“We’re very happy the court gave him the bottom of the [sentencing] guidelines,” attorney Michelle Suskauer said.
According to the SunSentinel:
It’s been nearly a year since a Royal Palm Beach teenager stabbed a classmate multiple times inside a school bathroom, leaving him in a pool of blood.
Jose Perez Decorcho apologized Monday for the Royal Palm Beach High attack, about three months after pleading guilty to attempted first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and two other charges.
Circuit Judge Laura Johnson sentenced Decorcho, 17, to the minimum required term of about eight years in state prison, plus five years of probation. Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year term.
With credit for spending the last 322 days in jail, plus good behavior in prison, Decorcho should be set free sometime around his 25th birthday, according to defense attorney Michelle Suskauer.
“We’re very happy the court gave him the bottom of the [sentencing] guidelines,” she said.
Decorcho was prosecuted as an adult and is now a convicted felon on the charges of attempted first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon during commission of a felony, and possession of a weapon on school property.
The now 17-year-old victim in the case told the judge he still feels pain in his wrist because tendons and ligaments were torn in the stabbing. The student, who says he wants to be a Marine, showed the judge his scars.
“I see life with a different meaning, I don’t take things for granted,” he said.
The Sun Sentinel is not identifying the victim because of his age and the nature of the incident last May 25.
Palm Beach County School District police say Decorcho brought a folding pocketknife to school in his book bag, and stabbed his then-friend 15 times because he believed the friend was having sex with a girl he liked.
Decorcho told an investigator he knew which bathroom the student used during second hour, and followed him inside. He stabbed him in the neck from behind, according to an arrest report.
When the victim turned around, Decorcho continued to stab the other student until he fell to his back, grasping at the knife, the report said. Soon after, Decorcho dropped the blade and was arrested.
The victim asked the judge to impose a 16-year prison sentence, because he was 16 at the time of the crimes. The victim’s mother also spoke at Monday’s hearing, crying that she wanted justice because Decorcho “tried to kill” her boy.