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A Crime of Self-Defense

Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial

The popular press dubbed him "the subway vigilante": Bernhard Goetz, who on December 22, 1984, shot four black youths on a New York subway train when one of them asked for five dollars. Goetz claimed to have fired in self-defense, out of fear that the young men were about to rob him.

272 pages | 6.00 x 9.00 | © 1990

Criminology

Law and Legal Studies: General Legal Studies, Legal Thought

Table of Contents

Preface
1. A Shooting in the Subway
2. Passion and Reason in Self-Defense
3. Tolerant Reason
4. The Significance of Suffering
5. People Matter
6. Trying the Truth
7. What the Jury Saw and Heard
8. What the Jury Did Not Know
9. Perfecting the Law
10. Arguing Toward a Verdict
11. Mixed Messages
Notes
Index

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