Assault Case Is Not Easily Put to Rest

Larry Hatch was nearly killed by Sgt. Juan Antonio Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is a Marine, 6 feet, 2 inches tall, some 200 pounds, in terrific shape. He used to box competitively. Now he recruits young people to join the Marines.

Larry Hatch was a grocery store clerk. He used to stock the shelves at Albertson’s during the graveyard shift. He is 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighs 145 pounds. He is no fighter, although until Rodriguez punched him twice in the head, he was in OK shape. He was hoping one day to join the California Highway Patrol.

Today Larry Hatch is brain-damaged. He walks with a limp. His left arm seems to have a mind of its own. His speech is slow and often slurred.

His doctors, however, are pleasantly surprised. They had told his family that Larry Hatch would not survive.

The case of the People vs. Rodriguez went to trial, and last week, a jury in Santa Ana ruled. Juan Antonio Rodriguez was found free and clear, not guilty of assault, or battery or intent to do harm. He could have faced seven years in jail.

As for Larry Hatch, the jurors said they knew he had been badly hurt. They thought it was a shame.

The judge banged his gavel. So be it. The case was closed.

But I cannot so easily put it to rest.

Rodriguez’s attorney, by all accounts, was first rate. He framed a narrow question in the jurors’ thoughts. They ruled on what they believed to be Rodriguez’s state of mind.

Did the Marine feel that he might be attacked, that by hitting Hatch, he was acting in self-defense? The jurors decided that they could not rule that out. In their minds, there was “a reasonable doubt.”

Today, Rodriguez is back with the Marines Corps that he loves. In court, he cried a lot. He says he feels that his remorse is penance enough for the lives of the strangers that he hurt. “Thank you!” he told the jurors. “This is my life!” He is married and 30 years old.

Larry Hatch will never be the young man that he was. He is 22. So far, he is unable to work. His older brother is riding him hard, forcing him to fight against a body that wants to give up.

His girlfriend has stood by him, helping him, loving him and trying not to show any emotion that might set him back. His father is sad and quietly angry. He blames a system that he had never dreamed could go so wrong.

Juan Antonio Rodriguez got lucky. Larry Hatch is lucky to be alive. Was justice served?

The facts of this case, with a few light shades of gray, are basically these:

Larry Hatch and three of the guys he worked with were drinking beer in the back of a pickup truck. It was April 27 of last year, about 8:30 a.m. The grocery clerks had finished their shift not long before that. They were parked on the side of the Albertson’s store.

Sgt. Juan Antonio Rodriguez was passing by. The Marine recruiting office in Anaheim was nearby. He stopped to ask if these guys would like to join the Marines. Some of them said no, although they were not too polite. They were drinking, if not quite drunk. They tossed back Rodriguez’s card. They made a crack about his hair.

Rodriguez saw this as a sign of disrespect. He got mad, stormed off, and soon came back with three of his friends, all fellow Marines. That’s when the argument flared again. One of the Marines grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it on the ground. Larry Hatch was leaning against the truck. He spoke his first, and only, words. He asked Rodriguez to leave his friends alone.

Rodriguez grabbed Hatch around the throat. The Marine told the court that he did it “to take control.” When he felt some resistance, he added, “I tightened my grip.” Hatch’s hands flew up, palms open. He didn’t try to take a swing. Rodriguez hit him twice in the face.

It all happened very, very fast.

Dennis O’Connell, Rodriguez’s attorney, says that in the instant before his client struck, there seemed to be electricity in the air. He says Rodriguez believed that Hatch posed a threat.

“He reacts instinctively,” O’Connell says. “Then a second later, when he sees Larry Hatch laying on the ground, he realizes that maybe the danger wasn’t present. He realizes that maybe he misjudged the entire situation.”

And the reason that Rodriguez returned with his friends, O’Connell adds, was to try to persuade the grocery clerks to join the Marines.

“To the average person, you tell them this and they look at you like you’re crazy,” he says. “But Marines get rebuffed continually. They are called names all the time. They are trained to leave the scene and then come back and try again.”

This is an argument that the prosecution did not buy. Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Foster says Rodriguez was not acting in self-defense. He says the Marine was gunning for a fight.

“Personally, I am very disappointed in the outcome,” Foster says. Then he adds, however, that the jurors did what they thought was right.

Such is the law. The U.S. Constitution says Juan Antonio Rodriguez may not be tried again for the same crime. Only a defendant may appeal.

“We knew we were going to have some difficulties,” Foster says. “The fact that he is a Marine, the times we are in, the fact that the victim was drinking beer, we thought of all of that before we went to trial.”

But those without minds trained in the ways of the law have a more difficult time understanding how a jury could let Juan Antonio Rodriguez off scot-free.

Philip Hatch, Larry’s father, is just one.

“I’m not sure myself what happened,” he says. “I think the system is bad, personally. I really couldn’t believe it when I heard what the jury said. I was really shocked. . . . You always hear about criminals being let loose, but it never affects you directly. . . .

“I think Rodriguez is probably a very nice man. I don’t think he is an evil person or anything. He is a man who made a major mistake. . . . I think this case is a little absurd. Larry is a little person, you see him, and the big guy had him by the throat.”

And Philip Hatch says he understands how tempers may flare when an outsider shows a uniform you are wearing disrespect. He is a captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. He knows about the bond people feel with their own kind.

Larry Hatch, meantime, is trying to put his own anger aside. When I ask if it’s there, he looks to his brother, his eyes searching for a way to answer so that his brother might approve.

“We’ve been working on this,” says his brother, Phil. “Go ahead, answer for yourself.”

Then Larry looks toward me.

“We’ve been trying to figure that everything happens for a reason,” Larry says. “If I were him, I’d rather answer to that judge, than to God.”