Viewer discretion is advised. Some may find this content disturbing. This is a documentary I found interesting.
Joel Steinberg (born May 25, 1941) is a disbarred New York criminal defense attorney who attracted international media attention when he was accused of murder and convicted of manslaughter in the November 1, 1987 beating and subsequent death of a six-year-old girl, Elizabeth ("Lisa"), whom he and his live-in partner Hedda Nussbaum had illegally adopted. Steinberg had reportedly been hired by a single mother named Michele Launders to locate a suitable adoptive family for Lisa, but he instead took the child home and raised her with Nussbaum. He never filed formal adoption papers and the child was not legally adopted.
Joel Steinberg shared a Greenwich Village, Manhattan apartment with Lisa, Mitchell (a younger child also illegally adopted), and his live-in partner Hedda Nussbaum. Steinberg was under the influence of crack cocaine when he hit Lisa on the head on November 1, 1987. After the attack, he left the apartment to party with friends; Hedda eventually dialed 911. After police arrived at the scene, Lisa was transported from the apartment to Saint Vincent's Hospital. The child remained in the hospital for three days and died after being removed from life support. In addition to Lisa's deadly assault, Mitchell and Nussbaum both showed signs of physical abuse at the hands of Steinberg, and Nussbaum's battered, unkempt appearance did much to fuel the media frenzy that accompanied the story of Lisa's death.
In exchange for testifying against Steinberg, Nussbaum was not prosecuted for events related to Lisa's death. Nussbaum was alone in the apartment with an unconscious and bleeding Lisa for over ten hours without seeking any medical attention for the girl. Her attorneys claimed that Nussbaum's decision to stay with Steinberg even though she was a victim of domestic violence was a sign of battered woman syndrome.
The jury was unable to convict Steinberg on the more serious charge of second-degree murder, but they did convict him of the lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter. Judge Harold Rothwax then sentenced him to the maximum penalty then available for that charge — 8 1⁄3 to 25 years in state-prison.
On two occasions, Steinberg was denied discretionary parole, mainly because he never expressed remorse for the killing. However, on June 30, 2004, he was paroled under the state's "good time" law, which mandates release of inmates who exhibit good behavior while incarcerated after having served two-thirds or more of the maximum possible sentence. New York State has since increased this ratio to six-sevenths of the maximum term for persons convicted of violent felonies. Steinberg had spent most of his imprisonment at New York State's "Supermax" prison, the Southport Correctional Facility, presumably to prevent him from being attacked by other inmates.
