Monday, April 15, 2024 | 5:17 p.m.
The judge handling the cases of four of the Rancho High School students accused of beating a classmate to death last year has denied the teens’ bids to have their charges dropped.
Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones issued orders today saying there was sufficient evidence to support the second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit battery charges levied against Dontral Beaver, Treavion Randolph, Damien Hernandez and Gianni Robinson in connection with the November death of Jonathan Lewis Jr., 17. The four were all minors at the time of the beating but are being charged as adults.
A sign is shown Thursday, March 14, 2024, during a rally at the Regional Justice Center for Jonathan Lewis, 17, who died on Nov. 7, 2023, almost a week after a group of classmates beat him near Rancho High School.
They appeared in court last month while their lawyers challenged the charges against them, arguing that the beating was a spontaneous reaction.
“(State law) provides: The grand jury ought to find an indictment when all the evidence before them, taken together, establishes probable cause to believe that an offense has been committed and that the defendant has committed it,” Jones wrote in individual denials for all four teens. “That is the case here.”
Beaver and Randolph were 16 and Hernandez and Robinson were 17 on Nov. 1, when they were allegedly part of a mob of about 10 students who kicked, punched and stomped Lewis during the after-school brawl in an alley, steps from Rancho’s North Las Vegas campus. Lewis died on Nov. 7 in the hospital from blunt force trauma.
Bystander video of the beating went viral worldwide.
The video showed that Lewis pushed one person and punched another before he went down and was swarmed. Police have said the conflict started over a stolen vape pen and headphones.
Nine teens in total have been charged; the other five are as young as 13 and remain in the juvenile justice system.
The four in the adult system have previously pleaded not guilty and are set for trial in August, according to online court records.
