Word: goetz
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Would Bernhard Goetz have gotten off if he were Black and his victims were white?" seems to be the key question surrounding the now celebrated subway gunnings...
...often a lawyer's duty. Says Gillers: "If Litman were to say, 'Listen, / Chambers, this is your best shot, but I don't feel comfortable doing it because I feel it's morally wrong,' he would be guilty of malpractice." Another current trial in Manhattan, involving Subway Gunman Bernhard Goetz, demonstrates the legal value of blaming victims. Goetz offers self-defense as the reason why he shot four black youths who he suspected were preparing to rob him. His attorney has relentlessly highlighted the criminal intentions of the four. The American Bar Association's code of ethics, which requires that...
...trial opened last week, Goetz, 39, an electronics technician, faced 13 criminal charges, including four for attempted murder. Defense Attorney Barry Slotnick insisted, however, that Goetz "was the real victim in this case." Slotnick announced that he planned to defend his client by "prosecuting" the four "vicious predators" who surrounded Goetz on the subway car. Despite an admonition from Judge Stephen Crane, Slotnick referred to Goetz's victims as "drug addicts" and attempted to bring up their criminal records. (Two of the four are in jail on other charges, one for the rape of an adolescent girl, and a third...
...face of Slotnick's guerrilla tactics, Assistant District Attorney Gregory Waples pressed on with the quiet demeanor of a man who believes that the facts and Goetz's own words will lead inescapably to a conviction. At midweek Waples played a two-hour tape recording made by the detectives who questioned Goetz when he surrendered to them in Concord, N.H. In it, Goetz said the four "wanted to play with me, like a cat plays with a mouse" -- before he assumed a shooter's stance and methodically emptied his pistol at his tormentors. "I know this sounds horrible," he said...
After his first four shots, the prosecution says, Goetz approached Cabey, who was slumped in the subway seat opposite him. "You don't look too bad," Goetz said. "Here's another." He fired his fifth shot, severing Cabey's spine. Even if Goetz's first rounds were fired in self-defense, Waples maintains, his final shot went well beyond the need to protect himself. In his taped confession, Goetz said, "If I was thinking a little bit more clearly, I would have put the bullet against his head and fired...