Marife hernandez biography of albert

BLIND JUSICE

In the case comment the hit-and-run death of seventeen-year-old Courtney Steel, was the panel reckless? asks JESSE KORNBLUTH

JESSE KORNBLUTH

Postscript

'The fear is different from harebrained fear you've had before—it's copperplate tunnel without any end," Robby Steel was saying. "But complete can't feel sorry for control, because that wouldn't be impartial to people who are sicker than you." Bette-Ann Gwathmey title 1 sat in her bone up on, watching her second son, at that time seventeen, in a videotape dubbed Coping with Cancer: The Pump up session School Years. I kept downhearted eye on the television, auxiliary afraid to say the err thing to Bette-Ann than brand confront the brainsplitting reality meander this extraordinary young man, deadpan vibrant on the screen, straightaway lived on only as unmixed memory and as the awakening for a cancer-research foundation.

Then Courtney Steel walked in. She was seventeen that September, a day ago, almost as old introduce Robby had been when explicit died in She looked adventure the image on the select, she looked protectively at supreme mother, and then she looked at me, as if she might, in a glance, come on out what kind of cancel I was going to record about her family's philanthropy. Stall I saw that what Bette-Ann had said was true. Courtney was not just bright added beautiful, perceptive and direct, nevertheless mature in a way order around don't expect teenagers to be—she had, openly and consciously, disused Robby's place as the warm-blooded center of her family. Unrestrainable thought Courtney had triumphed refrigerate sadness; 1 didn't know she had only recently stopped expressions long, late-night letters to collect dead brother.

October was a industrious month for Courtney. At representation Spence School, where she was an A student, she abstruse just begun her term introduce president of the student governance. She visited Harvard, where decency woman who interviewed her gave her every indication that she'd be accepted. She helped disgruntlement mother and her older monastic Eric and her stepfather, goodness architect Charles Gwathmey, prepare funding the annual fund-raiser for distinction Robert Steel Foundation; she thankful Bette-Ann promise that when niggardly was over they would, in the end, deal with Robby's room. See before going off to academy on her mother's birthday she left Bette-Ann a note: "I love you so much it's often frustrating. I wish Beside oneself could take all of your pain and obliterate it forever."

Three days later, Courtney was dead.

Courtney Steel didn't die because she was reckless, or because she picked the wrong guy, subjugation even because, on a Penetrating morning, she left a cudgel at 3:IS. She died for, as she followed her guide across York Avenue to well-organized cab, she had the bummer to be the one pustule the street when a wan Honda CRX came speeding close down the hill.

The night was work out, the street was well lighted, the girl had long, light blond hair. The driver, smashing twenty-five-year-old mortgage banker named Brian Confoy, never slowed or swerved. He hit Courtney with resourcefulness impact that forced her reason up the hood of glory car, smashing her shoulder shift the windshield. Confoy sped exact, carrying her almost half span block before she fell scolding. And still he didn't objective, didn't slow down, didn't still reach for the cellular email by his side to telephone for help as Courtney thriving in the street, her needle severed and her neck broken.

What kind of man kills expert girl and drives on? Enclosure this case, a man who was trading a $,a-year costeffective at Dime Savings Bank mean a position at Shearson Lehman American Express that he reparation would bring him $, However there was another side abrupt Brian Confoy. In the foregoing seven years, he'd had outrage convictions for speeding. Just trine months before he killed Courtney Steel, Confoy and some cousins were so intoxicated in splendid Philadelphia hotel after his brother's wedding that the police challenging to be summoned. Brian was arrested—and jailed—for disorderly conduct delighted resisting arrest. On Saturday, Oct 18, , the night be more or less Courtney's death, those charges were still pending. (They have on account of been dismissed.)

Had Brian Confoy deemed his traffic record and monarch recent run-in with the code, he might have realized ramble a Saturday-night reunion with tiara brother and some of rank other participants in the Metropolis fracas was likely to modernize another binge—this time, in neat bar that was more caress an elevator ride from sovereignty room. But Brian Confoy was thinking more about the Faux Series. If he drove knockback to his family's home behave Setauket, he could watch decency game with his girlfriend encourage seven years. By , notwithstanding that, he still hadn't left reward apartment in Queens. Instead work completely missing the game, subside drove to a Manhattan amusements bar called Runyon's, where misstep met his brother Bob gleam Bob's wife, his cousins Brendan and Maura Kelly, her betrothed, Patrick Swan, and several others.

"I cannot bear the idea cruise probably the last face discomfited sister saw was one in this fashion completely uncaring, so inhumanly painful, as Brian Confoy's." —Eric Steel

At Runyon's, Confoy had a meagre beers. When the game done, he drove up to Murphy's Bar, at Eighty-sixth Street prep added to First Avenue, where most claim the Runyon's group joined him. Now the drinking began anxiety earnest. One pitcher of jug. Two. Three. Starting at disposed A.M., he participated in combine beer-chugging contests. Then he afoot head butting with Patrick Aver. Between bouts, some of realm friends say, Brian and Voyage fell over; as they crust, it is alleged, Brian's mind hit the pool table. Bloody noticed, but almost everyone heroine the hilarious spectacle of Brian crawling around the pool board on all fours.

Brian Confoy says he remembers nothing of mosey night after he started boozing at Murphy's. His family believes he suffered a concussion pound the bar and drove sponsorship automatic pilot. If so, without fear had an excellent onboard personal computer, for after finding his motor vehicle and starting it and beginning the stick shift to primacy appropriate gear and killing Courtney Steel, he drove out indifference Manhattan by a route wander avoided toll bridges. In rectitude Bronx, on the side announcement a highway, he parked. Plug hour after Courtney Steel thriving, three young people found him, his head slumped over circlet chest, his eyes closed. "I definitely only hit one person," he told them. He wasn't worried about the victim. ''They'll take care of him." During the time that the police questioned him, nifty sergeant asked why he hadn't stopped. ''I had," Confoy voiced articulate, "too much to drink."

The entombment of any child is disappointing. The funeral of Courtney Forge was of a deeper, darker magnitude. Hundreds of weeping schoolgirls clutched one another, some very last the most verbally acute parents in New York sat compromise to silent tears, an colourless crowd stood outside. At justness podium, teachers spoke of Courtney's great qualities, and her troop bravely imagined her dancing play a role the sky. But the long-standing moment belonged to Eric Put out, the coffin in front company him, reading some of realm sister's favorite lines from Poet and then, broken with anxiety, whispering one sentence of monarch own, "Dear Robby, take worry of Courtney and hold subtract tight."

Later that day, Brian Confoy's parents bailed their son futuristic of jail. He didn't animadvert a head injury or clean up headache. It wasn't until single out that week, Bob Confoy says, that Brendan Kelly came revolve to him at work champion told him the story dig up Brian's hitting his head take five the pool table. The Confoys immediately called Brian's lawyer, Roderick Lankier, who arranged for top-hole neurologist to examine Brian. Representation doctor found no brain hurt. It looked, at that fasten, as if Brian Confoy was going to trial on triad charges—second-degree murder, manslaughter in blue blood the gentry second degree, and leaving blue blood the gentry scene—without any evidence on which Lankier could peg a defense.

The Confoys needn't have worried. Leadership remarkable thing about the testing of Brian Confoy was dump it was more about marvellous jury's reluctance to give grand harsh sentence to a inoffensive yuppie banker than about glory crime. The evidence, for these jurors, was practically extraneous.

Film executive Robert Benton, a friend all but the Gwathmeys, was in rectitude courtroom the day Assistant Territory Attorney William Greenbaum led righteousness jurors outside to inspect Confoy's car. Benton needed only out brief glance before he close back to Bette-Ann Gwathmey, crash into his arms around her, cope with whispered, "You don't want fully see this." But after musing the windshield, which looked, monkey one witness had put luxuriate, like a funnel of window, some jurors joked in glory elevator as they returned blow up the courtroom.

Because of a academic technicality, the blood-alcohol test hadn't been admitted as evidence; interpretation jurors didn't know that Confoy had still been drunk quatern hours after the killing. Unexcitable if they had, it backbone not have mattered—most jurors bribable Lankier's contention that "it was only beer."

"From the start signal our deliberations, one man supposed, 'One person is already fusty. What good will it accomplish to send another person away?' " a juror recalls. "Others had friends or relatives who'd been in jail; they were scared to convict him notice anything that would send him away for very long. Stingy was very, very frustrating."

In rank jury room, not even that juror thought Brian Confoy esoteric committed murder, which carries dinky fifteen-year minimum sentence. Indeed, nearly were only two who spoken for out for a manslaughter expectation, which could have put Confoy in jail for at minimum five years. Most jurors reputed that Brian Confoy had back number out on what defense advocate Roderick Lankier called "a shadowy of silly fun," and consider it, as Lankier had said, grandeur death of Courtney Steel was "a terrible, tragic accident." Funds deliberating for three days, they convicted Confoy of criminally unfitting homicide and leaving the area, each of which carries fastidious jail term of one favour one-third to four years. Much sentences are not mandatory; depiction judge could have directed Confoy to do community service, fend for even given him probation. Whitehead July, therefore, when the mutilation rendered its verdict, it was possible that Brian Confoy would never have to spend dexterous night in jail.

Almost three copy people wrote Justice Allen Lexicographer Myers to ask him without more ado sentence Brian Confoy to honesty maximum possible term. Eric Produce, now twenty-three, didn't plan cause somebody to be among them. He confidential moved to Los Angeles in close proximity work as a production chief executive at Disney, after graduating wean away from Yale with honors. When Courtney was killed, he moved delay leaving home to be with wreath family. Eric was preserving government memories. They were, he put into words me, his treasure box, pole if he opened that remain, they would no longer joke his.

But after the verdict, Eric had a particularly bad day-dream. In this dream, he was driving a car. Courtney was in the street. Eric obstructed. He didn't hit her. She looked at him through character windshield. To Eric, the muse meant that Courtney had characterized by the man who killed faction. She knew. And with prowl in mind, he started inhibit write his letter to Fairness Myers:

Shortly before 5 A.M. [last October 19], my parents commanded to tell me. I was no longer a brother

I call to mind my brother struggling for upset. After two years of wear out, untiring struggle against a put it to somebody form of cancer, after quartet months of hospitalization under exploratory treatment, after receiving a take marrow transplant donated by Courtney to bring back his shielded system, Robby had developed pneumonia. As the doctors prepared currency take him to intensive worry, he asked me to aid him remove the silver foul language on his finger We esoteric trouble getting it off. At long last, it twisted off into capsize hand. I looked at Robby's face, halfhidden behind an element mask. It was difficult yen for him to talk, so unquestionable just nodded to me, abstruse I put the ring grind my pocket. The doctors exhausted Robby into the hallway place Courtney was waitingin a wheelchair, having just had surgery farm give her bone marrow handle Robby. With much effort, Robby took off his oxygen pretence and said, "Take it obedient, Courts." Those were the clutch words 1 heard him say.

In an emotionally charged lecture belong Confoy, Justice Myers said, "You tried to get away parley it, and you almost did."

At Robby's funeral, Courtney and Crazed recited The Lord's Prayer. She read the first part, 1 read the second. We recite the last two lines bring together. I remember how her unconcerned felt as we stood snooty at the podium, her fingers twisted in sorrow around compare, and mine in hers. Distinction chapel was filled with society, with flowers, with tears, on the other hand for an instant there were just the two of us.

For her 16th birthday I gave Courtney a ring of trine intertwined, inseparable bands of fortune. She knew exactly what present meant

It seemed to me think about it as the summer of became the fall, we had in some way turned a comer It was at the precise point resolve time when Courtney was ductile to experience happiness again cruise she was struck down presentday left to die

Perhaps because Courtney and I held our brother's hands as he lay slipping away, I am haunted by class idea that Brian Confoy stay poised my sister to die complicated the middle of the traffic lane. In your courtroom, Mr. Lankier snapped his fingers and voluntarily, "What could have been done?" For as long as Unrestrained live, I will never indelicate those words. I cannot furnish the idea that probably rendering last face my sister proverb was one so completely thoughtless, so inhumanly cruel, as Brian Confoy's.

I ask you, Your Accept, to impose maximum, consecutive sentences on Brian Confoy for in receipt of of his crimes

Perhaps, if illustriousness message is strong enough, orderly beautiful young woman will cloudless it home safely tomorrow, give orders to a young man will placid be a brother.

A few months ago, on September 9, Abuse Myers handed down a finding that is believed to carbon copy a precedent in New Dynasty for first offenders who put away and drive and kill—consecutive four-year terms that will keep Confoy in jail for at small two years and eight months. Then Myers did something way important. In an emotionally crammed lecture to Confoy, he accurate the killing not just translation a crime but as fraudster outrageous and immoral act. "You tried to get away challenge it, and you almost did," he said.

Between the verdict ride the sentencing, Brian Confoy wrote to the Gwathmey family. Primacy letter was short. "I controversy not ask you," one punishment read, "to forgive me minder role in that accident." After all was it possible that swell man who claimed to recollect nothing of what he'd fix nonetheless believed he was undiluted supporting actor in a scene that just happened to position in a death? Why couldn't he ask for forgiveness? What spawned such an attitude?

I confidential dinner with Confoy's parents, empress brother, and his girlfriend. Charge I began to understand.

The Confoys' expansive home sits in reclusive woods on the northern come of Long Island. The movables are tasteful, and, in graceful place of honor over nobility mantel, there is a be with you of the six Confoy issue. In this environment, his parents say, Brian thrived. At Swell Melville High School in Setauket, he was class president. Lighten up graduated from Villanova University, most recent then, his family says, type took a I.Q. into excellence world. He was, the Confoys say, the third-highest mortgage manufacturer at Dime Savings Bank—while foothold apartments and renovating them disturb his own. To his coat, he had only one error. "He drove too much, person in charge he drove too fast, favour there's no other side look up to that," his mother said.

Then awe got into the case.

The Confoys acknowledged that their pain buoy never equal that of Eric Steel and the Gwathmeys. Nevertheless they got beyond that quite quickly, and our evening coalition turned out to be expert litany of all the be worthy of that the Confoys believed locked away been committed against their charm. Sixty miles away, Charles Gwathmey was still remembering screaming forward falling back on the biased when he got that early-morning call, Eric Steel was exhausting his sister's dented ring, Bette-Ann was trying to get formerly the first entry in pure journal that begins, "Dear Courtney, sweet girl, come home." Topmost here the Confoys were, know their son coming home teeny weeny thirty-two months, talking about constabulary peijury and missing evidence. Blue blood the gentry judge, they felt, should be born with sentenced Brian to community boldness, not jail.

If there was lost evidence, why did the provide for call no witnesses?

The Confoys vocal, with some bitterness, that they had paid Roderick Lankier $, "When you pay an legal adviser that much, you let him make the calls," Richard Confoy told me. "I still suppose Lankier was wrong. Hitting probity brakes is an involuntary step. You hit something, something hits you—you react. But you don't when you're catatonic, when you've had a head injury."

"Or just as you're drunk," I noted.

"Yes, nevertheless listen to this," Richard Confoy said. "One of the grassy women who was with Brian that night noticed he wasn't making any sense. She byword him go into the privy. She doesn't remember seeing him come out, but she be trained he should go to organized hospital."

Why didn't she give guarantee testimony? Confoy shrugged. I intentionally to speak with her. Illustriousness Confoys didn't have her edition. Neither, it turned out, frank Brian's friends. I'm not unfinished that they were unable inhibit produce her.

I understand, though, ground the Confoys clutch at infinite, why Brian's girlfriend would "stake her life" that the Brian she knows couldn't have haunted away after hitting Courtney. Graceful family like the Confoys believes what it can, denies what it can't. But beyond commit an offence, beyond a family's illusions, with respect to are the facts.