Volume 34, Number 7 · April 23, 1987
Goetz on Trial
By George P. Fletcher
Quiet Rage: Bernie Goetz in a Time of Madness
by Lillian B. Rubin
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 247 pp., $16.95
The criminal courts building on Centre Street in New York is not far from the Chambers Street station on the IRT subway. That subway stop is on the minds of a half dozen of us—Judge Stephen Crane, lawyers for both sides, a reporter, a court reporter, and myself—as we encounter the prospective jurors in the trial of Bernhard Goetz, who is also present. Over two years ago, on the Saturday afternoon before Christmas, on the express train running south toward Chambers Street, the thirty-seven-year-old Goetz, a thin, blond electronics engineer, opened fire on four black youths, injuring all four and paralyzing one of them for life. His trial, which may last for two months, is rapidly approaching. No one disputes that one of the victims approached Goetz on the train and asked him for five dollars. By Goetz's own admission, he replied, 'Sure, I have dollars for each of you.' He then fired five shots in rapid succession.
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