but said it was in self-defense after the two exchanged words and it appeared that Ensley was reaching into his pocket for a weapon.

“I started to panic,” said the teen-ager, who was dressed in an orange jail outfit. “He moved his hands as if he was going to pull something out of his pocket.”

The teen-ager said he then walked away from the campus for reasons that he could not fully explain, except to say he was confused. He said he had bought the gun only two days earlier because he been threatened by other students at his bus stop.

The youth’s attorney, Sheldon Brown, asked the commissioner to reduce the murder charge to voluntary manslaughter.

But Gold said he did not believe the teen-ager’s story.

“In no way, shape or form does this fall into voluntary manslaughter,” Gold said. “We don’t go out and resolve our differences by shooting each other.”

The teen-ager was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a loaded weapon on a school campus and attempted robbery, even though the robbery victim--another schoolmate--could not identify the teen-ager and no money was taken.

Deputy Dist. Atty. James R. Bozajian said he will seek the maximum sentence.

After the verdict was pronounced, the mothers of both the defendant and the victim hugged each other and cried.

Margaret Ensley, who denied that her son was involved in a “crew,” said she does not blame the teen-ager’s parents for her son’s death.

“I hold everyone who has touched this boy responsible,” she said of the defendant. “We are all victims. Someone along the way did not hear his cry for help. Somebody failed him.

“I am the one who has the life sentence because I’ll never have my son back. No amount of time in prison (for the teen-ager) would bring my son back.”