LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A young woman who was among three people who had been serving life in prison without the possibility of parole in connection with the beating death of a USC graduate student from China during a robbery near the campus was re-sentenced Thursday to 15 years and eight months in state prison.

Alejandra Guerrero -- who was 16 at the time of the crime and is now 26 -- waived credit for nearly three years of the just over a decade that she has already spent behind bars in exchange for a stipulated agreement between the prosecution and the defense that resulted in her first-degree murder conviction being vacated and her being re-sentenced instead on a voluntary manslaughter count stemming from the July 24, 2014, attack on Xinran Ji.

"Our office agreed to resolve this case in a way that avoids what we believe would have been an unjust outcome under recent changes in the law that allow cases like this to return to juvenile court," said John McKinney, who prosecuted the case and is now the director of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office's Bureau of Specialized Prosecutions. "While I am deeply disappointed that the defendant was re-sentenced to a lesser charge, we had to confront the reality that if this case returned to juvenile court, there was a high likelihood it would never be transferred back to adult court -- and the defendant could have been released almost immediately. That risk was too great."

McKinney noted that the outcome was "far from ideal," but "ensures a longer term in state prison and some measure of accountability." He said his heart goes out to the victim's parents, whom he said have "shown tremendous strength after the brutal killing of their only child" and have been "put through a very painful and seemingly never ending ordeal."

Guerrero is expected to serve about five more years in prison before she is released on parole, according to McKinney.

Guerrero was convicted along with Alberto Ochoa, who was 17 at the time, and Andrew Garcia, who was 18, who are still serving life prison terms.

A fourth defendant, Jonathan Del Carmen, who was 19 at the time, pleaded no contest to second-degree murder for being the getaway driver in the attack on Ji. But Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli said in 2021 that he had no choice but to re-designate the conviction to attempted robbery as a result of a recent change in state law.

Guerrero's portion of the case was subsequently sent back to the Los Angeles County Superior Court for a new sentencing hearing in 2022. A three- justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered the hearing to be done in her presence -- unlike one held in February 2021 -- and conducted by a judge other than Lomeli, who had presided over the trial and subsequently refused to reduce her sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"In the interests of justice and to ensure Guerrero receives a fair and unbiased hearing, further proceedings in this matter are to be held before a trial judge other than the judge who previously presided over the case," the appellate court panel found in its 13-page ruling, which ordered the consideration of "youth-related mitigating factors."

Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta, who was assigned the case after it was sent back by the appellate court panel, noted that the prosecution and the defense had both agreed to the lesser charge and sentence. He told Guerrero that it "means there's an exit date," referring to her anticipated release from state prison once she finishes serving her sentence.

Guerrero waived her right to have her case sent back to juvenile court for a hearing on the case, along with her right to any further appeals as a result of the agreement.

In a September 2020 ruling that upheld Guerrero's conviction, a state appeals court panel noted that Guerrero -- armed with a wrench -- got out of the car to confront Ji and that she saw co-defendant Ochoa "violently hit Ji with the bat" and that she chased him down and hit him with the wrench while Garcia beat him in the head with a baseball bat.

"The group left the scene as Ji lay covered in blood with a fractured skull," the justices noted in their ruling.

"Ji managed to get up and return to his nearby apartment, where he died a short time later from his head wounds. The attack was captured on surveillance cameras and played for the jury."

The appellate court panel noted that "despite all this violence," it was only when Del Carmen pulled the car away that "Guerrero stopped her attack on Ji and returned to the car, not to go home or to call for help, but to commit additional robberies, again armed with a deadly weapon."

After the attack on the 24-year-old electrical engineering student, the group drove to Dockweiler Beach, where three of the defendants encountered a man and woman and demanded the couple's possessions, the panel noted. They were arrested soon afterward.

McKinney told jurors the victim was targeted because his assailants thought he was an "easy target" who was walking alone in the dark.

Ji's killing occurred two years after two other USC graduate students from China were shot to death during an April 2012 robbery as they sat in a car that was double-parked on a street near the USC campus.

Two men -- Bryan Barnes and Javier Bolden -- were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killings of Ying Wu and Ming Qu, who were both 23.

Bill Handel