A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial

Anyway, I checked this book out at the library about a year ago. I chose it because (a) as a libertarian, I am interested in the legal right to self-defense, and (b) I was, and still am, planning to go to law school. What struck me is that the book is far more than just an account of the Goetz trial. Fletcher uses the issues raised by the trial as a springboard for exploring deeper issues. For example, are there limits to the scope of preventive, or "prophylactic," laws? (Anti-gun laws are preventive laws.) Here is Fletcher describing the rationale for so-called prophylactic laws:

"Possession offences do not prohibit wrongful deeds. Rather they regulate
behavior so that people never reach the stage of using the prohibited
article in a harmful or wrongful way. There is nothing per se immoral or
wicked about a single instance of possessing narcotics, guns, or counterfeit
plates. But it might be better for society as a whole to eliminate
these articles from circulation. Possession offenses are addressed
not to the single incident, but to the entire class of problematic
events....Lawyers express regulatory purpose of possession offenses by
referring to them as 'prophylactic offenses.'"

While writing an essay on child pornography laws about a month after reading Fletcher's book, I found myself thinking back to the above passage. I realized that laws prohibiting the possession of child pornography are prophylactic. I ended up using the excerpt in my essay.

Fletcher also introduces the reader to the Model Penal Code. Written in 1962 by lawyers and legal scholars, this project was an attempt to codify the criminal codes of all 50 states, along with the U.S. criminal code and that of Washington D.C., into one code. Yet with the competing influence of statutes, common law tradition, ever-changing case law, today's criminal law is anything but simple. Fletcher explains how the legal issues got so complex that, on at least two occasions, both the prosecutor and the defense lawyer got confused about their own strategies.

To sum up, Fletcher's book is, as the cover blurb claims, like an "education in criminal law and virtually a law school education in itself." In fact, the whole reason I looked up the book on Amazon.com is that I plan to buy it so that I have my own copy. Several times, while thinking about some moral or legal issue, I've thought, "Didn't that book about Bernhard Goetz have something to say about this concept?"

In contrast to the empty criticisms of the other two reviewers -- notice that their reviews give no examples, are too brief, and have an ad hominem flavor -- this book won the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association and received critical acclaim. It deserved all the praise it got. If you have any interest in the Goetz case, you'll find this book an interesting read. If you have any interest in law and legal philosophy, or you're just curious about how lawyers and judges think, you'll *love* this book. If you're having a career crisis and are of an intellectual bent, Fletcher's book might even get you fantasizing about law school.


Bernard Goetz: a review   April 19, 2010
Ronald Giranio (Chicago)
This is a fascinating book in that it not only focuses on the Goetz subway shootings of over 25 years ago, but analizes and takes a microscopic look at New York law--its assets and liabilities. A Crime of Self-Defense had my interest from the first page to the last. Highly recommended.


More than the law was on trial back then   June 1, 2005
R. L. MILLER (FT LAUDERDALE FL USA)
4 out of 11 found this review helpful

For days after four punks tried to intimidate a fellow passenger on a New York subway train into giving them money, only to discover that they had an excitable minor-league Rambo on their hands, my western New York hometown buzzed with all sorts of condemnation of this man. This was of course influenced by the liberal media calling Goetz "The Subway Vigilante". Never mind that the term "vigilante" really applies to lynch mob situations where a posse not sanctioned by the law goes out and murders someone they consider guilty of a crime. It does not mean the actual would-be crime victim who's already in the crosshairs and as far as he knows has only seconds to live if he doesn't act p.d.q. But my neighbors and acquaintances were brainwashed (we all were to some extent) into thinking that street punks were themselves victims of a hostile and uncaring society. They were only kids and had the standard adolescent schoolboy machismo, so they were only fooling around. Plus, Goetz has a very German name, so everyone branded him with a mental swastika. I think it was at that point that society tried and convicted Goetz in their own hearts as a cold-blooded slayer of four young kids. Never mind that none of us had been on that subway train ourselves, urban mass transit being a hunting ground for human predators the world over. The legacy of those days, when public opinion was beginning to run towards cutting "the disadvantaged" as much slack as possible, has over two sorry decades come to its fruition. The only times I ever rode a New York subway were well before those day, and I wouldn't send my worst enemy down into one today. I tend to stay out of hard-core urban areas period, sticking to the 'burbs and rural areas, where law and order hasn't yet completely collapsed.


Fletcher book is a waste of time   January 23, 2006
Ali G
4 out of 13 found this review helpful

The book is "Utterly disappointing and entirely uninsightful." Much better hard information on the Goetz case can be found at Wikipedia.com and in a juror's book "Subway Gunman."


Unimpressive   January 15, 2003
1 out of 10 found this review helpful

This book utterly disappointing and uninsightful. One would expect more from a "scholar" who sat in on the trial. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, Fletcher fails to measure up.