The Central Park Five
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I understand the push for crime reduction policies, lots of minorities (who are victims of crimes themselves) wanted a tougher approach. Unfortunately the politics of the day was that the cruelest types of punishments won out. Three strikes and stop and frisk have devastated the community.
Three strikes doesn't seem to be a violation of rights, and it simply makes sense. Removing bad people will improve the community. Some people simply will not abide by the rules of civilized society, and it is a dangerous mistake to pretend otherwise.
Just pointing that out because I don't think you would agree with that sentiment. So you might want to adjust your comment to indicate that you would be more afraid of criminals than cops.
Convicting the wrong person is one (terrifying) mistake, but making a five-fold mistake in the number of criminals is… incredible.
It is only "radical" as a notion because they are in power - we wouldn't bat an eye at banning gang members from high trust jobs even if they were never convicted of anything - just being part of an organization party to such crimes makes them unworthy of the priveledge. So why treat this bad apple orchard any differently?
1. Expand the CCRB[1], both in number of civilian investigators and their authority to pursue investigations without interference from the mayor/city council/police commissioner. A line has to be drawn somewhere in terms of power granted to an independent review board, but I don't think we've even approached that line yet.
2. Change city/state law to prevent police misconduct settlements from coming out of city coffers. The public shouldn't have to pay twice (or three times, depending on how you look at it) for crimes perpetrated by the police. Settlements should come out of NYC PBA funds, insurance, or some other source that disincentivizes the force as a whole from covering for "bad apples."
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Complaint_Review_Boar...
It's actually a pretty complicated case. I'd recommend reading both the recommendation from Morgenthau to vacate the convictions[1] (which ended up happening) and the Armstrong report[2] (which came to the conclusion that the Central Park Five were most likely involved in the attack). Doctors involved in the case as well as the victim still believe that there were more than one attacker[3] (the victim has no memory of the attack). The only person who's DNA was found there (who wasn't part of the five) is the person who claims that there was only one attacker (he confessed to the crime and made the claim that he was the only attacker after meeting one of the five in prison).
Like I said, the best way to get an idea about the case is to read the two reports. Most of the news articles that cover the story don't do a great job.
[1] http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/wise.pdf [2] https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Armstrong.pdf [3] https://abcnews.go.com/US/case-settled-1989-central-park-jog...
Are you saying the police found DNA of one or more of the five on the victim?
> The only person who's DNA was found there (who wasn't part of the five) is the person who claims that there was only one attacker (he confessed to the crime and made the claim that he was the only attacker after meeting one of the five in prison).
Should be:
> The only person whose DNA was found there is the person who claims that there was only one attacker (he confessed to the crime and made the claim that he was the only attacker after meeting one of the five in prison).
I would argue that your comments in brackets are also irrelevant, because it appears to be suggesting something for which there is no basis for. In other words, he confessed to the crime, period. And his DNA was found on the victim. So we know he is guilty, period.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/nyregion/new-slant-on-jog...
> The report concluded that the five men whose convictions had been vacated had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger and that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_jogger_case#Armst...
Wise, 16, wasn’t a suspect, but he agreed to go with his friend for moral support. He ended up being charged as well
No description of why he would be charged. Clearly a gross miscarriage of justice.
Armstrong report:
In addition, several statements were made by witnesses to officers investigating the incident and by the defendants, speaking outside the formal interrogation process, which directly contradict Reyes’s claim that he acted alone, and evidence the participation of the defendants. They include inculpatory statements by defendants Wise, Richardson and Santana both to police officers and to civilian witnesses who reported the statements to police. Santana and Richardson separately pointed out the location of the rape when brought to Central Park. When Wise was questioned, he made reference to a man named “Rudy” who took the jogger’s Walkman; the description of the jogger’s “Walkman pouch” was similar to Reyes’s description of a “fanny pack.” At the time of this interview, the police had no way of knowing that the jogger had a Walkman or that she carried it in a pouch. Wise also commented on the amount of blood at the spot where the rape occurred. When asked why he was so surprised by the amount of blood, he answered, “I knew she was bleeding but I didn’t know how bad she was. It was really dark. I couldn’t see how much blood there was at night.”
When you tell a story from one side, and one side only...
(I don't mean that it's a good thing to call news orgs "fake news". I mean that if someone is already calling you "fake news", you should really take care to have impeccable reporting to avoid giving those accusations weight)
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/nyregion/new-slant-on-jog...
> Was what happened to the Central Park Five completely wrong, or simply incomplete? I read Sarah Burns’ book, The Central Park Five, expecting a plaintiff’s brief, and it is that—she was an intern for lawyers pursuing civil claims on their behalf as a college student, in the summer of 2003. She believes passionately that the Five hadn’t raped the jogger; she is more circumspect in her treatment of their other felonies: “At some point, the metal bar from Korey’s house that Yusef had carried in the park had been used to beat Laughlin.” She is enthusiastic in her support of Ryan’s assessment, but doesn’t include this quote on their conduct that night: “The other crimes committed on April 19 were grave and inexcusable—unprovoked attacks on strangers, apparently undertaken for the fun of it, which left some terrorized, two knocked into unconsciousness, and one seriously injured.”
This is what makes criminal justice reform so hard. If it was just a matter of not taking completely unconnected people and beating confessions out of them, reform would be easy. What’s hard is giving due process and the benefit of the doubt to bad people, or people who committed some crimes but not others.
This is a recurring pattern in exoneration stories (and criminal defense generally). Very often the accused are bad people—the question is whether they did the specific thing they’re accused of doing.
> Was what happened to the Central Park Five completely wrong, or simply incomplete? I read Sarah Burns’ book, The Central Park Five, expecting a plaintiff’s brief, and it is that—she was an intern for lawyers pursuing civil claims on their behalf as a college student, in the summer of 2003. She believes passionately that the Five hadn’t raped the jogger; she is more circumspect in her treatment of their other felonies: “At some point, the metal bar from Korey’s house that Yusef had carried in the park had been used to beat Laughlin.” She is enthusiastic in her support of Ryan’s assessment, but doesn’t include this quote on their conduct that night: “The other crimes committed on April 19 were grave and inexcusable—unprovoked attacks on strangers, apparently undertaken for the fun of it, which left some terrorized, two knocked into unconsciousness, and one seriously injured.”
Obviously that doesn’t justify the false conviction or some of the associated tactics. But it is important context. As we saw with “Making of a Murderer,” these investigations are complex. It’s easy to portray a one-sided narrative that obscures how the justice system can be led to the wrong result, to make it seem like this black box that capriciously chews up and spits out totally random people. Usually, when it happens, there is an explanation. The explanation might involve racism, or human error, or misconduct. But it’s almost never totally the result of those things.
From the Armstrong Report:
We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability. On the other hand, there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants' descriptions of the attack on the female jogger: she was knocked down on the road, dragged into the woods, hit and molested by several defendants, sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs, and left semiconscious in a state of undress.
They may have done all of what they confessed to, or they may have been tortured and done none of it. That's the problem with bent police forces and court systems, there's just a baseline confidence issue. That baseline confidence issue creates the conditions that make people perfectly justified in being skeptical. And winning that confidence back is extremely difficult. In fact, depending on how bad the conditions are, it may not even be possible.
When torture is allowed into the judicial process either overtly or covertly, the integrity of the entire system eventually degrades over time.
EDIT:
On re-reading that, it sounded bad. I didn't mean that they might have been tortured. I understand that torture was part of the process. So perhaps I should have written:
"...or they may have done none of it, and the torture prompted confessions..."
It seems one of the reports concluded that either one or some of the boys were there before/after the rape based on their detailed statements related to the crime scene and knowledge of the exact location.
I'm curious if the boys knew the Reyes guy whose DNA was found on the victim beforehand or if they happened to come across the crime scene during a particularly violent night in Central Park and/or were in a particular section of the park where local kids tended to congregate.
Lots of discussions about whether they truly were guilty of this crime or another.
Not much being said about the fact that they were children and that even if they did commit another crime at another time or were witnesses to the crime or whatever, it's not necessarily a "good thing" that they were in jail long into adulthood.
Hacker News showing its true colors here.
They pummeled two men into unconsciousness, hitting them with a metal pipe, stones, and punches, and kicking them in the head.
The first policeman who saw her said: "She was beaten as badly as anybody I've ever seen beaten. She looked like she was tortured."
It’s a very “good thing” that they were in jail long into adulthood.
HN is a statistical cloud of millions of people. Since you're commenting here, you're as much a part of it as anyone.
A run of comments sharing a common quality doesn't show anything about "true colors"—pure randomness exhibits the same patterns. What happens, though, is that after seeing a few (say, 3) comments taking an offensive or opposing position, people feel surrounded by hostile voices, and that feeling 'sticks' to the community in the form of the perception "HN is X". HN isn't X. It just feels that way after a few noticeable signals in a row.
I'll post these questions and promise to honestly read what you respond with. I'm not trolling.
Correct my thinking:
They were 14, 15, 16 at the time. Older teenagers you said. Do you agree with the fact (is it?) that one of them was actually younger than 16 and questioned without his parents present? Does that matter at all to you as a lawyer? If you feel they are not children, do you feel our system should change the definition of consensual sexual activity for minors, for example. I think there are many indications that brain development is not complete by 18 or 21 and there is good reason to categorize them as children.
Again, not a lawyer: isn't the typical time served for rape 5.6 years? Battery between 1-25 years. Was it normal and just for them to be behind bars for 6 to 13 years, when the city settled and released them? Another way to ask, were these sentences just (not asking for your opinion personally but is this typical for those types of cases)
And, am I wrong to question these convictions when no DNA evidence connected them to the rape, but Reyes was definitely linked later? Is the true story there obscured and am I missing it?
My sense after reading about this case for years is that their sentences and the handling of this case were improper if you care about criminal justice in the US. And that it changed our justice system for the worse. That's my thesis here, not that there is a grey area about this case specifically.
Yes. But he (Salaam) claimed to be sixteen and produced a transit document to that effect.
> Does that matter at all to you as a lawyer?
It matters, but that doesn’t mean it automatically invalidates the conviction or the evidence. When an accused lies about their age and the police them without a parent, that’s a violation of the law. (At least the law here in New York.) But automatically vacating the conviction based on that would not be fair to the state: the police proceeded in good faith, based on the accused’s lie. So the judge tries to figure out whether that error was really prejudicial enough to warrant excluding the evidence.
> If you feel they are not children, do you feel our system should change the definition of consensual sexual activity for minors, for example.
In Maryland, the age of consent is 14 for people who are close in age. That recognizes that teenagers are able to consent to certain adult behavior. Now, it’s 16 if the partner is much older, because there could be coercion. Here, if there was a much older ringleader I’d support a more lenient treatment for the teenagers.
> I think there are many indications that brain development is not complete by 18 or 21 and there is good reason to categorize them as children.
The question isn’t whether brain development is complete. The question is whether it is sufficiently far along that they can understand the consequences of their actions and distinguish right from wrong.
There is evidence that teenagers are, for example, more impulsive than adults. But if you look at the data, adult criminals also tend to have problems with impulse control. That’s not an excuse.
> Again, not a lawyer: isn't the typical time served for rape 5.6 years? Battery between 1-25 years. Was it normal and just for them to be behind bars for 6 to 13 years, when the city settled and released them?
If they were guilty of the other assaults of which they were convicted, I don’t see that sentence as unreadable, especially given the concerted action.
> And, am I wrong to question these convictions when no DNA evidence connected them to the rape, but Reyes was definitely linked later? Is the true story there obscured and am I missing it?
I think they were probably not guilty of the rape, based on the DNA evidence. So the vacated of the conviction was correct. But note that DNA testing was pretty new and not routine during the original trial. Also note that the evidence for their other convictions that occurred at the same time are stronger. E.g., o e defendant was carrying a pipe that was used to beat someone else at the park.
> My sense after reading about this case for years is that their sentences and the handling of this case were improper if you care about criminal justice in the US. And that it changed our justice system for the worse. That's my thesis here, not that there is a grey area about this case specifically.
It was definitely improper. But the facts are more complicated than the cartoon villain version promoted in the press: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-myth-of-the-central-park-f...
I will add that the fact that the 15 yr old suspect lied reflects even more poorly on the police. It's really strange that they wouldn't have told him "if you are under 16 we have to have your parents here" and then he would have lied. That looks very strange to me and makes me speculate there was more there in the confessions.
This article from NYT seems to directly contradict that, saying they were convicted based on confessions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/nyregion/new-slant-on-jog...
What's missing? Is this inaccurate? Where can I read about the evidence you are noting?
Edit: I misread the article, it doesn't say entirely based on confessions. There is still lots of contradictory information in this article to things said in other places here on HN.
> In addition to the confessions, one of the other boys, while in the back of a patrol car, cried that he “didn’t do the murder,” but that he knew who did: Antron McCray. The boy beside him, Kevin Richardson, agreed: “Antron did it.” The jogger hadn’t yet been found. Later on, after Raymond Santana had been interrogated about the rape, he was being driven to another precinct. Without prompting, he blurted out, “I had nothing to do with the rape. All I did was feel her tits.”
However, several of the five were also convicted of other attacks. Indeed, part of the motion to vacate rests on the notion that they couldn’t have participated in the rape together, because they were involved in the other incidents:
> And, beginning at about 9:24 p.m. and continuing until roughly 9:45, a series of four male joggers were set upon on the jogging path at the northern end of the Central Park Reservoir. Two of the male joggers escaped essentially unharmed, but two, Robert Garner and John Loughlin, were assaulted. Garner was not seriously hurt. Loughlin, however, was knocked to the ground, kicked, punched, and beaten with a pipe and stick. He was knocked unconscious, and sustained significant but not life-threatening injuries.
(It’s essentially undisputed that Salaam had carried a pipe into the park that night.)
> 98. An additional issue is raised by the other incidents which took place in the park. For while the nature and locations of those incidents made it seem logical to believe that the defendants had attacked the jogger, the timing of events made it hard to understand when they could have. Shortly after their initial entry into the park, the larger group of which the defendants were a part temporarily split up. As a result, not all of the defendants participated both in the incidents that occurred along the East Drive and in the attacks at the reservoir; but at least some of them did. Given the times when each of those events were estimated to have occurred, it is difficult to construct a scenario that would have allowed the defendants the time to interrupt their progression south, detour to the 102nd Street transverse, and commit a gang rape.
The whole document dump is here: http://interactive.nydailynews.com/project/central-park-five. You’re not going to find accurate commentary about this topic, so I’d go ahead and read the primary materials. (For example, some of the facts Ann Coulter recites in her article on this are factually correct, for example the fact that the accused admitted to coming to the park to commit crimes and never retracted that part. I’m not going to link it here because the article also has a lot of garbage commentary.)
The only things we really know as fact, is that the DNA at the scene belonged to the perp. Which perp turned out to be none of the people we actually convicted of the crime.
Everything else requires us to believe suspect entities. Were the confessions uncoerced? Well, that all depends on whether or not you believe the NYPD and the courts.
Was it actually these kids who committed all these other crimes? Well, again, depends on whether you want to believe the NYPD and courts, or the guys who are now speaking without fear of further torture.
This whole thing went off the rails when the initial exculpatory evidence was ignored. From that point on, every decision just made things worse and worse.
List the evidence, and an intellectually honest guy would have to concede that it's all based on trust.
So it really does come down to, who do you trust?
I think the only thing we can say for certain is none of these guys committed the crime they were convicted of. And even that is only because we actually have the DNA, not because we trust the actual perp who confessed to the crime.
And that’s my point in the sibling comment. If you think criminal justice reform can be achieved by hiring people who won’t fabricate evidence against totally innocent people, I’m sorry you’re going to be disappointed by how much deeper the challenges run.
The only thing we know is, they didn't commit the crime that we have the DNA for. And again, we know that because we have DNA, not because we have to trust some perp or some cop.
Point is, any evidence that requires trust in the police, or the defense, is suspect. And you have to choose who you should believe. But you really won't be able to say with certainty that such evidence is not of tainted colour. You just don't have honest enough people in the system to do that. What happened here, is that people ignored all the exculpatory evidence. Even though it certainly agitated against the veracity of other "evidence" that had been "collected" by the police. Once that decision was made, a bad outcome was a virtual certainty.
Your high horse certainly isn't helping.
>Not much being said about [...]
What exactly are you getting at here?
Do you want everyone to talk about this to the exclusion of other aspects of the case? Or if there is some room for other topics, as long as there exists a certain percentage of us giving perfunctory agreement on this point?
Your post reads to me as a roundabout saying-without-saying accusation of moral failing among people who very well may agree with you, for wishing to discuss other aspects of this case.
Even after the exonerations, Trump has continued to maintain that the five men had been criminals.
Warning, parent link contains auto-playing video. Even after you pause it, it'll unpause itself after it finished buffering.
We owe these men, and the myriads who have experienced more and less, more that could be repaid in a thosand years. Best start.
as horrible as this may sound to say...
it can get a lot of votes.
Everyone else does, which is why politicians get a lot of votes by offering up what are obviously patent falsehoods about, say, black guys.
One of the causalities of the Trump era is how fatigued everyone is to the constant lies and ugliness that we've become densentized to it and are expected to dismiss it.
If it weren't regular and accepted, it wouldn't get any votes.
I think that's pretty clear evidence that it is regular and accepted.
But I guess we can agree to disagree. No worries man.
Edit: I don't mean it as defense people. Just that, he did not said it to gain votes back then. He said it because that is what he believed and who he is, nothing to do with politicians as a group.
Being genuine racist is not better then playing up racism for votes. Maybe even worst in impact (as pretender will be less zealous in pushing for such policies). Don't understand why people think otherwise.
Being genuine racist is not better then playing up racism for votes. Maybe even worst in impact (as pretender will be less zealous in pushing for such policies). Don't understand why people think otherwise.
All the same, politician or not, he hasn't changed since then. While a candidate for president, he retweeted a "crime statistic" that said 81% of white murder victims were killed by black people. The actual number is 15%; whites are killed by whites 82% of the time. When it was pointed out how terrible wrong it was, he didn't apologize -- in fact, he just said, I didn't say it, I just retweeted it, as if he bears no responsibility for the things he amplifies with his megaphone.
The fact that he read the tweet and his BS detector didn't go off tells you that that fake news is consistent with his internal view of the world.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov...