So-called "Subway Vigilante"Bernhard Goetz's case 14 years ago provided a foundation for the Diallo officers' defense. (AP Photo)

				DIALLO SHOOTING TRIAL
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ALBANY, N.Y. (Court TV) — Though not seated in the courtroom where four New York City police officers are on trial for Amadou Diallo's alleged murder, Bernhard Goetz's presence is still felt in Albany — especially with the defense.

Sixteen years ago, the so-called "subway vigilante's" case raised the standards of the justifiable homicide defense used by officers Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll and Richard Murphy. The officers claim they shot at Diallo when they thought the victim, in the allegedly dimly-lit vestibule of his apartment building, was reaching for a weapon. Given their training and experience, the officers' lawyers argue, they reasonably feared that their lives were in danger and had to react. It was later revealed that Diallo was unarmed. Still, was the officers' reaction reasonable and therefore, justified?

When Goetz shot four black youths on a New York City subway train in 1984, he claimed he thought they were going to rob him. Goetz, a white man who had been mugged before, was tried amid protests and cries of racism. Like officers McMellon, Boss, Carroll and Murphy, Goetz's case pitted the perennial problems of racism, crime and public safety against one another.

Before Goetz stood trial, a New York court dismissed the attempted murder charges because it found that Goetz believed his life was in danger when he shot the four youths. However, an appellate court overruled the lower court, saying that Goetz not only needed to believe he was in danger, but that his belief had to be reasonable. The court reinstated the charges and in doing so, created the law that anchors the defense of the four officers.

The court stated that attempted homicide was not justified just because Goetz, the individual, believed his life was in danger. The court invoked the elusive “reasonable person” standard, stating that a person’s belief that he or she is in danger must be reasonable under the circumstances.

In other words, the standard for what is reasonable is not based on individual belief, as the lower New York court believed. It is based on what most people would do in a given situation. Otherwise, the appellate court said, people would begin to set their own standards for justified killings and other violations of the law.

Courts often refer to, but don’t define, a reasonable person. A jury usually decides what is reasonable. Goetz’s jury found his actions to be reasonable under the circumstances and acquitted him. However, he still was convicted of illegal gun possession and sentenced to time in jail.

But Goetz was a civilian. The men who fired 41 bullets at Diallo were specially-trained police officers, part of the NYPD Street Crime Unit and a far cry from an armed vigilante. How will these defendants’ very different lives play out at trial?

According to the appellate court, a jury can consider certain experiences of the defendant in making its determination of reasonable. For the Goetz jury, this meant hearing about the defendant's 1981 subway mugging. For the jurors in Albany, the reasonable standard could mean something completely different. The officers' lawyers are asking jurors to put themselves in the place of the four armed, plainclothes New York City police officers who were looking for a rape suspect on dark, dangerous Bronx streets. That could be quite a stretch for citizens who have never been trained to fire a weapon, driven a police cruiser or walked the nightbeat in a New York City borough.

James B. Jacobs, Director of the New York University's Center for Research in Crime and Justice, said the jury in the Diallo trial will probably be asked, under an objective standard, to put themselves in the place of the four officers.

To this end, he said, the jury will likely hear evidence from both the prosecution and the defense about the officers’ past experiences in training and in the line of duty.

Jacobs said that while the prosecution will tell the jury that a reasonable officer uses force sparingly, the defense will say that even specially-trained, reasonable police officers are confronted with “split-second decisions" where they don’t have a lot of time to think.

While experts have yet to determine exactly why courts expect people to act reasonably when they think their life is in danger, juries have put the appellate court’s ruling into action, acquitting people like Goetz of attempted murder.

If the Albany jury does the same, it could further damage the already strained police and minority relations in New York City. Should they find the officers guilty of murdering Amadou Diallo, it could change the way police choose to use deadly force in protecting both their lives and those of the people of New York.

— Liz Martinez