NEWS ANALYSIS : Arrest of Soccer Player Raises Thorny Legal Issues

It’s right there on videotape: Dwight Angelini, a soccer star at the prestigious Harvard-Westlake High School, kicking a competitor--in the head--during a match.

The video, shot by parents attending the match and turned over to police, presents prosecutors with an unusual question. Was the kick a risk that any athlete faces? Or was it so flagrant that it calls for nothing less than the full weight of a criminal assault charge?

Angelini, 17, was arrested Monday on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon--his foot. As the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office weighs its options, legal experts said Tuesday that it is rare to see formal charges leveled against athletes for sports-related violence. Convictions are rarer still.

But legal experts say that even the unsuccessful case sends a strong message--that excessive violence, no matter the context, cannot be tolerated.

“The conduct on the field has got to be aggravated, because there are risks that go with playing sports,” said Gary W. Flakne, a former Minnesota prosecutor who brought the first game-related prosecution in the United States against a professional athlete. “Someone’s really got to go one step beyond, really step over the line. And then you, as the prosecutor, respond--to send a message.”

The trouble, experts say, is deciding when someone has gone that far.

There’s no clear law on the subject. In 1980 and 1981, an Ohio congressman introduced a bill that would have imposed criminal penalties in federal court for episodes of violence in professional sports. The bill never made it out of committee.

Prosecutions under state assault laws have been few. There appear to be no precedent-setting cases in California, experts said.

The widely publicized case Flakne handled in Minnesota, which stemmed from a vicious 1975 National Hockey League fight, illustrates how egregious circumstances must be to lead to prosecution--and how difficult such a case can be.

Henry Boucha of the Minnesota North Stars and Dave Forbes of the Boston Bruins fought during a Jan. 4, 1975, NHL game in Minneapolis. Forbes attacked Boucha with his fists and his stick.

Boucha needed 25 stitches to close a cut near his eye and surgery to fix a fractured eye socket. Forbes was indicted on charges of aggravated assault. But the jury could not reach a verdict and the case ended there.

“I’d do it again,” Flakne said, because Forbes used a weapon--his stick--and because the high profile of the case underscored the anti-violence message. “But here I had 18,000 eyewitnesses to an assault and I couldn’t get a conviction.”

Musty law books record some convictions: A New York high school football player was convicted of punching an opponent in the eye after play had stopped. But that was in 1976 and was based on basic assault statutes.

Angelini, a senior at the Studio City private school, kicked Notre Dame player Ryan Herrera in the head in a Feb. 3 match. One of the top soccer players in Los Angeles, Angelini was kicked off the team immediately and suspended from school for two days.

Herrera missed the rest of the season and his family said he still suffers headaches and neck pain.

Angelini’s ejection from the match was his fourth of the season and third in three matches. The kick was recorded on videotape by a parent of one of Herrera’s teammates. Herrera’s family turned a copy of the tape over to police Feb. 8. The LAPD’s North Hollywood Division has recommended to the district attorney’s office that charges are warranted.

Angelini has been released to his parents’ custody. No charges have yet been filed.

The fact that Angelini is 17 complicates the decision because charges would be filed in Juvenile Court. The purpose of Juvenile Court is to rehabilitate, not to punish.

Angelini, who could not be reached Tuesday for comment, apologized to the Notre Dame team the day after the incident. Two weeks ago, he said he meant no harm.

That, in and of itself, may be enough to end the legal inquiry right there, experts said. A criminal conviction requires not only an act but a state of mind, typically an intent to harm someone else.

Lacking that intent, there’s no case.

The law, however, allows conviction upon a finding that conduct was so reckless that it is tantamount to intent.

“The videotape, to me, doesn’t leave much room for doubt, other than it was an intentional act,” Detective Burt Gutierrez said Tuesday.

The law does not allow conviction, however, if the person who got kicked had consented to rough play. Athletes, the law assumes, know that kicks and cuts are part of the game.