Goetz’s Legal Battles Seem Unending After Shootings : New York: The so-called Subway Vigilante was acquitted of the most serious criminal charges, but he faces a $50-million civil suit filed by one of the four youths he shot during what he calls a mugging.

NEW YORK —  When Bernhard Goetz opened fire in 1984, the shots reverberated across the nation.

The subway-car shooting of four poor black youths by a middle-class white man--maybe during a mugging, maybe not--was seized by advocates on either side of every urban issue: Crime. Race. Gun control. Vigilante justice.

“Bernie Goetz was the most recognized face in the world,” recalled his former attorney, Barry Slotnick. “He was loved or hated by everyone who came in contact with him--there was no in between.”

Eight years later, Bernie Goetz is a faded headline, a Billy Joel lyric, a Trivial Pursuit question. The talk shows and the tabloids have moved on.

But Bernie Goetz is still fighting the same fight, still protesting his innocence, although in a different forum--the Bronx courthouse.

There, Bronx Civil Court Case No. 6747-85, Cabey vs. Goetz--a $50-million suit filed by shooting victim Darrell Cabey--creeps toward judgment.

The suit was filed within weeks of the shooting, but has yet to get near the inside of a trial court. Cabey lawyer Ronald Kuby is hopeful of a winter opening, but there are no guarantees. And an appeal of any verdict would extend the case by untold years.

For Goetz, the case is a constant reminder of his odyssey through the criminal and civil courts.

For Cabey, it’s a chance to get something from the man who admits announcing, “You don’t look too bad, here’s another” before pumping a bullet into his spine. Cabey was left in a wheelchair, with possible brain damage.

Goetz will conduct his second deposition of Cabey later this year. It follows 2 1/2 years of haggling since Cabey’s first appearance, where the 25-year-old said he did not remember getting on the subway, did not remember the names of the three teens with him, did not remember the shooting.

But Goetz and other New Yorkers find it hard to forget.

Goetz was headed to a Christmas party when he was approached by one of four black youths. Two carried sharpened screwdrivers, although they never brandished them. One told Goetz, “Give me $5.”

“At that point I knew I was being mugged,” Goetz said six years later. “I stood up, I drew my gun, and I shot all four of them.”

Three youths quickly recovered. Cabey, the only one of the four without a prior criminal conviction, never did. He became a paraplegic who nearly died while in an extended coma.

Goetz became a defendant. He still is.

Goetz’s five-year career as a criminal defendant included two grand juries, one trial jury, acquittal on attempted murder, conviction on gun possession, an unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, 250 days in jail, parole.

But there seems to be no end to his career as a civil defendant. Goetz, still media-shy, expressed optimism in a recent telephone interview--sort of.

“I’m doing well in court--well, maybe I shouldn’t say that,” said Goetz, who took over as his own attorney in January, 1990.

Asked about living with the case for the last 8 1/2 years, he responded, “Well, whatever.” Then he politely excused himself.

His feelings are clearer in his court filings.

“I’ve always maintained that I was surrounded in the process of being mugged by the plaintiff,” Goetz said in moving for a dismissal. “Your honor, I shouldn’t be victimized any further.”

Darrell Cabey’s financial situation is clearly as bad as the man he’s suing, but his physical status is one of the main reasons for the trial’s repeated delays.

Goetz’s doctor examined Cabey and found the shooting victim was “exaggerating his impairment”; Cabey’s doctor found the youth scored too low to rank on one intelligence test and at the level of an Alzheimer’s sufferer on another.

A court-appointed attorney came down somewhere in between. Cabey, although “competent to testify as a young child might,” would likely provide nothing meaningful, said Dr. Martin I. Lubin.

Cabey has worked on and off answering phones at a United Cerebral Palsy office in Manhattan where he undergoes rehabilitation. At the September, 1990, deposition conducted by attorney Goetz, a bewildered Cabey was unable to remember names, places, events. The session included this exchange.

Goetz: “Darrell, do you know what this lawsuit is about?”

Cabey: “No.”

Goetz: “Darrell, do you know why we’re here today?”

Cabey: “I done something wrong.”

That will be for a Bronx jury to decide--sometime. Maybe then this case which began so long ago in a Manhattan subway car will reach its destination.