The Nation - News from Dec. 17, 1987

The jury in the Howard Beach racial assault trial listened again to testimony from a key prosecution witness as their deliberations in the murder-manslaughter trial of four white teen-agers extended to a seventh day. The testimony read to the jury in a New York State Supreme Courtroom was from Robert Riley, who is charged with murder in the case but is cooperating with authorities. The defendants are accused of confronting three black men in Queens last Dec. 20, chasing one of them, Michael Griffith, to his death on a highway and beating another. Riley was the only witness to link the defendants directly to Griffith’s death.