TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/87/87capmil.2

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                                                                                June 29, 1987

NATION

Bernhard Goetz: "Not Guilty"


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