TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/87/87capmil.2

Text File | 1990-10-19 | 8KB | 147 lines

Bernhard Goetz: "Not Guilty"

June 29, 1987

A jury acquits the subway gunman, but the argument goes on

Congratulations? read the placard held high by a muscular white man
in a checked shirt.  BERNIE GOETZ WINS ONE FOR THE GOOD GUYS!

"Goetz is a Nazi!" shouted a nearby black man in his 20s.

CRIMINALS, WATCH OUT, promised another sign,  WE'LL GET YOU.

"New York will reap the wind, that is certain," a black minister
warned.

That was the scene of shouting and shoving outside a Manhattan
courtroom last week a the end of what Judge Stephen Crane called the
"most difficult case of our time."  After four days of deliberations,
a jury of ten whites and two blacks had just acquitted Bernhard Goetz
of all but one relatively minor charge in the 1984 shooting of four
black youths who Goetz said had threatened him in a subway train.

Goetz stood utterly motionless while Jury Foreman James Hurley
pronounced 17 times the words "Not guilty."  Not guilty of the
attempted murder of Troy Canty, 20, and Barry Allen, James Ramseur
and Darrell Cabey, all 21, even though the reedy, bespectacled gunman
had said in a taped confession that he "wanted to murder" all of
them.  Not guilty of assault against any of them, not even Cabey,
left paralyzed and brain damaged.  The courtroom audience gasped at
several of the verdicts and at the end applauded.

A squad of Guardian Angels in red berets helped propel the 39-year-
old electronics technician through the turbulent crowds outside and
hustle him back to his bachelor apartment.  Still ahead lies a
September sentencing of up to seven years in prison for illegal
possession of a gun, plus multimillion-dollar damage suits filed
against him by three of his four victims.

The jurors claimed that there were no racial elements in their
decision and that no one should read such implications into it.  "We
were doing nothing more than what we were charged by the judge to
do," said Juror Diana Serpe.  "We weren't trying to send a message to
the public."

But the case of People v. Bernhard Goetz raised such basic and
emotional questions about a man's right to defend himself, about
street crime and racism, that the jury decision on this inherently
inconsequential shooting prompted headlines around the world.
SUBWAY, SELF DEFENSE, said Tokyo's Sankei Shimbun.  "Despite the
virtuous denials of the jury," declared Paris' Le Monde, "no one
believed, of course, that the verdict would have been the same if the
accused had been black and the 'victims' white."

That idea naturally occurred to a number of New Yorkers, particularly
blacks, who can cite several recent cases of whites going unpunished
for the deaths of blacks.  "It was a terrible and grave miscarriage
of justice," said Benjamin L. Hooks, the executive director of the
N.A.A.C.P., which is considering a federal suit on the ground that
the four youths' civil rights were violated.

A number of legal experts are worried about prospective abuses of the
law.  "The message scares me," said David Austern, director of
education at the Association of Trail Lawyers of America.  "It says
that potential victims can use deadly force whenever they want."  New
York City officials hastened to reject that view.  "Some will take
this as a signal that vigilantes are acceptable, but we will not
permit that," said Mayor Ed Koch.  Black Police Commissioner Benjamin
Ward grimly added, "No one has a license to go out and hunt anyone--
black, green, yellow or whatever."

The central issue in the seven-week trial was not just whether Goetz
feared that the four youths were about to rob him but also what a
"reasonable man" would do in his own defense.  Only one of the four
victims, Canty, actually approached Goetz and asked him for money.
All four had police records, but Goetz could not know that.  Two of
them carried screwdrivers because they were planning to break into
some video machines, but Goetz could not know that either.  He could
only look at them--he said that Canty was smiling and had "shiny
eyes"--and guess what might happen next.  Having been mugged and
seriously injured by three black youths in 1981, Goetz took out his
.38-cal. revolver and started firing.

Assistant District Attorney Gregory Waples strenuously argued that a
reasonable man would avoid a confrontation, or at least would show
his gun before firing it.  Goetz, said Waples, was full of "blind,
self-righteous, volcanic fury."  Far from acting reasonably, he had
attempted a "cold-blooded execution."

The only principal who testified fully was Canty, neatly attired in a
suit.  He did admit that he had a police record for theft and was in
a drug-rehabilitation program, but he said nobody had harassed or
threatened Goetz at all.  He had just politely asked, "Mister, can I
have $5?"  Defense Lawyer Barry Slotnick called Canty a "liar."

That day on the subway...you weren't wearing that nice suit and tie,
were you?" Slotnick demanded.

No, I wasn't," Canty agreed.

Cabey was physically unable to testify, and Allen took the Fifth
Amendment, but the most important non-witness was Ramseur, who
bristled under Slotnick's questions about his criminal record,
particularly his conviction for the rape of a pregnant woman.  When
Ramseur finally refused to answer any more questions, Crane sentenced
him to six months in jail for contempt.  Crane ordered all of
Ramseur's testimony stricken, but his appearance undoubtedly had its
effect on the jury.  "He had so much pent-up rage," Juror Serpe told
the New York Daily News.  "He reminded me of a caged animal...I had a
nightmare about him...I woke up feeling drained."

Like several of the jurors, Serpe judged Goetz in the light of his
previous mugging.  "I was undecided at first, but one thing that
changed my mind was the judge's instructions that what is reasonable
can be related to past experiences.  Bernhard Goetz had some violence
in his past experiences.  What is reasonable for him might not be
reasonable for me."

Like other jurors, she found herself able to disbelieve a key part of
Goetz's taped confession, in which he stated he had approached Cabey
and said, "You don't look so bad, here's another," and then fired
again.  "Did that really happen, or did he just think he said that?"
Serpe wondered.  "He was so agitated...He just wasn't being
rational."

This was a jury or ordinary people, people who ride the crime-ridden
subway and know how things are down there.  Six of the twelve had
been victims of street crime.  Anyone taking a subway ride last week
could hear similar views.  "I can understand what Goetz did," said
Eileen Dudley, a black secretary.  "I was held up once.  You would do
anything in that situation."

One of the commonest accusations was that if Goetz had been black and
his victims white, he would have been severely punished, which may be
true.  But few recall the case of Austin Weeks, then 29, a black who
was riding a subway train through Brooklyn in April 1980 when he was
accosted by two white youths, both 17.  One of them, Terry
Zilimbinaks, leaned over Weeks in his seat and uttered a number of
racial insults.  Weeks took out an unlicensed pistol, according to
police, and shot Zilimbinaks dead.  Like Goetz, Weeks slipped away
unnoticed.  Unlike Goetz, he did not turn himself in or confess.
Police finally tracked him down six years later.  The grand jury
refused to indict him, and so he went free.  There were few
headlines, and the case was quickly forgotten.

--By Otto Friedrich.
  Reported by Roger Franklin and Raji Samghabadi/New York