Trial in Child’s Beating Death Could Pit Wife Against Husband

Joselyn Hernandez died very young, after enduring more injuries in her two years than most adults suffer in their entire lives.

Today, her parents go on trial to face charges that her father beat the little Oxnard girl, burned her, twisted her legs until they broke, and eventually killed her--and that her mother let him.

The murder trial of Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez will offer more than a mere catalog of the abuse that prosecutors allege they heaped on their daughter, more than a clinical description of the assaults that led to her death and their arrests.

It could pit parent against parent.

Gabriela Hernandez’s lawyer has indicated that he may seek to prove that she was a battered spouse, intimidated by a brutal husband and powerless to stop him from killing the girl.

In an interview with The Times in May, Gabriela Hernandez said she never hurt the little girl, but that she will testify her husband beat both her and Joselyn.

Rogelio Hernandez’s lawyer vehemently opposed a joint trial and tried--unsuccessfully--to persuade Judge James P. Cloninger to sever the case into two trials to spare his client excessive bias by Gabriela’s own defense testimony.

The joint trial also will detail flaws in the county social services system that, by all accounts, failed to prevent Joselyn Hernandez’s death.

The county’s social workers will watch the case closely “because it was one of our foster-care children that was killed, and anything that might come out in the trial that could improve our system we would definitely be interested in,” said Barbara Fitzgerald, interim director of the Public Social Services Agency.

Already the agency has changed its policies, requiring more scrutiny of any recommendation to return abused children to their parents.

But that doesn’t resolve the question a jury must now consider: Who killed Joselyn Hernandez?

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“This case is going to be a very tough case on all involved--the prosecution, the defense, the judge and the jury,” said Deputy Public Defender Douglas Daily, who represents Rogelio Hernandez. “And of course, it’s going to be extremely difficult for the two accused.”

Rogelio and Gabriela Hernandez were only 16 years old when Joselyn was born.

According to testimony at a preliminary hearing in January, when Joselyn was 6 weeks old county social services workers removed her from her parents’ care. She had been hospitalized with broken legs, cracked ribs, bruised lungs and week-old burns to her hands and feet.

After medical treatment, the girl was placed into protective custody and released to her grandmother.

But the grandmother died in a car crash. And the parents regained custody of Joselyn in May 1996, on the recommendation of social workers and the orders of a judge who--under California’s social services policies--is required to keep families together wherever practicable.

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Joselyn suffered more injuries, noted by social workers who testified at the Hernandez’s preliminary hearing:

* A burn on her right hand, which her father attributed to an accident with hot water during a visit with relatives in Mexico after her grandmother’s funeral.

* A stomach injury that her mother blamed on a piece of gum that the girl swallowed but did not pass.

* A bruise on her face that her mother said happened when she was playing with cousins.

* A stitched cut on her forehead, which her father said she suffered when she fell off a milk crate while playing a video game in the Hernandez family’s Oxnard produce store.

On May 14, 1996, a social worker was called in to check on Joselyn after a report of possible abuse, but Gabriela Hernandez refused to let her see the girl, saying she was not home and already had an assigned caseworker.

A month later, Joselyn was dead. The coroner ruled she died of severe blows to the stomach. Her father blamed the injuries on a hiking accident, social workers testified.

Prosecutors filed a laundry list of charges, melding the 1994 abuse allegations with those from 1996 and adding murder counts to make up the case that is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection.

Rogelio Hernandez, 19, faces one count each of murder, torture and child abuse causing death--along with seven counts of felony child abuse and two misdemeanor child abuse counts.

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Gabriela Hernandez, 19, faces one count each of murder and child abuse causing death, six counts of felony child abuse and two misdemeanor counts of child abuse.

If convicted, the couple face possible life prison sentences, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona.

The trial will last four to six weeks--slightly longer than the average murder trial because there will be two defendants, Corona said.

“The presentation of evidence is the same as in a single-defendant case, but there’s more cross-examination because there are two defense attorneys,” she said. “It complicates it a little more, but it also simplifies it in that the jury will be hearing two cases at the same time.”

Gabriela Hernandez’s lawyer, William C. Maxwell, could not be reached last week for comment on how strongly he will press the so-called battered-spouse defense.

But veteran family law attorney Dennis Orrock said that while the battered-spouse defense has been recognized as valid in the courts, it requires more than just the alleged victim’s testimony.

“It usually requires a showing of contact with psychologists, police reports, medical reports and documentation, rather than testimony about undocumented incidents,” Orrock said. “The court usually looks for something that gives them an objective test, rather than a subjective test.”

The defense could prove especially thorny for Rogelio Hernandez.

“She, in order to defend herself, must make incriminating statements against the co-defendant,” Orrock said. “If he gets up and feels he has been challenged by her, his testimony may also incriminate her, and then the jury’s left deciding, ‘Who do we really believe?’ ”

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Daily, who represents Rogelio Hernandez, declined to comment on the eve of trial about the merits of his client’s case or on the potential threat posed by any testimony from the co-defendant.

Meanwhile, Joselyn’s death also forced county social services officials to rethink--and revamp--their system for handling young children who live in dangerous households.

“The whole system failed her, there’s no doubt about that,” said Fitzgerald, the agency’s interim chief. “I think everyone in the system has that guilt that they’re carrying around with them, and hopefully, they are more aware of the potential” for such problems.

The agency beefed up its procedure for reviewing cases before recommending that children be placed back in homes where they were abused, Fitzgerald said.

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Previously, a single caseworker would make the recommendation, which a judge then reviewed and often approved.

But that changed after Joselyn died. Now, for children 5 and younger, the caseworker’s recommendation is reviewed by a “staffing,” a panel of fellow social workers who consider all the potential consequences of home placement before passing the recommendation on to a judge, Fitzgerald said.

“Social workers take their jobs extremely seriously,” Fitzgerald said. “And sometimes it’s overwhelming, the responsibility of the individual social worker, and that’s one of the reasons we started this staffing policy.”