The Nation - News from Dec. 9, 1987
Four white teen-agers accused of killing a black man in New York’s Howard Beach case are victims of a prosecutor’s “whitewash,” a defense lawyer argued in state Supreme Court in Queens. Stephen Murphy characterized black victims of the alleged assault as “bad apples” who provoked the incident. Murphy said an effort to impress a girl who said she was frightened by the blacks earlier, not racism, was the motivation for the clash between the white youths and three black men in the Howard Beach section of Queens last Dec. 20. Murphy was the first of four defense lawyers to present closing arguments.
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