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Nineteen-year-old Andy Rodriguez has been found guilty of the second-degree murder of 17-year-old Juan Carlos Rivera. The two teens, then both students at Coral Gables Senior High School, got into a fight at the school in September 2009 that ended with Rodriguez fatally stabbing Rivera with box cutter.
After a two-week trial, jurors took only a little more than three hours to reach a guilty verdict. Rodriguez could face up to life in prison after sentencing.
His defense team tried to paint Rodriguez’s actions as self-defense and somewhat stunningly declared it was perfectly legal for Rodriguez to have a box cutter on a public high school campus.
Meanwhile, prosecutors painted Rodriguez as a jealous boyfriend who attacked Rivera after he began receiving rides to school from Rodriguez’s girlfriend.
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