Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences (44 page)

The constant contact and questions from newspapers, magazines, and complete strangers had caused them to retreat. Even now there was tremendous public interest. Reporters and camera crews had gathered outside the Brooklyn courthouse, much as their counterparts of a generation ago had done at the Queens courthouse in 1964.

Sidney Sparrow also spoke with the press. He dismissed Moseley as a liar who was trying to get out of prison any way he could. Sparrow said that his representation of Kitty on a minor gambling charge in 1961 had no bearing on his later representation of Moseley. Kitty Genovese was one client among thousands. He barely knew her, and he certainly had no personal feeling toward her beyond the basic sympathy for anyone with such a fate as hers. Moreover, Sparrow had informed both Winston Moseley and Judge J. Irwin Shapiro of his prior representation of the victim well before the trial commenced in 1964. “I’ve been practicing 59 years,” Sparrow told a reporter for the
New York Daily News
. “I’ve had about 10 or 12 cases where the defendant was accused of homicide, and I had represented the victim.”

Sparrow said this to Judge Frederic Block as well when he took the witness stand on the morning of July 24.

The front row of the courtroom was occupied by Kitty’s family—her sister Susan; her brothers, Vincent, Frank, and Bill, who entered the courtroom in his wheelchair; and two of her surviving aunts.
Vincent Genovese had told reporters that morning that they intended to stare directly at Winston Moseley. “We hope the stare goes right through him.”

They had their first look at their sister’s killer when he entered through a side door. Susan believed that he had briefly made eye contact with her as he had walked in. She later told reporters that she had felt an angry urge to approach him and ask, “Do I resemble anybody?”

SIDNEY SPARROW WAS
the first to give testimony. Under direct questioning by Moseley’s attorney, Barry Rhodes, Sparrow explained how and when he had been assigned by Judge Shapiro to represent Winston Moseley. Despite the passage of three decades and his advanced age, Sparrow was remarkably sharp of mind and quite thorough in his recollections. Sidney Sparrow had also kept very meticulous records throughout his years of practice. He had his day books and legal calendars for every case he had handled dating back to the 1930s: a record of his daily activity for each day of the preceding fifty-nine years. As a result, he was able to give the court the exact date and circumstances under which he had represented Catherine Genovese: September 5, 1961. She and a co-defendant had been convicted on a minor gambling charge. Sparrow had also represented them on appeal, getting their sentences reduced to a fine rather than both a fine and five days in jail. Sparrow, of course, also had a record of the dates of sentence, appeal, and adjournments.

Sidney Sparrow explained that in those days he had as many as thirty cases a day on his calendar; not that he tried that many in a day, but small-time gambling charges were very prevalent at that time. A trial on such a charge typically lasted about five minutes.

He had met Kitty and her co-defendant (along with a small crowd of others he was defending) in the hallway of the courthouse on the day of their own five-minute trial. After that date, he had seen her again on November 15 when they had another equally brief court appearance. Subsequent to that, Sparrow had filed an appeal brief for Kitty and her co-defendant but he had no personal contact with her at that time. In all, he had spoken with her two times at the most. His contact with
Kitty Genovese had been fleeting. He had spent very little time with her, and did not know her at all on an even remotely personal level.

As for his other cases, felony or otherwise, Sparrow had never represented crime boss Vito Genovese.

They rehashed his representation of Moseley. Sparrow explained very plainly why he had felt that insanity was Moseley’s only defense. Moreover, Sparrow had believed that Moseley was insane.

Sparrow explained the comments in question that he had made in the courtroom back in 1964. When he had said that he didn’t try the case “calmly, objectively,” he had meant that he shared the feeling of horror that the jurors and observers obviously felt over the defendant’s monstrous acts. He further explained that Judge Shapiro cut him off before he could complete his sentence that he had represented Kitty Genovese
four years ago
, not “for years.”

Sparrow maintained that his representation of Kitty Genovese had had no bearing at all on his representation of her killer. “I’m a lawyer. As a lawyer I do a job. I think I do the best damn job that a lawyer can do. I always did and I always will as long as I continue to be able to.” He had given Winston Moseley the best defense that he possibly could.

Rhodes asked why Sparrow had not asked for either a change of venue or a delay and Sparrow said there would have been no advantage to either. He felt that Moseley, as a black man accused of murdering a white woman, had a better chance of getting a fair trial in New York City than perhaps anywhere else at the time. Delaying the trial until the publicity died down was not an option, as evidenced by the crowd of reporters at the courthouse now, thirty years later.

Assistant District Attorney Gene Reibstein pointed this out on cross-examination, asking Sparrow to confirm that he had been stopped by a horde of reporters on his way into the courtroom this morning. Even the current President of the United States, Bill Clinton, had within the past year remarked on the Kitty Genovese case during a speech.

Going over the details of Moseley’s open admissions at the time, Reibstein had little problem showing that Sidney Sparrow had used sound judgment in pursuing an insanity defense. Sidney Sparrow also had proof that Moseley had agreed with this defense: Sparrow
brought with him the tape recording made of his pre-trial interview with Moseley from 1964, on which Moseley had said he understood and agreed. The DA also produced a letter that Moseley had written to the court dated June 4, 1964:

SIDNEY SPARROW’S GOAL
in 1964 had been to save Winston Moseley’s life. As evidenced by Moseley’s presence in a courtroom in 1995, and as the assistant district attorneys now pointed out, he had been successful.

On redirect, Barry Rhodes said, “If I heard you correctly, Mr. Sparrow, you’re taking credit for saving Winston Moseley’s life?”

“I’m not taking credit for that,” Sparrow answered. “I’m taking credit for having done as good a job of an attorney as I could.”

Sidney Sparrow thought that Judge Shapiro had saved Moseley’s life. The death sentence had been reversed because of Shapiro’s error at the sentencing hearing, when the judge had not allowed the defense attorney to present evidence of medical insanity as a mitigating factor. Sparrow suspected that Shapiro had made the error deliberately.

Winston Moseley took the stand. Speaking so softly that Judge Block had to ask him twice to keep his voice up, Moseley told the court, in response to his attorney’s questions, that his 1964 confession had not been “voluntary in the sense that you would define it in the dictionary.” He had confessed, he said, because the police had held him at the station for fifteen or sixteen hours, during which he was given no food, no beverages of any kind, and had not been allowed
to use the restroom. He now claimed he had been “Struck in the face but not hard enough to leave a mark; struck in the stomach and chest but nowhere where a mark would show and my father was arrested.” He further said that he had told all of these things to Mr. Sparrow at the time.

He said he had first become aware that Sidney Sparrow had represented Kitty Genovese when a reporter from
Newsday
had written him a letter in 1979 telling him so. Asked why he had waited until 1989 to file suit, he said he did not have the minutes of his trial because all of his records had been lost in the Attica uprising of 1971. Between 1979 and 1989, he had needed to get someone to read the trial minutes for him and then he had taken his time to make sure he got things written properly.

When Judge Block asked the assistant district attorney if he had any questions for Winston Moseley, Gene Reibstein replied, “Oh, yes, your Honor.” Approaching the witness, Reibstein said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Moseley. I hardly know where to begin.”

The judge asked Reibstein to avoid the comments.

Gene Reibstein had done his homework. He had not only carefully reviewed the original trial transcript and case file, but had also spoken with Charles Skoller, Phillip Chetta (the former assistant district attorney who had taken Moseley’s statement), and some of the original investigating detectives, including John Tartaglia. Long retired from the police department, Tartaglia lived in a small house in a peaceful stretch of Long Island where he indulged his hobby of making handcrafted bird houses. The former detective remembered very clearly his meeting thirty years before with the icy killer, as did everyone else who had encountered the disarmingly placid man. The district attorney had vowed to re-try Moseley in the event his petition was successful. John Castellano and Gene Reibstein had devoted considerable time to speaking with the surviving police and attorneys involved in order to learn as much as they could about what had transpired in 1964.

Reibstein had come well prepared to impeach Moseley on his new claims.

The first and most obvious was Moseley’s assertion that he knew nothing of Sparrow’s representation of Kitty until 1979. On crossexamination, he admitted that he had heard Sparrow mention it at the trial back in 1964.

Moseley remained unruffled when Gene Reibstein caught him in lies. As always, nothing seemed to ruffle this man.

The questioning did not last long. The only other witness to testify at the hearing was Kitty’s brother, Vincent.

John Castellano asked, “Do you recall the early morning of March 13th, 1964?”

“Vividly.”

“Do you recall what happened that morning?”

“There was a knock at the door at approximately 6:00 a.m. The local police informed us of a tragedy that had occurred and described what it was. We were obviously—it was a nightmare. There was confusion, chaos.”

“Did someone have to identify the body of your sister?”

“Yes,” Vincent answered. “That was my Uncle Vito.”

“Are you aware that there have been certain allegations or suggestions in this courtroom about the connection between your family and the so-called Genovese Organized Crime Family?” Castellano asked.

“Yes, I’m aware of that.”

“Is there any truth to those at all?”

“Absolutely not.

“Are you aware that there was a man at the head of the Genovese Organized Crime Family named Vito Genovese?”

“Yes.”

“Is that man your uncle?”

“Absolutely not.”

Barry Rhodes did not cross-examine. Considering how deeply the Genovese crime family had been investigated by authorities, it was easy enough to prove that this particular Genovese family was no relation. It was just one more indignity for the family of Kitty Genovese to endure.

On November 13, 1995, Judge Frederic Block denied Moseley’s petition, ruling that Sidney Sparrow had provided him with
“effective, competent, and capable counsel.” Block also found “truly overwhelming proof of Moseley’s guilt,” and that Moseley’s testimony at the July 24 hearing was not credible. On cross-examination, it had become apparent that Moseley had lied, both at his parole board hearings and about certain things that had transpired in 1964.

As the years passed, Winston Moseley would not be the only one to give a drastically revised version of what happened in March of 1964.

PART THREE

TWILIGHT

I was wrong, after all, to tell you that the essential was to avoid judgment. The essential is being able to permit oneself everything, even if, from time to time, one has to profess vociferously one’s own infamy.

Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

The Fall
by Albert Camus

They said no one called the police, but I know that 17 people called—some called
twice
. The police didn’t respond because they thought it was just another brawl at the bar. You know, since the incident, I have never driven home alone at night.

Connie, last name withheld, resident of the Mowbray, quoted in
Memories
magazine, 1989

We don’t know what happened here. What happened that night has become a myth. It is what we have read about. We don’t know what is true and what is myth. This event doesn’t exist.

Old-time resident of Kew Gardens quoted in
Newsday
, March 11, 1984

chapter 20

HAROLD TAKOOSHIAN FELT
great empathy for Kitty Genovese, as he did for all crime victims. He also found bystander inaction to be a very troubling and all too common problem.

Takooshian received his Ph.D in social-personality psychology from City University of New York in 1979. He joined the faculty of Fordham University in New York City as a professor of psychology. Early on, Professor Takooshian conducted numerous studies on bystander inaction. With the participation of his students and colleagues, he staged crimes such as auto break-ins, bicycle thefts, and pickpocketing on New York City streets with the goal of seeing if anyone passing by would question the thief or call for help. Many of these experiments were filmed.