Did TV Make Him Do It?

A young killer--an d television--go on trial for murder On June 4 Elinor Haggart, 82, a Miami Beach widow, discovered two teen-agers burglarizing her home. It was a fatal incident: the intruders abruptly shot the old woman to death with a gun they had found in the house, grabbed $415 in cash and made their getaway in the victim's 1972 Buick. Four days later Ronald Zamora, 15, confessed to police that he had killed Mrs. Haggart, who also happened to be his next-door neighbor. This week Zamora is facing a Miami jury--his accomplice will be tried separately --charged with first-degree murder, burglary, robbery and possession of a firearm while committing a felony.

Another desperate young drug addict plundering to maintain his habit? Not at all. Defense Attorney Ellis Rubin, 52, claims Ronald Zamora is hooked on something far less exotic. Rubin's unusual trial strategy: to prove that Zamora is innocent because he "was suffering from and acted under the influence of prolonged, intense, involuntary, subliminal television intoxication."

To persuade the jury that Zamora has been electronically "brainwashed," Rubin plans to introduce testimony from several psychiatrists that his client appears to be living in a "television fantasy world," diminishing his sense of right and wrong.

For Zamora, says Rubin, "the tube became his parents and his school and his church." Adds the defense attorney:

"Pulling the trigger became as common to him as killing a fly." Zamora did not realize he was committing cold-blooded murder, contends Rubin, but "was just acting out a television script." The defense has claimed that circumstances of the crime were eerily similar to two recent episodes of Kojak and a Dracula movie Zamora watched the night before the murder. For its part, the prosecution disputes the plea of insanity, pointing out, for instance, that after the murder, Zamora treated four friends to a long weekend of fun at Disney World, compliments, he told them, of his father.

But Zamora's parents believe their son has been mentally disturbed since he witnessed a close friend drown two years ago; they even sent him to a therapist ten days before the crime. The Zamoras will also testify Ronald was a confirmed TV addict who spent at least six hours a day staring at the screen; he refused to eat unless the television was on and sometimes sneaked out of bed to catch a late movie. His favorite shows: such cops-and-robbers series as Kojak, Baretta and Starsky and Hutch. According to Mrs. Zamora, Ronald is such a Kojak fan, "he even asked his father to shave his head because he wanted my husband to look like him."

Though Rubin has given an unprecedented twist to the standard insanity plea, it is hardly the first time television has been accused of a lethal influence. In

Hartford City, Ind., an accused murderer testified last month that he and a friend were involved in killing four brothers in a trailer camp shortly after viewing a television dramatization of the Manson murders. While some psychologists argue that for the vast majority of viewers TV violence provides a vicarious release of aggression, most leading researchers have found that violence on television tends to reduce a child's inhibitions against behaving aggressively. Studies indicate TV teaches the young that violence often succeeds and that problems can be solved by aggressive behavior. Moreover, kids are likely to copy what they see. And they see plenty: according to the Nielsen Index figures for TV viewing, Americans will have watched 18,000 TV murders by age 18--v. having spent only 11,000 hours in school. In response to pressure from parents and Congress, the networks now seem to be trying to tone down the thud and blunder.

Yet Circuit Court Judge Paul Baker has warned Rubin to stick to defending his client instead of indicting fictional melodrama. Counters Rubin: "It is inevitable that TV will be a defendant. I intend to put television on trial."

With supreme irony, Miami's public broadcasting station is televising the trial. Taking advantage for the first time of a Florida Supreme Court experiment allowing criminal trials to be broadcast, WPBT is videotaping the courtroom action and feeding excerpts to outlets around the country and abroad. The station may also be featuring what could be another TV first: Lieut. Kojak himself testifying on behalf of the defense. Rubin has subpoenaed Telly Savalas and hopes to put him on the stand because, he says, the actor has been "brave enough to speak out that television violence is bad. I want him to face a jury to say that." -

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