A Question of Responsibility

By Richard Lacayo

Every year in the U.S. more than 1,000 children die from physical abuse, but Lisa Steinberg is the one whose name is stamped in the public mind. Though her short, unhappy life of six years was spent in a middle-class Manhattan household, it was in circumstances of stunning callousness and squalor. Joel Steinberg, 47, the disbarred attorney who illegally adopted her, spent days at a time in a cocaine stupor. His live-in companion Hedda Nussbaum, 46, was a former children's book editor with a boxer's dented profile, the result of years of beatings by Steinberg. And while only Steinberg stood trial for Lisa's death, a shadow of complicity fell upon everyone who did not act to prevent it: Nussbaum, the girl's neighbors and teachers, and the child-welfare system.

Last week a Manhattan jury found Steinberg guilty of first-degree manslaughter, which carries a prison term of 8 1/3 to 25 years. Though the jurors emerged from eight days of deliberation with plans for a reunion, they reached their compromise verdict only after some heated quarrels. Most of them entered the jury room believing Steinberg was guilty. Some wanted to convict him on the more serious charge of second-degree murder. But four holdouts were convinced that it was Nussbaum who caused the brain injuries that killed Lisa, a claim raised by Steinberg's attorneys late in the 13-week trial, after several earlier defense strategies fizzled.

In the end, the holdouts were swayed by the testimony of medical experts who said that Nussbaum, dazed, malnourished and horribly battered at the time of her arrest, was incapable of the ferocious assault. Said juror Helena Barthell: "She could not have picked up a 43-lb. child and propelled her into a wall."

The decision on whether to convict Steinberg of murder or manslaughter hinged upon fine distinctions of intent and responsibility. The murder charge would have required the jury to find Steinberg guilty of "depraved indifference to human life." There certainly seemed to be evidence of that. After being pounded into unconsciousness, Lisa was left lying on a bathroom floor in the couple's Greenwich Village apartment for some twelve hours when Steinberg went out to dinner. Nussbaum testified that after his return, when she told him the girl could not be revived, he insisted they free-base cocaine before calling for help.

But the jury concluded that Steinberg's drug use -- he had been smoking cocaine continually for days before the fatal beating -- made him incapable of realizing the seriousness of Lisa's condition. With what seems a measure of inconsistency, however, the jury saw the same failure to get immediate medical assistance as evidence of Steinberg's "intent" to do serious bodily harm to Lisa, an important element of the manslaughter charge.

Steinberg's lawyers plan to appeal the verdict, arguing that Acting State Supreme Court Judge Harold Rothwax improperly instructed the jurors on the meaning of intent. They also contend that he should not have permitted the jurors to view a videotape made shortly after Nussbaum's arrest showing her covered with scars, bruises and ulcerations.

Jurors claim that they disregarded the riveting tales of Steinberg's sadism told by Nussbaum, who testified for the prosecution in return for dismissal of all charges against her. To many who followed the trial with horror, the question of her complicity in Lisa's death -- and in her own degradation -- remained unanswered. Even observers who were moved by Nussbaum's condition were appalled by her testimony that she did nothing when she suspected that the girl had been sexually abused.

But feminist Gloria Steinem argues that Steinberg's mistreatment left Nussbaum too traumatized to act. "As an extreme victim, she forces us to do one of two things," says Steinem. "Reject and blame her, or think we could be her. It's hard to think we could be her -- so we'd rather blame her."

The case focused attention on shortcomings in the system for preventing child abuse. Though Lisa suffered repeated mistreatment, her plight only once came to the attention of city officials. Neighbors and adults at school who noticed her bruises never reported their suspicions. During Steinberg's trial, child-abuse hot lines recorded a flood of calls in the New York City area, where two or three children are beaten to death every week. After the verdict, bills were introduced in the New York state legislature to toughen penalties for child abuse.

But many experts contend that harsher punishments are not the answer. They want child-welfare workers to have more manageable case loads and better training. "There will be a flurry of public outrage," says Loretta Kowal, executive director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. "But unless it's translated into adequate funding and training of professional staff, it's all going to be a waste of time."

For now, Steinberg is in protective custody in a New York City jail while awaiting sentencing. He faces multi-million-dollar lawsuits brought separately by Nussbaum and by the natural mothers of Lisa and another child he illegally adopted, a boy named Travis, now 2 1/2. Nussbaum remains at a psychiatric facility in Katonah, N.Y., where she has been since last March. Lisa is buried in Hawthorne, N.Y., under a gravestone that reads GOD'S ANGEL.

With reporting by Barbara L. Goldberg and Naushad S. Mehta/New York