Word: goetz
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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...
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 of 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...
...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...
NATION: A Manhattan jury says "not guilty" to Subway Gunman Goetz...