http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-gold1202,0,4654154.story?coll=nyc-homepage-headlines
Appeals court upholds Goldstein’s subway push conviction
By The Associated Press
December 1, 2004, 12:59 PM EST
A state appeals court in Manhattan has affirmed the murder conviction
of Andrew Goldstein, the mentally ill man who admitted he killed a
young woman by pu****ng her in front of a subway train in 1999.
Goldstein, 34, was convicted of second-degree murder on March 22,
2000, for pu****ng Kendra Ann Webdale, 32, of Fredonia, N.Y., in front
of an oncoming train in a Manhattan subway station. He is serving a
sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
A four-judge panel of the State Supreme Court's Appellate Division
unanimously rejected Golstein's five claims, all related to the
mentally crippling schizophrenia he had suffered since he was a
teenager. The court found him responsible for the crime.
"In general, we find that the record evidence overwhelmingly
establishes defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," the appeals
judges wrote, "and that he failed to establish a lack of
responsibility due to mental disease or defect." "Based upon the
uncontroverted testimony regarding his planning and execution of the
carefully measured attack upon Ms. Webdale," the panel wrote, "he
clearly understood both the nature and consequences of his conduct and
that it was wrong." Just before he was sentenced on May 4, 2000, by
Justice Carol Berkman, Goldstein said, "I would like to apologize to
the parents of Ms. Webdale and say that if I had taken my medication
that whole thing would never have happened."
Because Goldstein attacked Webdale while refusing to take his
anti-psychotic medicine, a law was enacted that allows violent mental
patients to be medicated by force. It is called "Kendra's Law."
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