Elliot Williams: "We'll get the girls from Annie to even things out"

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: The Gist
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Elliot Williams
Episode Title: Elliot Williams: "We'll get the girls from Annie to even things out"
Date: January 26, 2026

This episode features a deep-dive interview with Elliot Williams, former federal prosecutor and author of Five Bullets: The story of Bernie Getz, New York's explosive 80s and the subway vigilante trial that divided a nation. Pesca and Williams use the infamous 1984 Bernie Goetz subway shooting as a lens to discuss themes of violence, fear, race, self-defense law, and the chaotic climate of 1980s New York. With contemporary resonance, the episode explores how public and legal perceptions of crime, victimhood, and race inform controversial moments of American justice.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Moral Injury & National Disillusionment

[01:03-05:42]

• Pesca opens by reflecting on the post-Trump, post-shooting American mood—using the phrase "moral injury" to describe how some Americans feel deeply wounded by political and violent events.
  • Quote: “It’s more like I don’t want to walk around all day inside a place that constantly reminds me of a story that now hurts on a psychic level, an unshakable disillusionment.” (Mike Pesca, 02:20)
  • Discusses the phenomenon where supporters treat any explanation from leaders as a “permission structure” to look away from difficult political truths.
• Transition to the theme of truth versus narrative in public discussion about violent incidents.

2. Introducing Bernie Goetz and Elliot Williams’ Book

[09:43-11:08]

• Pesca introduces the subject: the Bernie Goetz subway shooting, a pivotal moment of violence/bifurcation in New York's history, and Williams’ book, which offers a nuanced portrayal of the people and climate involved.
  • Quote: “I think it might be the best book or piece of media yet about the story.” (Mike Pesca, 09:53)

3. Fairness, Perspective, and Racism

[11:08-14:24]

• Williams and Pesca discuss the complexity of avoiding “both sides-ism” while capturing the multi-dimensionality of Goetz, who was both a product of and contributor to a racist and violent era.
  • Williams describes interviewing Goetz:
    Quote: “I was struck by his tone… didn’t think you were going there, but that's fine.” (Elliot Williams, 13:34)
• Goetz’s prior use of firearms and imminent violent potential is discussed.

4. Trial Law, “Reasonableness,” and Self-Defense

[14:57-16:47]

• The Goetz trial hinged on legal definitions of “reasonable threat” (subjective vs. objective).
  • Williams expounds on how mixed standards gave the jury flexibility but also ambiguity.
  • Quote: “[The jury will] first be judged as to whether his belief was reasonable… and then… judge if he acted the way we would expect an objective person… to act.” (Elliot Williams, 16:22)

5. The Jury’s Perspective & Goetz’s Confession

[18:11-22:46]

• Jurors were themselves former crime victims, influencing their understanding of Goetz’s fear.
• Goetz’s confession (where he states he wanted to “butcher” and “murder” the teens) was downplayed by the jury and defense as the ravings of a man under duress.
  • Quote: “He literally says I wanted to murder them and make them suffer…” (Elliot Williams, 20:15)
• Anecdote: Attorneys bet a car (an Isuzu Trooper) over whether their risky legal strategy would work.

6. The Prosecution’s Dilemma and the Problematic Witnesses

[24:16-27:51]

• Prosecutor Gregory Waples had to allow the four shooting victims to testify, knowing their criminal records and demeanor would harm his case.
  • Quote: “If the defense calls them as witnesses, they would just run over them and control their narrative.” (Elliot Williams, 24:55)
• One, James Ramseur, melted under cross-examination and was later convicted of a violent crime—further alienating the jury and public sympathy.

7. “Reenactments,” Race, and Swaying the Jury

[29:10-33:50]

• Pesca and Williams discuss the unusual (and racially loaded) decision to have the “Guardian Angels” (older, buff, Black anti-crime activists) physically reenact the attack in court.
  • Williams criticizes this circus-like tactic for swaying the jury’s perception of threat.
  • Quote: “They wanted the most menacing Black guys they could find because they wanted the jury to feel, quote unquote, what Bernard Goetz felt.” (Elliot Williams, 31:29)
• Both agree this was an egregious breach of fairness, but Williams notes conviction was still possible.

8. The Limits of Self-Defense, Public Fear, and the Zeitgeist

[35:03-42:28]

• Discussion of legal standards (“duty to retreat” was not required in New York) and poor prosecutorial messaging (telling jurors “pack up your bags and leave” if frightened by city life was found insulting).
  • Quote: “They felt he [Waples] felt like an ivory tower snob with Ivy League degrees… and they, they did not like that—universally.” (Elliot Williams, 37:18)
• Williams and Pesca explore how 1980s New York crime was both mythic and real, but fear persists today even as violent statistics have dropped.

9. Racial and Media Complications

[44:02-45:32]

• Further unpacking the role of race, the police, media, and public emotion—how the case upended expectations about “victim,” “defendant,” and whose side the police supported.

10. Judging the Verdict

[45:32-47:13]

• Pesca presses Williams if he personally agrees with the acquittal. Williams admits the law supported it, but based on Goetz’s confession, “they should have convicted him.”
  • Quote: “Just look at the confession. The man said, I tried to murder them... If that's not grounds for a murder conviction... come on, folks.” (Elliot Williams, 46:17)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s like being inside of grief, where everything is a reminder of who you just lost—except what you just lost is the idea of your country.”
  (Mike Pesca, 02:43)

• “If I don't present Bernie Getz sympathetically in the book Five Bullets, I at least present him three dimensionally.”
  (Elliot Williams, 11:59)

• “He literally says I wanted to murder them and make them suffer as possible. I was cold blooded. I wanted to butcher them.”
  (Elliot Williams, 20:15)

• “If we have to do it again, we’ll get the Rockette’s to stand in, we’ll get the girls from Annie to even things out.”
  (Mike Pesca, 32:43)

• “You write a book about a 41-year-old story... and every now and again, you get these anecdotes along the way where someone just slips out something when they’re talking and you say, holy shit, that was amazing.”
  (Elliot Williams, 21:41)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Moral Injury & Trump Era Violence: 01:03–05:42
• Book Intro and Goetz Case Setup: 09:43–11:08
• Nuanced Character & Race Discussions: 11:08–14:24
• Self-Defense Law and Jury Standards: 14:57–18:43
• Confession and Defense Tactics: 18:43–22:46
• Prosecution’s Dilemma: 24:16–27:51
• Courtroom Reenactment & Race: 29:10–33:50
• Context: 1980s NYC Crime & Perception: 37:25–42:26
• Judgment on the Verdict: 45:32–47:13

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Tone & Language

• Both Pesca and Williams use conversational, occasionally sardonic language to probe uncomfortable truths.
• There is a clear willingness to critique both the justice system and underlying social biases; humor is employed—sometimes darkly—especially in reflecting on legal strategy and New York’s past.
• The episode maintains a persistent commitment to nuance, using both personal anecdote and legal expertise to complicate easy narratives.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode is a rich, multi-layered examination of a watershed American legal drama, with frequent comparisons to present-day public violence and unrest. Through their engaging back-and-forth, Pesca and Williams expose the ways panic, prejudice, and public mood can shape justice and memory far beyond superficial narratives. The Goetz case, against the backdrop of a troubled city, reveals disturbing continuities in American life—where fear, race, and the idea of “reasonableness” drive law and divisions alike.

Transcript

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Monday, January 26, 2026 from Peach Fish Productions it's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. I was reading about a couple who decided to leave the United States and there was a phrase used to describe their thinking. The author of the article didn't really spell out, but it stuck with me. The phrase was moral injury. They saw Trump's reelection and what the country has become as a kind of moral injury. The piece was written before the killings in Minnesota, but over the weekend I kept thinking about that phrase. Now, this is not where I am personally, but I understand how people get there. Many don't see these incidents, these shootings, the last two killings, as isolated excesses or a strong man or wannabe strongman, or already is strongman doing his thing. They see them as confirmation, as the proof that the story they believed in no longer constrains behavior. Most people knew, of course, America wasn't perfect, that it was contested. But the feeling of those who are morally injured and in the case of the story I was reading, it's people who felt they needed to live the United States. I think for many, many people who are more than just aggrieved at an injustice, it's more and worse than the feeling this isn't the country I thought it was. It's more like I don't want to walk around all day inside a place that constantly reminds me of a story that now hurts on a psychic level, an unshakable disillusionment. It's like being inside of grief, where everything is a reminder of who you.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Just lost, except what you just lost.

[Mike Pesca]

Is the idea of your country. The constant contradiction of what maybe you thought it was or could be and what it is causes a kind of pain. So let's get to the ice incidents. About 40% of the US supports these efforts broadly. Meaning if you ask them, do you support Donald Trump on immigration? They still say yes, it's down at least 12% from its height. I don't think most people, most of the supporters genuinely believe the instant talking points generated from Bovino or Noem or, or Blanche calling Renee Good a domestic terrorist, calling Alex Peretti some imminent mass threat because it was carrying a gun and helping someone. There's no evidence he ever reached for the gun. More likely, many who hear this, who still say they support Trump don't care whether the claims of the Trump administration are actually true. They treat the presence of any explanation, no matter how flimsy, as permission not.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

To look too closely.

[Mike Pesca]

This is what's called a permission structure. This is what's called turning a blind eye. And I understand how it works. Just any sort of explanation allows someone who says, I don't want to dig too deep or care about politics or engage on every single issue. I have my North Star. It's that the Biden administration didn't do well on immigration. Trump is doing well on immigration, cracked eggs, omelet, et cetera. But it's also, of course, a way to disengage with what actually happened. And what actually happened was a set of horrifying shootings that deserve seriousness and instead were immediately distorted. In the case of good. If you really want to be. Or bend over backwards to take what the administration said as something other than a lie, you could construct a story of there was a moving car, the officer felt in danger. When that happens, officers are usually excused. You put aside or don't contend with the fact that the officer put himself in front of the car and et cetera. But the Peretti case, I mean, it really is hard to avoid the word.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Lie to describe how they described it.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, this wasn't a nurse helping a woman who was knocked over. This was a terrorist intent on inflicting carnage.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Carnage.

[Mike Pesca]

That was a word they used here was Border Patrol Chief Greg Bevino on cnn.

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[Mike Pesca (Host)]

There, I'd say the truth is the.

[Mike Pesca]

Victim in those sentences just uttered, officials rushed in with a story that was the opposite of evidence and then said, oh, we don't want to gather more evidence. The administration tolerates lawlessness when it serves its ends. It treats truth as optional or worse, something to oppose. What we're seeing is the damage taking physical form, policy and rhetoric turned into bodies on the ground.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

It's not just an abuse of power.

[Mike Pesca]

For many people, it's moral injury made manifest. Much to contemplate about all of this. But on the show today, I have a similar themed story. It's a full show interview with Elliot Williams, who has looked into one of the watershed cases of violence and a bifurcated nation afterwards. It was Bernie Getz, it was the 1980s, and it was, as you'll hear in the subtitle, a story that divided America. Elliot Williams is here to talk about five bullets, the story of Bernie Getz, New York's explosive 80s, and the subway vigilante trial that divided a nation.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

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[Mike Pesca (Host)]

A few days before Christmas 1984, a what would turn out quite disturbed, armed man was on a New York City subway and was approached by one of a handful of teens. Was he panhandled? Was he shaken down? It doesn't really matter because Bernard gets drew and fired and maybe before firing the fifth shot asked his victim if he's had enough. That was contested, as was so much of the Bernie Getz subway vigilante story crime trial episode. It's now dealt with expertly in a new book by Elliot Williams. If you've listened to the show, you've probably heard me do, I don't know, six Bernie Getz segments over the years. Elliot Williams book Five Bullets. The story of Bernard Getz, New York's explosive 80s and the subway vigilante trial that divided the nation is more than an important contribution to the genre. I think it might be the best book or piece of media yet about the story. Elliot, welcome to the gist.

[Elliot Williams]

You know, it's really funny. I didn't know where you were going with that. Elliot Williams, who has written a book. And I was like, which adverb is he going to use? And you said expertly. I was like, oh yes. I did not know where you're going with that. So thank you. No, that's. Thanks for the high praise. No, the book.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

I don't. You know, there's this notion that both sidesism is somehow an abdication of journalistic responsibility. And sometimes it is. You don't want to pretend that there isn't any global warming, for instance. And of course, sides aren't always both or binary, but especially with a trial which you know, is a former federal prosecutor, it is presented as both sides. And this story has many, many sides. And I really felt you throughout trying not to over index for any one of the sides.

[Elliot Williams]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Did it come naturally, or was this an approach you consciously had to try to emphasize for yourself?

[Elliot Williams]

Yeah. Yes to both. I mean, I definitely wanted to be fair, but with a point of view and a perspective. I don't think Bernie Goetz comes off as a hero of this book, but I think I tried to handle it journalistically and I interviewed him and we can talk about that and what it's like to talk to him the best way this has been described. This very point you're getting at, Mike. How do you fairly convey this controversial case was in the review of the book by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker. Adam Gopnik says that if Bernie Getz is not. If I don't present Bernie Getz sympathetically in the book Five Bullets, I at least present him three dimensionally. Like, you hear from him and you hear his motivations. I don't think I'm sympathetic to him, but I at least let his voice get some airtime and just sort of, this is where he's coming from now. This is what the rest of the world thinks, and this is what the rest of world thinks of this guy. But this is what was in his head. Right.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

So I don't want to rush into analysis before facts, but I will say it wasn't even just that. Anyone who really understands the story knows that Bernie Getz is a disturbed guy. He was walking around just itching to gun someone down because he himself had a lot of opinions that were warranted about the safety of New York and a lot of personal trauma and experience about being jumped by three guys. So he was illegally armed. He was looking to do what thousands of New Yorkers, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, didn't do. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers would change the subway car they were on or walk away or not make eye contact. Bernie Gatz was the one person who gunned down teens who weren't actively threatening him. That alone shows you that you don't have to tell both sides to make him sympathetic and then just asking him a question as you do, it's hard not to get a fair dollop of racism in every answer.

[Elliot Williams]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And the things he said to me as a black man, I was like, wow, didn't think you were going there, but that's fine. I mean, he didn't call me the N word or anything like that, but I was struck by his tone. The other thing. One more thing to add to what you said, Mike, about him and sort of whether he's looking for trouble, which is what the prosecutor said. He pulled guns on people at least twice before. He'd been documented, once on Central park north and once on 6th Avenue, both with guys who had come up behind him and were yelling at him, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna get you. And when I get you, come on. And then he just grabbed the gun and pulled it out and just sort of pointed at him. The guy got scared and ran away. That happened twice. So it was just, you know, and I say this in the book, it was a matter of when, not if. He opened fire on somebody. He definitely, both literally and figuratively, had a hair trigger and was ready to go.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Yeah. And the thing is that there were 14, and at least they probably spanned a continuum of either culpability in the moment or something akin to, you know, goodness or evil. And they're all victims in a way. But if you just maybe shot one guy who was clearly menacing him in Central park north, which is interesting because he talked with you about what happened in north of Central park and how bad the blacks up there were. If he had just done that, he might be known, but wouldn't have been this national cause celeb.

[Elliot Williams]

Absolutely. And something that the prosecutor talks about in his closing statement, not conceding that any of the shootings were proper. But, okay, imagine Bernard Gets was menaced by the first guy on the train. Okay, you're menacing me. I feel like I'm gonna be robbed. The law allows me to try to kill you. So imagine he does that. Then why does he turn and open fire on one guy who's literally running away from him at that point, then fire another one who's literally running away from him at that point? They're trying to get away, like. Like victims in a horror slasher film. They're trying to get through the walls of the subway and then finally turn to the fourth guy, who was apparently, again, factual dispute, but apparently slumped down in A chair and stand over him and potentially say, you don't look so bad. Here's another. And shoot him. Each time he pulls the trigger, he has less and less of a basis for doing so, even if he was justified the first time.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

And if people are hearing this and saying, whoa, what recent case in the news does this have resonance with? Yes, exactly, all of them. Well, also, the Jonathan Ross shooting of Nicole Good is. Sorry, of Renee. Nicole Good is similar to Getz in two ways. One is whatever you thought of the first shot, the second and third shots are extremely hard to justify. And. And by the way, I think most of the people who didn't think much of the first shot in either case would be a similar kind of person. But also, it very much hinges on this idea of what was reasonably going through the mind of the person who did the shooting. So let's talk about that. Legally speaking, and this is why the book is the best I've read. It really gets into the court case better than anything I've ever read. What was the standard for what would have constituted a reasonable threat in Getz's mind?

[Elliot Williams]

There's literally a chapter, as you know, Mike, called Reasonably reasonable Reasonableness in the book. And it's all about the reasonableness standard, which was at issue. It was murky under New York law. What was defined as reasonable? Is it subjective reasonableness, which is just, okay, I feel like I'm scared, therefore I'm gonna shoot, or is it objective reasonableness, which is, okay, I'm gonna shoot, but we're going to judge my shooting against how other people in society should behave? Am I an outlier? Subjective versus objective? Well, New York had never defined which of the two it was. And ultimately the case goes all the. This case, this very case goes all the way up to the New York state court, appeals, the highest court, and says that, well, it's kind of a little bit of both. A jury, when deciding whether someone has acted properly when using deadly force, will first be judged as to whether his belief was reasonable. In his heart, did he reasonably feel afraid, which is sort of pro defendant. Right. Because he'd just say, well, I legitimately felt scared. And then on top of that, the jury will then also think, okay, even so, did he act the way we would expect an objective person or a decent sort of standard middle ground person to act? That's the tougher one, and that's actually far more pro prosecution. So it's sort of this weird, complex, tricky hodgepodge of are we just seeing what's in your head. But we're also judging it against the moral acceptability of your actions.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Yeah. And to make the analogy to the Jonathan Roth shooting, that's what the Supreme Court has decreed. We're supposed to ask about officers. Would a reasonable officer, not citizen, have felt like they were in danger? And the second or tertiary reasonableness was it was up to a jury to try to understand reasonable doubt, which is always a little bit murky. But that is my question. What did the jury think the charge was? What did the jury think was the standard they were operating under?

[Elliot Williams]

No, I think they. They understood the basics of this objective and subjective hybrid. I. And they all agreed and many of them, they were all city residents and many of them had been mugged before. They'd been mugged on the train before Manhattan residents, everybody in Manhattan had been mugged in 1984. So it was just. The homicide rate was 2,000 a year. It was brutal. So it was a fool's errand for the prosecutor from the jump. Now when it the jury seemed to grasp that. But they did seem to sympathize with Getz on his fear. The big thing they did. And I, you know, a juror just texted me with his thoughts about an interview that I'd done about this. But you know where I think they got a little bit tripped up was in Bernard Getz actually confesses over. It's like three hours when he's up in New Hampshire.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

So to set that up, if people don't remember he was or they weren't alive, he does the shooting. He has a couple moments where he actually helped someone off the the ground of the train. A woman who he thought maybe was shot was just panicked. But then he realized I got to get out of here. Runs down the subway covered in filth, hightails it up to Vermont, New Hampshire. We're not sure what he does. Turns himself in is a moment that at a moment that the New York tabloids had turned him into this sort of folk hero. Does this really long and stupid from a legal standpoint. Interview totally stupid.

[Elliot Williams]

No lawyer.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Yes. No lawyer would allow it. And no lawyer was there and. But go ahead, take it from there about.

[Elliot Williams]

But that's it. And he confesses. And this isn't. This isn't Elliot sort of imposing my view? No. He literally says I wanted to murder them and make them suffer as possible. I was cold butted. I wanted to butcher them. He's just unequivocal forever. And it's parts. He's revolted at himself but unrepentant. It's a mix of things, but he confesses for it. Now, the jury didn't really buy the confession. They thought that after nine days on the run he was out of his mind. He was in an emotional state and didn't quite know what he was saying. And so they didn't put much credit on this obvious, intelligently delivered. And when I say intelligent, like intelligent in the eyes of the law. It was a. He knew what he was saying. But they, they just pooh poohed it and said that look, it was, it was objectively and subjectively reasonable to shoot.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

These guys as you detail. Not just pooh poohed it. This was the actual strategy of the defense team. They thought they convince the jury that not even despite, but because of all that, all that confession, what they were really seeing was a guy who was crazed and out of his mind and contradicting himself. And the very fact of the confession. So against his interest, the defense team stipulated showed that you couldn't trust the confession. And that argument worked with the jury.

[Elliot Williams]

It did. And the coolest thing you know, it's. You write a story about, you write a book about a 41 year old story. Gosh, what if I don't say anything new? What if I, you know, where am I going to get? I hope this comes. Something's interesting for people. And every now and again you get these anecdotes along the way where someone just slips out something when they're talking. You say, holy shit, that was amazing. One of them was Mark Baker, the attorney who actually died after I interviewed him. It wasn't my fault, but no, he died between the interview and the. So he won't read this book. But Mark Baker gave me this amazing anecdote that the Barry Slotnick, the other attorney, bet him a car because they literally said, this is such a crazy idea. We're gonna lose because of it. And then Slotnick says, you know what? I think this is a winner. If this happens, you're gonna get a car. And he's like, what? Yes, I'm buying you an Isuzu Trooper.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

So he literally, Slotnik said, you're so crazy, if you're right, I'll buy you a car. Slotnik needed to be convinced by Baker. Yeah, yeah. And it wasn't a Suzu Trooper, which is one of those weird choices. And the Isuzu Trooper was stripped for parts after being stolen.

[Elliot Williams]

Right.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Which is an indication of the crime.

[Elliot Williams]

Rates of the 80s. It literally. And I have that in the photo. It literally. This Isuzu Trooper that Mark Baker wins. And I wanted to have a picture of it. Just a fun little behind the scenes of riding five bullets. I had a picture of a blue and gray two tone, 85 Isuzu trooper that Mark Baker sent me. And I was gonna put it in the book. The problem is it wasn't here his Isuzu Trooper. It was just the one from the ad or whatever. Couldn't really use it.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

But yeah, you should have got. You should have gotten a courtroom sketch artist to draw it because it's not. You're not exactly saying that this was the thing that. Just a representation of the thing. Yeah. So you go inside the defense team, you have excellent visibility into their strategy, and then you also have more than excellent. Like it was apparent to me, you sat down for many hours with Gregory Waples, who was the prosecutor and a brilliant guy, but also was up against it. Even if the guy was trying to convict, was. Had confessed. And one of the things was, and I want to get to the idea that everyone in the jury would have been a victim of crime. He knew that the law was just trying to convict Gatz. But really, and in essence, it was those four teens who was. Who were on trial. And he did not have a good hand to play with, with presenting them. Why did he. Well, this is a. This is not a leading question. I know what the answer is. I know I'm going to be wrong. Why would he even allow them to testify?

[Elliot Williams]

Because he had to. It's just, it's because little bit about the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution, ladies and gentlemen. You can dazzle at cocktail parties with this information. You know, you have the right to remain silent. The fifth Amendment. Pardon me, you have the right to remain silent. You never have to testify against yourself. You can't be compelled to give testimony. However, if you're a witness, you can be compelled to testify. So the problem is that if in fact Waples did not call the guys as witnesses, the defense would have called them. And the defense, if there's.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

That's the key. Sorry, defense would have. Sorry to interrupt, but that's the key.

[Elliot Williams]

That's the key. The defense would have called them as witnesses. And if the defense calls them as witnesses, they would just run over them and control their narrative. And because remember, when you put a witness on the stand, you can guide their testimony. Right. And make it better. It would have been a disaster for the prosecution if Barry Slotnick had called James Ramseur, one of the victims and put him on the stand and just eviscerated him in front of the jury. So Waples did what he had to do and said, look, I didn't have a choice. These guys were horribly unsavory witnesses. They had criminal records out the wazoo. But tactically, I have to call them as witnesses. And he did.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Well, it would have been a disaster, but it was a disaster. Especially with Ramsor, who was a guy who was arrested a couple months later for a horrible crime, which is he was involved. Involved in raping a pregnant woman on the rooftop of a building. And she was hospitalized and robbery. He also had a large track record. And two questions about that. One is how just describe the manner in which he melted under Slotnik's cross examination.

[Elliot Williams]

Yeah, I just think, you know, it's a really interesting look. And I have a line in the book about how neither James Ramseur nor Bernard gets trusted the criminal justice system. They just came at it very differently. Right. They both believed. No, I'm dead serious here. They both believed that the system wasn't looking out for them. And they both had a great mistrust for the system. Now, Ram Cerf felt like.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Sorry to interrupt. They both used the word bullshit a bit. Little lot.

[Elliot Williams]

They both use the word bullshit a lot. And Ramcer felt that the defense and the judge were all aligned against him, that they were in cahoots with the prosecutor and they were lying and twisting his words. And I actually think if you just take off your educated or sophisticated person hat for a little bit and just think about. Imagine if you know nothing about the criminal justice system, are made to sit in a chair and answer hostile questions about things, things that you don't wanna talk about. It's actually quite jarring. And I even remember as a prosecutor, like, some witnesses really can be jerks back to you to their own detriment, like they're hurting their own case. But the simple fact is, why am I here? And I'm not gonna swear, but, like, f you, like, why are you asking me these questions? I'm not telling you about my girlfriend or where I was last night. And he took it really personally and just got riled up. And a number of the jurors felt, legitimately or not, that he just came off as angry and violent and aggressive. Now, they were not willing to give him much of the benefit of the doubt. And no matter how great he was, he wasn't gonna get much love and sympathy. But no, he did not do himself favors. And the judge, who was generally quite fair to all the parties, really read him the riot act at one point saying, you really did a great disservice to everything that this prosecution's trying to do by the way you behave today.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

And we'll be back with more of.

[Mike Pesca]

Elliot Williams after this.

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[Elliot Williams]

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[Elliot Williams]

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[Mike Pesca (Host)]

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[Elliot Williams]

Time.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Nice.

[Mike Pesca]

You got nine out of a lot.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Not too bad.

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[Mike Pesca]

We're back with Elliot Williams talking about Bernie Getz.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Now, as a prosecutor and you're a federal prosecutor, right? So the laws or the rules of a Manhattan court are a little looser and maybe surprising. But how shocking was it that they allowed to. Well, first of all, the jury took a field trip to a train, a subway car, even though they all took subway cars to work. But it apparently had a big effect on the jury. The second thing that I was shocked with, shocked by was that they allowed real life reenactment with the people who were standing in for the four youths weren't just court officers or dummies. They got members of the Guardian Angels, which people outside New York weren't around in 70s or 80s were these like anti tough street toughs. They were Curtis Slow was Sliwiz guys and they got all black, big, buff, tough looking guys from the Guardian Angels to stand in as the four youths who were shot. And I would assume that the Guardian Angels were even older and more menacing and tried to look menacing. And Curtis Sliwa described the expressions they looked on their face. Okay, so that's the question as a federal prosecutor from the relatively more genteel world of the federal judiciary, how shocking was this to you?

[Elliot Williams]

It's pretty shocking. Now, I think that, you know, one of the strengths of the book Five bullets, I can say, is one, the interview with Getz, which nobody else has done, and two, deep diving on this particular thing that you're touching on, Mike, because people haven't really covered this moment in the trial, I think. Because I do think it's a really, really.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

That's right.

[Elliot Williams]

It's a really, really big. Exactly. And I've read a bunch of books about Bernard Getz and preparing for this, and no one really got into it. So here's the thing. Most rules in court exist for the protection of defendants, right? It's stacked for the defendant's benefit. That's how the Constitution works. That's a good thing. You don't want, you know, Gestapo courts to just throw people in jail. So we have a lot of rules to protect us. Judges are. This judge in particular was cautious about saying no to the defendant. He admitted this to me, too cautious about saying no to the defendant, because he did not want to go so far that he said no to something that maybe the defendant was entitled to, that maybe guess was entitled to, because if he did that, he'd screw the whole case up and the whole thing would get thrown out. Right? So he said yes to a few things. Waples, the prosecutor, complained to me. Not complained to me about it, but just said, look, my gripe with Justice Crane was that he just gave the defense too much. He said yes to this. This reenactment. And it's important to note, Mike, you know, you call it a reenactment, and that's what we all call today. It was literally supposed to be a ballistics demonstration. It was supposed to be showing what the angles of bullets were and their velocity and speed. That literally could have been done on a chalkboard, not with people. Curtis Sliwa admits to me. He admitted to me, you know, that they knew about the races of the guys. They wanted the most menacing black guys they could find because they wanted the jury to feel, quote unquote, what Bernard Goetz felt. And it was totally. Not just racially coded, explicitly racial sort of play. Waples knew it, couldn't really do much about it, and sort of objected and kicked and screamed during it. And eventually afterward, the judge said, okay, I'm not going to do that again. If we need to do another reenactment, we'll just have court personnel do it. But it was a big gaff in the one place in the book Five Bullets, where I really. I wouldn't say I take Justice Crane to task, but I definitely was critical of what, you know, he didn't he did not have to allow that. And it was just a circus and a sideshow at the trial. Right.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

If we have to do it again, we'll get the Rock cats to stand in, we'll get the girls from the cast of Annie to buy, just to even things out. Want to go back? So Ramsur and the other youths might have been menacing, might have been somewhat aggressively, annoyingly, panhandling. Did have screwdrivers, weren't sharpened screwdrivers. The jury has to figure out explicitly what the threat was. But also there is the subconscious psychological effect on the jury. If they think these guys, quote, deserved it or were the bad kind of guys, or, you know, if they project themselves into the situation and say, I'd be scared because these guardian angels scared me, then you win an acquittal. This is how it works. So are we to conclude that if someone listens to this interview, so far it's a bunch of things that, that were pretty unfair and pretty racist and pretty not in line with what we would hope that the judicial process would deliver in terms of justice, even in the 80s. But is that the fairest conclusion?

[Elliot Williams]

It's hard to know what's fair. I mean, I think, and I continue to believe there was a path to convicting Bernard Getz. There was absolutely a path to saying that the action was unreasonable, either objectively or subjectively, given that there were maybe around 20 other people on the car who were bothered, various degrees of bothered by these guys, but certainly not threatened to the point of thinking, oh my God, I'm about to be mugged. Cause the critical standard is not just were you scared, but were you in apprehension of a robbery. That's what empowered or enabled the use of deadly force. And everybody else is in agreement. Yeah, these guys were loud and banging on the seats and asking for cigarettes and doing pull ups, but. And I just don't like what I'm seeing. But no one felt the need to sort of lash out. It was merely that approach from Canty to Getz that just seemed to trigger something. And this guy who already was walking around with a gun and like you said, perhaps looking for trouble or at least welcome to it if it were to come his way. And so there was absolutely a path, no matter what the jurors, the surviving ones say, there was absolutely a path that convicting gets. And it would have been completely defensible under the law to convict him.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Yeah, he was tweaking. I'd say he was vibrating on a defensive frequency. However, something that, okay, so you Were just talking about what constitutes self defense and it's fundamental to self defense law. Maybe not in stand your ground states, but you need to remove yourself. And if you can remove yourself from the situation or remove yourself from a threat, then you can't use deadly force. However, Waple said something like this, but the way he said it as a closing statement was something like, if you don't like the inherent danger of New York, then pack up your bags and leave. And I think as you convince me this did not play well with the jury, sort of the message, hey New Yorkers, you signed up to be harassed and threatened. And they, you know, that could have factored in to their decision as well.

[Elliot Williams]

Now, now a couple of things there now just to be clear so we don't get blown up in the comments. The retreat, there is no duty to retreat and there was no duty to retreat here because of the fear of a robbery. Some states, some jurisdictions have that, you know, you must try to retreat first. Here it was the deadly force would have been allowed regardless. Right, but that's, that doesn't mean you have to use it. He was just, he was empowered to use the deadly force. Now Waples did make that comment. If you think it's so bad, if your fragile sensibilities are so hurt, then just pack your bags and leave. And he actually had quite a bit of self awareness with me when I talked to him when I interviewed him. And he said, yeah, you know, I wish I hadn't framed it that way. But the underlying sentiment is true, which is for a guy that's lived in the city for five decades and constantly rails about how shitty it is and how much he hates it and hates the people and hates the accents. He doesn't like New York accents, which is a perplexing statement from a guy who's lived here for five years, 50 years, then pack up your bags and leave. And the jurors hated that comment. They found it insulting. They found it insulting to them. Many of them had been victims of crime and just seemed like in general prosecutors come into court and seen by many people as the arm of an oppressive state or as an uncaring state. And I just think they felt he felt like an ivory tower snob with Ivy League degrees pointing his nose or, you know, thumbing his nose at them. And they, they just, they did not like that universally, all 12 of them.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

So four kids were shot, there was one shooter. But there's a sixth character here that is acknowledged, not spelled out as perhaps ham handedly, as I Just said. But the sixth character is the city itself, which means more. It means this, but it means the media and the police and Ed Koch and the Zeitgeist. But I also think it very much means crime, and it means what. How people were experiencing safety. And that is very hard to capture. And I engage with a lot of gets media, which certainly says, here's what the crime rate was. And then maybe if people were alive and living in the city at that time. I was 13, you were 9. We understood what it meant to have the fake $20 bill in your. Not a real $20 bill in your pocket.

[Elliot Williams]

I know, but that's the one mugger.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

That's the one you give up. You give up for the mugger. I've never interviewed a mugger from that era. They didn't know about that. But anyway, it was so omnipresent and so different from what it even was a few years later that it's hard to understand.

[Elliot Williams]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

It's hard to put ourselves in the position that the people who would. That the jury of the peers would have been in.

[Elliot Williams]

Yeah, no, it's interesting and it's funny that you call it a character, because in effect, the first eight or nine chapters of the book are all about a character. Some of them are human, some of them are not. Right. I have one about the New York Post, a chapter about the New York Post, a chapter about the subway and the ride, but a chapter about New York, it's literally called the Powder Keg is what I call the first chapter of the book. And it's really about just how disordered and disorderly, I guess, New York City was in the 70s into the 1980s. Think about how, like, you know, we talked about the homicide rate being stratospherically high. The most telling example of all this is the riot, the blackout of 1977, where just for a little bit of history, the lights blackout. New York City blacks out for a night in 65, and it's romance and cheer and people out lying in the park and dancing and doing the waltz and sipping wine on their porches. 1977, the blackout happened and it was literally the purge. The lawlessness took over New York City for an entire evening. It literally was one of the roughest nights in city history. Far more arrests were made that night than following then were made following the 1968 riots. After Martin Luther King's death, it was just literally crime and violence took over the city. And some of that is a reflection of how rough the city was. It was mismanaged it was broke. Remember the headline, Ford to city, drop dead after the city had sought a bailout from the federal government. It was firing teachers, firing sanitation workers, workers not with clean balance sheets, mad at the last mayor, who was Abraham Beams. That's when Ed Koch came in to win. So it was just. There was just unrest taking the city over, and there was just a pervading feeling of mythic unrest and lack of safety.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

And the important point is it was real. Unlike you start the book with the story of Jordan Neely, which obviously reminded everyone of Bernie Goetz, but that happened at a time when there was a lot of disturbances in homelessness and there was an uptick after the pandemic. But, you know, crime comparatively. All right, city homicide spike in 91 at over 2,000, but well over 2,000. Okay. And it's in the three hundreds at murders are in the three hundreds when Neely commits his crime. So there is to compare the two eras. The reasonable reasonableness of threat and the concocted tabloid people might perceive it, but it just was one tenth the threat that it was in and around the Bernard Getz era was. I mean.

[Elliot Williams]

Yeah, and that's a really important point and question, Mike. Here's where it gets tricky, though. And I talk about this a little bit in the book Five Bullets, where we're sort of contextualizing and bringing it to the future or bring it to today, which is, yes, everything is safer now. Everybody's safer now. Objectively, the numbers are clear. Now, do people feel safe? I don't know. And why is that? And why and why might that not be the case? Now, the point I make in the book is that it is important for politicians to validate that fear. And I think this is something the Democrats completely effed up in 2024, which was saying, you know, look, man, I know you're saying you feel unsafe, but look at what the statistics are say, and just look, the homicide rate's lower, so you should be just fine. And it was seen as uncaring and aloof in many ways. People still, for whatever reason, feel unsafe. Now, that fear might be generated by the government. They might be making you more scared, the media might be making you more scared, but politicians have to figure out.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

How to address that.

[Elliot Williams]

The feelings of people, the vibes, even if the numbers don't align with that.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Well, yeah, let's also take into account that it was the. From 2019 to 2020 was the largest one year spike in percentage terms, not in absolute terms, but people, especially if they weren't alive in 1990. Right. So anyone, if you're under 5 years old, you're not paying attention. So everyone 35 and under wouldn't have even been alive during the worst years of murder for New York. So this is why I think when politicians try to allay your fears by pointing to a worse time 30 years earlier by denying the fact that things have risen by or murders have risen by 25, 30% in a city like New York, that's actually real. That's not just perception. A couple other questions to ask you that, that I must. One is there's another book about gets out now and it's by Heather Ann Thompson. And she asserts that Ramsor was in fact set up like as he was railing on the witness stand, that it was all a set up, that he wasn't involved in the rape. She gives that credence. Do you have any reason to believe that that's the case?

[Elliot Williams]

I don't. And God, God bless her. If her reporting discovered that I did not uncover that in my reporting, I would have certainly included it. If I did, that's an important exonerating fact. But it didn't, you know, he was convicted of it. He served a lot of time for it and don't. Did not have, you know, did not locate anything to suggest otherwise.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

There's also a complicating factor in that maybe in many cases, in the general narrative that the police want to make witnesses look bad. In this case, the police were motivated to make this witness look good because a gets conviction was very important to them. And there was another criminal case that he was involved with that they probably undercharged him with.

[Mike Pesca]

Right?

[Elliot Williams]

Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know if the police wanted to make gets look like by way of example, they wanted to make sure. Yeah. Oh, Ramsey, no. I don't know, man. It's complicated. This case upended everything that's normal about how people feel about crime and safety. I think the racial element to all of it is an important one and one we should not gloss over. Just people felt a certain way about this case. When Bernard Gets walked in, this defendant walked into trial for jury selection, about a couple dozen prospective jurors start applauding. Right. It was just different. The typically, you want crime victims on it. If you're a prosecutor, you want crime victims on the jury because they want to go after the defendant. No, here crime victims were sympathetic to the defendant. So it just. Everything was just upended and different and abnormal in this case. And it just, it's just hard to know where police's loyalties lie. You know, I mean, I think at the end of the trial, some of the court officers were weeping. And it's hard to know whether it was just so emotionally fraught and intense for months and months and months that they just released or if no, they were kind of glad that this was over and this guy got acquitted. It's just hard to know when the.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Jury delivered it's not guilty verdict on the major charges. You write in the book the law supported Getz's acquittal, but I wanna nail you down. That's very lawyerly, a lawyerly phrase. Do you think that they were right to vote for his acquittal?

[Elliot Williams]

I think they could have convicted him. And that's, it's hard for me to say and it is very lawyerly right or wrong. I think they could have convicted him and I wouldn't even go as far as say they should have convicted him. So if that's, you know, good enough to say they were wrong, yeah, they should have convicted him. It's just, and forget reasonableness, just look at the confession. The man said, I tried to murder them. And I just, this is an intelligent man. He's an engineer, he's a bright man. He says, I intended to murder them and I wanted to make them suffer. He told police knowingly and voluntarily that he intended to do it. Now we can validate the fact that New York was safe. He was afraid, he was scared, this and that. But there's a man who walked around with an illegal firearm in his pocket that he pulled on people twice and said to police that he intended to murder. Now, if that's not grounds for a murder conviction, and if you're going to say that the words he said to police were because he was scared, because his life was upended and he was on the run for nine days. I mean, you're validating him being a fugitive. Like, come on, folks. So I just, you know, at the risk of saying, yeah, I mean, I, I will always support an acquittal as a prosecutor and I know that sounds a little goofy, but I just believe the system works when people are acquitted. That's the way it's to supposed, supposed to work. And sometimes guilty people are supposed to go free. But come on, I mean, just the guy, the guy said he did it. He knew he did it. He had a gun, he admitted it. Come on.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Elliot Williams is a CNN legal analyst. He is a former federal prosecutor, a former official with the Department of Justice and Homeland Security. And his new book, what Adjectives can I give it? Authoritative is not an adjective, but it certainly is.

[Elliot Williams]

That is one you should buy whatever it is. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Oh yeah. Purchasable. His new book is Five Bullets, the story of Bernie Getz, New York's explosive 80s in the subway vigilante trial that divided a nation. Thanks Elliot.

[Elliot Williams]

Thanks Mike. This is great.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Corey War is the producer of the Gist.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

Kathleen Sykes helps me with the Gist list. Great pesky profundities piece out today. Jeff Craig is in charge of moving images.

[Mike Pesca]

You know, he also does some audio editing.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

I don't like to brag too much about Jeff. Multi talented fellow Leah Yan is the production coordinator of Peach Fish Productions. And Michelle Pesca is the CEO in Quite a coup for Peach Fish Productions in Peru. G Peru.

[Elliot Williams]

Do Peru.

[Mike Pesca (Host)]

And thanks for listening.

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