Just when Bernhard Goetz thought it was safe to leave town for a few days, an acting New York State supreme-court justice announced a ruling. Citing "significant new evidence" collected by the Manhattan district attorney's office, Justice Stephen Crane last week authorized a new grand jury investigation into Goetz's shootings of four menacing-looking teenagers aboard a New York City subway last December. The 37-year-old electronics engineer, who was in South Carolina and Kentucky last week to recharge his career and temporarily escape the New York media microscope, told his lawyers not to worry about the new developments. Though a fresh grandjury could return an indictment that might eventually lead to a 25-year prison sentence, Goetz announced, "I am not worried. I know a jury of my peers will exonerate me again."
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau doesn't think so. In January a grand jury refused to indict Goetz for attempted murder, deciding that the shootings had been in self-defense. As soon as the first grand jury reached its decision, the D.A. began digging for new evidence. His search intensified after several inflammatory statements Goetz made to New Hampshire police following the shootings were made public. Goetz, it was learned, told officers that he shot one of the teen-agers a second time after first announcing, "You don't look too bad, here's another."
Two weeks ago Morgenthau officially moved to reopen the case. Troy Canty, one of those shot by Goetz, had agreed to testify before a new grand jury even though the district attorney's office had refused to grant him immunity from prosecution. Canty subsequently withdrew his offier after receiving some 50 threatening letters and phone calls, presumably from fans of folkhero Goetz. Morgenthau then sat down with Canty and the teen-ager's mother and offered both of them relocation and protection. His efforts were to no avail. But soon after, the "substantial new evidence" fell into his hands.
No one in a position to know is telling what that new evidence is. Speculation has arisen that one of the other youths shot by Goetz might be willing to testify. According to Ronald Kliegerman, attorney for wounded teen-ager James Ramseur, the D.A.'s office is softening its position on not granting immunity to those shot by Goetz. To further cloud matters, a purported "mystery witness" recently approached William Kunstler and Ronald Kuby, attorneys for the wounded and brain-damaged Darrell Cabey. That witness, says Kunstler, was in the subway car during the shootings and saw the "calmness" with which Goetz dispatched Cabey. Sources close to the case, however, say the mystery witness is not the one who is providing the new evidence.
'Mugged': Barry Slotnick, Goetz's criminal lawyer, reacted bitterly to thejudge's grandjury edict. "Mr. Goetz has been mugged and mugged, and now he is being mugged by the political system," contends the attorney. "Mr. Goetz is being treated as an issue, rather than a human being." Slotnick believes Morgenthau is pushing the case largely because the revelations about Goetz's behavior on the subway have produced increasingly negative media coverage -- and suddenly, it is politically palatable to go after him with vigor.
Slotnick has already filed a motion to thwart a new grand jury hearing. Ifthis and other planned maneuverings fail, Goetz's attorney says he will once again be disinclined to have his client talk in front of a grand jury. "I don't know," says Slotnick, "if I'm going to put [Goetz] to the hungry lions that is the grand jury -- [a panel] run by a D.A. who apparently isn't going to be an impartial adviser." Goetz, meanwhile, continues to wax philosophical about American criminal justice. "It's the system," Goetz told Joseph Kelner, his civil lawyer. "I'm not going to argue."