Nation IN BRIEF : NEW YORK : NRA Unit Helping Fund Goetz Defense

The defense of subway gunman Bernard Goetz is being partly financed by a legal group founded by the National Rifle Assn., the New York Times reported. The Firearms Civil Rights Legal Defense Fund has contributed $20,000 to Goetz’s defense in the civil trial; it gave the same amount for his criminal trial, the paper said. The civil trial included the testimony of a now-dead witness who said he saw Goetz shoot an unresisting, terrified black youth in 1984. The witness testified in the 1987 criminal trial in which Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder in the shooting of four youths.