[Politics] Calls Have Been Made To Reopen Cases By "Central Park 5" Prosecutor

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

And if there wasn't DNA evidence against them, then what? They didn't confess to the rape, they confessed to being present at the time of the rape. The DNA evidence never contradicted the confessions. If anything, the DNA results add to the potential credibility of the confessions, because someone else's semen is what you would expect to find when they confess to assaulting her but say someone else did the rape.

I'm not saying there isn't the possibility that those coerced confessions were deliberately constructed that way, perhaps the police knew they had the wrong people so they set them up as accomplices in case hard evidence like DNA could prove they weren't rapists. It could have been that well thought out and malicious. But that would have taken place before a prosecutor got involved, and to my knowledge, I don't think there is any evidence, fabricated or otherwise, that contradicts their confessions, which the prosecutor would have to ignore to more forward with the case.

Again, a confession they recanted when the alleged promise (That the police said they were just going to use them as witnesses instead of charging them with the crime) by the Police fell through.

As I shown in my last post [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.1057061-Politics-Calls-Have-Been-Made-To-Reopen-Cases-By-Central-Park-5-Prosecutor#24307951] to Gorfias, Feinstein used 'Hair Matching' to link the Five to the actual beating and rape of Meili. Hair matching that a NYPD Police Detective even said those hairs used didn't definitively match any of the five or the Jogger. And she used it anyway.

And the DNA came out in 2002 to not match anyone related to the case. But it was still used to help convict the Five. In fact, it was used in her closing arguments to help cement their actions against Meili.

 

[Agema]

The prosecutor's job isn't to put people in prison, it's to put guilty people in prison. To suggest that they wouldn't have been aware of the likelihood of coerced confessions from children seems naive.

In an idealised world, the function of a prosecutor is to put the guilty in prison.

In the real world, the function of a prosecutor is to see that someone goes to prison, in practice one the evidence can support. At a systemic level, prosecutors need to meet a public desire to see that crime is punished, that targets are met to keep politicians happy, show cost effectiveness, secure their own advancement and ambition. The system is set up to see that someone gets held accountable for crime, and the precise details of who and whether they really did what they were they accused of is a lot more blurry.

Again, this is not the fault of the prosecutor per se. It's an entire system that encourages overlooking awkwardnesses, papering over cracks, using iffy dodges to secure the all important result of chalking up another solved case.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Again, this is not the fault of the prosecutor per se. It's an entire system that encourages overlooking awkwardnesses, papering over cracks, using iffy dodges to secure the all important result of chalking up another solved case.

Excuse me everyone, it feels like I'm answering to everyone today.

In my last post to Gorfias [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.1057061-Politics-Calls-Have-Been-Made-To-Reopen-Cases-By-Central-Park-5-Prosecutor#24307951], I linked to an article that stated the only bit of physical evidence that linked the Five to the crime were hairs that the prosecutor said matched Meili and the 5. However, an NYPD Detective under oath said that it was impossible to say the hairs matched. That they were constant and similar to, and took great pains in explaining how that is different that positively matching.

That Hair evidence being proved to being linked to no one in 2002.

That didn't stop her from hammering the point home that the hairs linked with the confessions meant they did it. That is completely the fault of the prosecutor.

 

[Baffle]

Again, this is not the fault of the prosecutor per se. It's an entire system that encourages overlooking awkwardnesses, papering over cracks, using iffy dodges to secure the all important result of chalking up another solved case.

I kind of think sending children to prison because you've got to send someone to prison really is a personal failing beyond the wider systemic failing. It's a little bit 'just following orders'.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't understand. Did the rape victim not have the ability to clarify if she had been assaulted by a single person or five people? It sounds like a pretty easy thing to point out. Why would she have let these innocent kids go to jail for years while knowing her actual rapist was out on the streets?

Based on what I heard, they found DNA evidence linking her rape to someone who admitted doing it. Alone. By himself. If we are to believe this evidence, we are asked to also believe that the victim couldn't tell the difference between one person or five people assaulting her. That just doesn't make sense. Was she racist too? Racist enough to let her rapist go free just so she could "get" those random kids? What's going on here?

 

[Cicada 5]

I don't understand. Did the rape victim not have the ability to clarify if she had been assaulted by a single person or five people? It sounds like a pretty easy thing to point out. Why would she have let these innocent kids go to jail for years while knowing her actual rapist was out on the streets?

Based on what I heard, they found DNA evidence linking her rape to someone who admitted doing it. Alone. By himself. If we are to believe this evidence, we are asked to also believe that the victim couldn't tell the difference between one person or five people assaulting her. That just doesn't make sense. Was she racist too? Racist enough to let her rapist go free just so she could "get" those random kids? What's going on here?

She was in a 12 day coma from the attack and suffered severe brain damage. Her injuries were so severe doctors feared she'd never wake up. When she first emerged from her coma, she was unable to talk, read or walk. The police basically filled in the blanks for her.

 

[tstorm823]

Again, a confession they recanted when the alleged promise (That the police said they were just going to use them as witnesses instead of charging them with the crime) by the Police fell through.

As I shown in my last post [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.1057061-Politics-Calls-Have-Been-Made-To-Reopen-Cases-By-Central-Park-5-Prosecutor#24307951] to Gorfias, Feinstein used 'Hair Matching' to link the Five to the actual beating and rape of Meili. Hair matching that a NYPD Police Detective even said those hairs used didn't definitively match any of the five or the Jogger. And she used it anyway.

And the DNA came out in 2002 to not match anyone related to the case. But it was still used to help convict the Five. In fact, it was used in her closing arguments to help cement their actions against Meili.

The hair matching isn't hard evidence, correct. It's circumstantial evidence. And the DNA didn't come out to not match anyone charged in 2002. In 2002 the real perpetrator confessed and was matched to the DNA, but they knew at the time of trial that it didn't match anyone they are charging.

You can absolutely say that without the confessions there isn't strong evidence to make a case against the five. As there shouldn't be, since we know now they didn't commit the rape. But I don't think it's a case of choosing the coerced confessions over conflicting evidence, I don't think there was any conflicting evidence until the real rapist came forward a decade later. What the prosecutor had was weak evidence that gave credibility to confessions. And the defense certainly knows that without the confessions, there is really no case, and is going to try to recant them no matter what. Unless there's actual reason to believe the prosecutor was responsible for getting the confessions (and not just the Netflix version of events), I don't see how you lay that on the prosecutor. It's like getting mad at the bailiff for taking them into custody after the verdict comes down.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't understand. Did the rape victim not have the ability to clarify if she had been assaulted by a single person or five people? It sounds like a pretty easy thing to point out. Why would she have let these innocent kids go to jail for years while knowing her actual rapist was out on the streets?

Based on what I heard, they found DNA evidence linking her rape to someone who admitted doing it. Alone. By himself. If we are to believe this evidence, we are asked to also believe that the victim couldn't tell the difference between one person or five people assaulting her. That just doesn't make sense. Was she racist too? Racist enough to let her rapist go free just so she could "get" those random kids? What's going on here?

She was in a 12 day coma from the attack and suffered severe brain damage. Her injuries were so severe doctors feared she'd never wake up. When she first emerged from her coma, she was unable to talk, read or walk. The police basically filled in the blanks for her.

Wow, that alone should have thrown the case out. If it was admitted in court and they convicted anyhow about the only explanation for their conviction would be incompetence on their lawyer's part.

 

[gorfias]

We don't have any word on whether Feinstein received the DNA and ignored it due to either police intervention or her Prosecutorial discretion.

Long post that will require some review. As always, thank you for the considered response. And the Netflix show is long! I do want to see it. I need to review quite a lot. I read that DNA was not ignored or simply wasn't something prosecutors were using at that time. Checking into it.
EDIT: https://www.forensicmag.com/article/2005/01/evolution-dna-evidence-crime-solving-judicial-and-legislative-history

This states DNA was still up in the air for use in courts into the 1990s. Lot more to check...

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Wow, that alone should have thrown the case out. If it was admitted in court and they convicted anyhow about the only explanation for their conviction would be incompetence on their lawyer's part.

Yep, definitely not because a lot of judges, including trial court judges in New York, are elected and may be hesitant to dismiss any case against a criminal defendant, much less in a trial with so much publicity that celebrities were making claims about it.

The Central Park 5 case is more an example of the worst elements of the various actors in the justice system. Police use poor and ineffective tactics that have been routinely shown to extract false confessions, Prosecutors, who advance in their careers by conviction numbers, prosecute many cases that should have never been charged, judges who need to be reelected every few years become very cautious about sentencing too leniently or siding with defense attorneys too often, the media takes clear sides and dramatizes the case, and underfunded and overworked defense attorneys essentially try to negotiate terms of surrender because they know the deck is stacked so the best they can do is try to get them out of prison before they're dead from old age. If you're a defendant, you're fucked.

 

[jademunky]

This whole case makes me wonder if any kind of confessions made to police without a defense lawyer present should ever be considered at all.

Let's face it, a few hours shouting at me in an interrogation cell (no real need to lay a hand on me, just the threat of it is good enough) and I'll confess to anything you want.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Wow, that alone should have thrown the case out. If it was admitted in court and they convicted anyhow about the only explanation for their conviction would be incompetence on their lawyer's part.

Yep, definitely not because a lot of judges, including trial court judges in New York, are elected and may be hesitant to dismiss any case against a criminal defendant, much less in a trial with so much publicity that celebrities were making claims about it.

The Central Park 5 case is more an example of the worst elements of the various actors in the justice system. Police use poor and ineffective tactics that have been routinely shown to extract false confessions, Prosecutors, who advance in their careers by conviction numbers, prosecute many cases that should have never been charged, judges who need to be reelected every few years become very cautious about sentencing too leniently or siding with defense attorneys too often, the media takes clear sides and dramatizes the case, and underfunded and overworked defense attorneys essentially try to negotiate terms of surrender because they know the deck is stacked so the best they can do is try to get them out of prison before they're dead from old age. If you're a defendant, you're fucked.

Plus, you know, all the racism. The "Super Predator" crime bill was introduced with bipartisan support 5 years later

 

[Saelune]

Linda Fairstein is a racist. Ann Coulter is a racist.

 

[Baffle]

Ann Coulter is a racist.

Honestly, I think Ann Coulter might be insane. And a racist.

 

[Agema]

Excuse me everyone, it feels like I'm answering to everyone today.

No worries.

In my last post to Gorfias [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.1057061-Politics-Calls-Have-Been-Made-To-Reopen-Cases-By-Central-Park-5-Prosecutor#24307951], I linked to an article that stated the only bit of physical evidence that linked the Five to the crime were hairs that the prosecutor said matched Meili and the 5. However, an NYPD Detective under oath said that it was impossible to say the hairs matched. That they were constant and similar to, and took great pains in explaining how that is different that positively matching.

That Hair evidence being proved to being linked to no one in 2002.

That didn't stop her from hammering the point home that the hairs linked with the confessions meant they did it. That is completely the fault of the prosecutor.

It's her job to do that. The US legal system is based on the English legal system (like many ex-British colonies) and is an adversarial one where both sides are expected to make their case to maximum effect. A verbal gladiatorial contest without equivocation of half-measures. Each side does whatever it can within the rules to win: push anything that gains traction to the hilt and exploit the opposition's weaknesses mercilessly, and (in theory) what wins is truth. [footnote]Of course a reality here is that millions of Americans are stuck being defended by the dregs of the legal profession who often lack the will, skill or means to adequately defend their clients, leaving "equality before the law" as a bit of a joke).[/footnote]

I kind of think sending children to prison because you've got to send someone to prison really is a personal failing beyond the wider systemic failing. It's a little bit 'just following orders'.

A prosecutor gets evidence from the police, reviews it to see whether it will hold water, and if so goes with it. If it is deemed adequate to get through the courts, it suggests fair reason to believe the suspects are guilty. It's not like sending people they know full well are innocent into jail.

 

[Saelune]

Ann Coulter is a racist.

Honestly, I think Ann Coulter might be insane. And a racist.

I think racism is insane.

 

[Agema]

Honestly, I think Ann Coulter might be insane. And a racist.

She's a polemicist whose specific selling point is launching outrageous attacks on targets for the entertainment of people who can be extreme and racist. She doesn't need to be personally extreme and racist to do so, just unprincipled.

 

[gorfias]

Honestly, I think Ann Coulter might be insane. And a racist.

She's a polemicist whose specific selling point is launching outrageous attacks on targets for the entertainment of people who can be extreme and racist. She doesn't need to be personally extreme and racist to do so, just unprincipled.

Linda Fairstein is a racist. Ann Coulter is a racist.

Honestly, I think Ann Coulter might be insane. And a racist.

While I don't want to make this about Coulter, the problem is, if she is writing true things, I do not know where else to find them such as

"
Santana was one of the first boys picked up in the park the night of the attacks, April 19, 1989. While being driven to the precinct house, he blurted out: ?I had nothing to do with the rape. All I did was feel the woman?s tits.?

At this point, the jogger hadn?t been found. The police knew nothing about any rape...


-- Dennis Commedo, one of the boys who was part of the larger group, told the police that, when he ran into Richardson in the park that night, he?d said, ?We just raped somebody.?...


-- Wise told a friend's sister, Melody Jackson, that he didn't rape the jogger; he "only held her legs down while Kevin (Richardson) f---ed her." Jackson volunteered this information to the police, thinking it would help Wise...

-- Wise told the detective interviewing him that someone he thought was named ?Rudy? had stolen the jogger?s Walkman. The officer?s notes state: ?persons present when girl raped. ... Rudy ?- played with tits/took walkman.?...

At that point, the jogger was still in a coma. Police investigators had no way of knowing that she?d been carrying a Walkman. Thirteen years later, the sixth rapist, Matias Reyes -- the only rapist, according to Hollywood and former District Attorney Robert Morgenthau -- told police that in addition to raping the jogger, he?d stolen her Walkman..."

And much more. She posits that forcing a confession from these kids would have been too risky a thing to do. The victim was still alive and could wake and show the cops acted criminally.

I assume there would be big trouble for her if any of this is untrue.

The MSM anyway, is full of group think. Or is all of this old news and I'm looking in the wrong place? I'm sure there are plenty of links to state the 5 were innocent but do they also include (and efute) this kind of information?

 

[Silvanus]

While I don't want to make this about Coulter, the problem is, if she is writing true things, I do not know where else to find them such as [...]

She is not writing true things. She is, quite straightforwardly, an immense liar. You may as well be asking why the MSM isn't covering some blogger claiming the Royals are lizard people.

And no, there isn't any "big trouble" for lying. The right to lie is covered by the constitution. She is constantly called out, but the people who listen to her are not going to be convinced that she's not telling the truth.

 

[Baffle]

While I don't want to make this about Coulter, the problem is, if she is writing true things, I do not know where else to find them such as

If she's saying true things, why can't you find anyone else saying them?