Intoxication No Excuse, Murder Jury Told : Courts: Prosecutor makes final statement in trial resulting from shooting of theater guard.

SANTA ANA —  Prosecutors told jurors Tuesday to reject the argument that Jerry Lee Alonzo Jr. was too drunk and depressed to know what he was doing when he fatally shot a movie theater security guard in Orange last year.

Jurors are expected to begin deliberations today in Orange County Superior Court.

Alonzo, now 20, is accused of murdering guard Dagoberto R. Carrero, 23, at the Century City Centre Theater on Feb. 19, 1994. The murder charge includes a special-circumstance allegation that Alonzo lay in wait for his victim.

Authorities said Alonzo, angry over a previous encounter with Carrero, hid and waited for potential witnesses to leave before he fired six times through glass windows of the theater lobby. Carrero was hit twice in the head and back.

“This is a classic case of lying in wait--a sneak attack,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis Robert Rosenblum told jurors during closing statements. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

But defense attorney Jerome J. Goldfein argued that the death was unintentional because Alonzo believed no one was inside when he opened fire on the front windows. The defense lawyer said Alonzo “lost it” because he was upset over personal problems and had drunk two bottles of wine four hours earlier.

“He was overloaded with emotional turmoil. . . . He was intoxicated,” Goldfein said. The defense attorney said Alonzo later was found to have brain damage that made him unable to handle his problems.

Goldfein told jurors his client should be found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter.

The prosecution said that after the shooting, Alonzo paged friends for a ride by using the code “187,” which is the number of the section of the California Penal Code dealing with murder.

Two alleged accomplices, Rafael Maldonado and Jessie Pena, are awaiting trial separately.

Carrero was killed on his last day as security guard at the theater. A native of Puerto Rico, he was a former Marine who had flown helicopter missions in the Persian Gulf War.