Daniel Penny’s trial draws parallels to the 40-year-old trial that took the country by storm

On December 22, 1984, four black teenagers approached 37-year-old electronics specialist Bernhard Goetz at the New York City subway. After one of them said, “Give me five dollars,” Goetz pulled out a five-shot revolver and opened fire, wounding all four. One of them had a severed spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed.

Goetz fled to Vermont, but turned himself in shortly afterwards. His trial and the media coverage of it would make national headlines and spark debates about crime and race.

By the 1980s, New York City had become a crime center, averaging about 2,000 murders per year. The subway system became a particular target, with an average of 38 crimes per day. according to Famous tests.

Goetz himself had previously been robbed in the subway, resulting in him obtaining a firearm for self-defense.

The helplessness surrounding skyrocketing crime rates led to an outpouring of sympathy for Goetz, who quickly became an icon of whimsy.

Goetz’s legal team’s strategy was very different from Penny’s. The first was much more aggressive and actively portrayed the four teenagers who approached Goetz as predatory criminals. His lawyers referred to them as “savages,” “predators” and “vultures” throughout the trial.

In one of the most dramatic moments in the trial, Goetz’s defense team hired four members of the Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime patrol group, to play the role of the attackers in a court reenactment of the shooting. The volunteers were known for being much larger and more muscular than the actual attackers.

In both Goetz and Penny’s cases, their defense was that the situation caused them to panic. Goetz’s team leaned mainly into this corner. His defense argued that he feared he would be ‘beaten to a pulp’ Washingtonpost reported at the time.

“The mind went off, the body went on autopilot,” said attorney Barry Slotnick, adding, “People who have been traumatized should not be judged based on their traumatization.”

A key difference between the Penny and Goetz trials was the role of race. Although the prosecutor and some civil rights activists allege unconscious racial bias in the Goetz trial, the trial made no mention of either party’s race. Polls at the time showed a large portion of the black population sided with Goetz, sometimes a majority, believing that his actions were justified.

This is in stark contrast to Penny’s case, where the prosecutor actively sought to center the role of race in the incident. Assistant District Attorney Jillian Shartrand referred to Penny almost exclusively as “the white man,” prompting his attorneys to file for a mistrial.

“There is no way at this point that my client can get anything resembling a fair trial,” argued Penny’s attorney, Thomas Kenniff, saying the prosecutor’s rhetoric made his client sound like a “white vigilante.”

Goetz ultimately won his trial, with his only conviction being on the relatively minor third-degree criminal possession of a weapon charge.

Several analysts have noted the similarities between the Goetz and Penny cases, with Goetz himself even commenting on the trial.

“He killed Michael Jackson,” Goetz said sarcastically told the New York Post when asked about the lawsuit. “He has to pay.”

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“I think Michael Jackson, tattoos, piercings and cocaine are all equally bad,” he added when asked if he was a fan of the former singer or Neely’s work as an impersonator.

Goetz’s case lives on in pop culture and serves as one central inspiration to the blockbuster of 2019 joker.