Also note http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/41376p-39083c.html
Yeah, they’re innocent allright.
Two trial by juries. Videotaped confessions. There was the fact that Richardson led the police to the scene of the crime. His dirty underwear. The scratchwood he got from the jogger.
Also note that the videotaped confessions corroborated each other, and out of the ten animals involved five were prosecuted.
Now, of course, ten years after the fact, after the statute of limitations has passed, this guy Reyes comes out and says that he acted alone, and people actually believe him? Yeah, he’s credible.
How do we conveniently ignore facts like Yusef Salamm writing about how fun the rape was in his written confession?
I especially like how on 60 minutes Yusef’s credibility is questioned by Mike Wallace. Why should we believe now that Yusef was lying when he confessed in graphic detail on videotape )the details of which gelled nicely with the 10 other independantly recorded confessions, that he raped the jogger?
Well, his dad told him to. His dad figured that if he lied and said he did it the police would let him go.
You people believe this shit?
We should beleive Yusef because “all a muslim has is his word.”
That’s a kind of interesting statement. We’re supposed to believe him when he says he’s lying cause all he has is his word?
The confessions become even more credible when we consider their considerable degree of corroboration with regards to the fact that several of the defendants didn’t even know each other. They were a gang of convenience.
Reyes’ jailhouse confession is ridiculous on any number of levels.
Wow stuyguy. I buy the hard-line on crime, but in light of your “let’s be more willing to convict people for crimes they didn’t commit just because they’re otherwise thugs” position, I don’t buy the hard-line on justice line. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t buy the hard line on crime bit either, since sloppy, overzealous prosecution is exactly what let a monster like Reyes off the hook for so long. Maybe all you’re left with is just being hard.
I agree that the record should not be wiped clean on the other crimes, but that’s hardly the primary issue of the OP. The other charges are largely a moot point since they’ve already done more than even the harshest sentance for the other crimes.
Biggirl:
From your cite
I can see why in light of this they did nothing wrong and should be exonerated. They only took off their pants and climbed on top of her and fondled her and whatnot after they’d beaten her to a pulp.
When I read some of the posts here I’m more convinced than ever that many Americans don’t understand the method behind the supposed US system of justice. I’m also convinced that even if they did understand it they wouldn’t like it. The Bill of Rights doesn’t protect us from overzealous government agents so much as it does from the pressure that ignorant, and vindictive citizens put on government agents.
Whoa, Apos, whoa!
I think you have my position set on high, so let me reset it to simmer and summarize it here:
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In light of all the evidence that we, the public, know about this case (and that may change in time) I do not think the convicted youths committed the rape, nor should they have served time for that crime.
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In light of the same evidence – including the wilding portions of their videotaped confessions (which I believe are valid because they jibe so nearly with the other evidence) – I do believe that they committed the non-rape muggings and assaults (which, I must repeat, included beating a man unconscious); and I believe they deserved to serve time for those crimes.
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There is a revisionist/disinformation campaign afoot by the boys’ defenders that is trying to paint them in the public’s mind as entirely innocent of ALL the crimes they were charged with. Those people are, at best, mis- or uninformed of the facts or, at worst, liars.
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Apos, I did not say “let’s be more willing to convict people for crimes they didn’t commit just because they’re otherwise thugs,” nor anything like it. What I essential did say was, “let’s not feel sorry for thugs who are being spun as angels.”
And as for your “crimes they didn’t commit” turn-of-phrase, aren’t you being a little omniscient there? At the time, I didn’t KNOW they didn’t commit the rape, the jury didn’t KNOW they didn’t the rape, and you, my friend, didn’t KNOW they didn’t commit the rape either. (Even now we don’t know; see Scylla’s post above.)
I believe the prosecutors and jury worked in good faith in charging and convicting the kids. They were given a raft of evidence – some good regarding the wilding, and some shakey regarding the rape – all of which was topped off with the video confessions of everything. The prosecutors and jury reached an entirely reasonable conclusion that the kids did all the crimes. As anyone who has served on a jury knows, few cases come perfectly wrapped in nice box and bow, so it’s no great surprise that there were inconsistancies here and there, including a lack of positive face IDs. A jury weighs all the information, fills in the blanks as best it can and accepts or rejects inconsistancies to render its verdict.
And you know what? The kids were probably their own worst enemy in that jury room – yes, because they were, in fact, thugs. The standard, as we all know, is “reasonable doubt”; and it is entirely reasonable to conclude – despite less-than-airtight evidence – that thugs who would commit all those wilding acts would commit a nearby rape too.
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Did the cops act in bad faith, i.e. coerce the rape confessions out of the kids using methods outside the law? I honestly do not know. But it’s a known fact that most (all?) of the kids had a parent or guadian present during their videotaped confessions. If the cops did act outside the law they should be punished for it.
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Just an aside: The defense probably made a strategic blunder by not admitting to the wilding spree – then fighting tooth and nail against the rape charge based on the timeline of events. Hindsight is 20/20 and the timeline defense would have been a flimsy argument to prove so it is unfair, I admit, to accuse the defense of incompetance – so I will not. Their position was bleak at best, whatever strategy they chose. It’s just interesting to note that if they had followed that path, justice – or what I believe justice to be in light of the evidence I know now – might have been served all around.
Typo alert in my post above!
In item #2, “nearly” should have been “neatly.”
Funny, it hardly changes the meaning of the sentence at all, but I meant to write “neatly.”
IANAL, but sexual assault does not always mean penetration.
If the unpleasant individuals involved “only” beat the jogger bloody, groped her, and simulated rape, that sounds like sexual assault to me.
Regards,
Shodan
Really, where did you read this???
BTW, I use scratchwood for my cats when they need to sharpen their claws. 
So what, they corroborated all the wrong information with respect to the rape of the jogger.
Probably because his DNA matches that found at the scene. To be exact, the sperm sample taken from the joggers sock. He’s obviously credible enough for Morgenthau to eat crow for this.
10 confessions, 5 defendants, do you even know what you’re talking about?
The crime fits his profile, his DNA was found at the scene, his description of what happened matches better than any of the confessions offered up by the youths convicted. Again, I ask, do you know what you’re talking about?
This is a typical NY story. Alot of hype, emotion, sensation & racial politics at play.
There is no DNA evidence linking the CP5 to the rape, but there is both medical testimony & their own confessions which tie them to the beatings / assaults.
Question:
Why didn’t DA Morgenthau ask the judge to simply overturn the rape charges and leave his mitts off the assault charges? Perhaps the whispering about his senility have their basis in truth.
Another (hijack?) Question:
Why isn’t anyone (reporters, citizens, activists, vicitims rights groups, police brass or politicians) clamoring for justice & more police protection with regards to the rape & beating of a 23 year old woman & the assault on her nephew in Lincoln Terrace Park, Crown Heights 2 weeks ago, by (ironically) a pack of 5 youths?
Is it because the victims & assailants were the same race?
Is it because it took place in Brooklyn, where those thinghs are supposeed to happen?
Is it because the media wasn’t in the mood to hype the story?
It’s bewildering to me
Welcome to my world.
John, to shed some light on why DA Morgenthau probably asked the court to throw out the ENTIRE charge list, see the quote in my third post.
IMHO, this:
as well as this:
have much more bearing than this:
That’s neither logical or legal. Where is it written, and how do these experts come to the legal conclusion, that a woman, beaten to within an inch of her life and raped shouldn’t receive justice.
They were wilding,
An MD said it was impossible the injuries were a result of one man (Reyes) beating her
and
They admitted to it.
If the law said one unproven statement in a confession, would negate the whole crime, imagine what a field day criminal lawyers would have when their clients decided to confess or testify.
stuguy - keep in mind that while the prosecutor’s office/DA, cops et. al had closed the book on the CP case, with the young men in custody, this allowed them to close the case, allowing the real rapist to go on to rape and kill additionaly folks. This is why I personally have a problem with the concept “gee, they were bad guys anyhow, therefore, they should have been in jail”.
Scylla - the phenomenon of false confession is detailed quite effectively. You quote their confessions as proof that they assaulted the woman after the fact. The confessions themeselves are in serious question at this point. items w/in those confessions should not be considered ‘proof’ of anything.
REmember Henry Lee Lucas pled guilty to dozens of homicides all over the country and gave convincing details. which of course, they discovered had been fed to him by the police interrogations. (for example, he was convicted and sentenced to die for the case of “Orange socks”, having given a detailed confession. Problem was that it was documented that he was in Florida at the time and couldn’t have committed the crime).
Yes Wring, and apparently two juries analyzed those confessions in the adversarial context of a court of law and found them pretty convincing.
You’re willing to accept the confessions of the five, but not the confession of Reyes, how interesting.
Obviously he raped her, unless of course, he has a twin brother somewhere he is trying to protect.
stuguy? Who is stuguy? [Grinny here]
Wring, I’m not saying they should go to jail for being “bad guys.” They should go to jail for the crimes they committed against the non-rape victims.
Now tell me, why should the police not have closed the book on the case after the conviction??? I mean really, what investigator or police department goes out looking for culprits after the case has been tried and the accused has been convicted???
Remember this was considered pretty much a slam-dunk for the prosecution when it came to trial. There was plenty of evidence – including those pesky confessions – pointing to the boys’ guilt. That’s why the new admission by Reyes has been so utterly stunning. In fact, Reyes’ revelation is so hard to swallow for some observers and former trial participants (but not me) that they still insist that the boys were still somehow mixed up in the his rape act.
my point (sorry about the name) was that with the confessions (which were, we see now, not true), they did close the case and stopped looking for anyone.
there is a (uncoerced) confession and specific physical evidence saying the other guy was at fault.
I am aware that there were 2 juries that heard the evidence and decided they were guilty. and apparently they were wrong. Just as wrong as other juries have been in other cases where DNA has since cleared the person, the Henry Lee Lucas case etc. So what? they were wrong.
RE: the other crimes they may have been guilty of. As was noted the only evidence apparently again, are the confessions, which are also apparently wrong about the other things they confessed to. and in any event, they’d deserve trials on those cases, vs. something else.
Perhaps I’m not clear about my point = the police were under serious pressure to clear the case. They found these kids, and obtained confessions/ yes, they ‘cleared’ the case.
Should they have? from the reality then, of course. However, confessions alone in a case with so much blood and no DNA evidence linking them to the victim, certainly somebody could have been wondering 'gee, how did all these kids do this w/o getting substantial quanitites of blood all over themselves, manage to walk out of the park, (yes the other guy apparently did, but one person is much less conspicuous than a crowd of 6), have their stuff searched and have no other physical evidence linking them? (hair evidence all alone isn’t all that compelling).
My point/position is that with confessions being the sole main source of guilt, especially confessions that have been obtained through aggressive questioning, and in a case where there should have been a wealth of physical evidence but was not, the pressure should be ‘get the right guy’ vs. ‘close the case’.
Really - look up Henry Lee Lucas - he was in fact, a bad guy, etc. but he led police all over the country on wild goose chases claiming that he’d killed hundreds.
in this case, had they continued to search for the some one linking the physical evidence of the crime scene, maybe they’d have gotten Reyes off the streets sooner.
If the confession had been a legit one and Salamm & friends had really raped her, why is there no DNA linking him anywhere to the victim’s body? You’d think that with all the physical intimacy and whatnot that rape inherently entails, at least a tiny bit of incriminating evidence (hair, semen, saliva) would have been deposited on her. If not by Salamm, at least by the other people convicted of the crime. And yet there were no such smoking guns found to corraborate these confessions.
That leaves us with three possibilities:
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They wore condoms during the rapes and took considerable measures to not shed any pubic hairs; they made extra sure not to get scratched by the victim so as not to leave incriminating skin cells under her nails; and they were exquisitely careful not to leave any bodily secretions on her skin or clothes that could somehow be traced to them.
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The forensics lab fucked up. There was really corroborating evidence on the body, but they missed it. Or the samples collected that might have been contaminated with the supposed perpetrators DNA were too old or degraded.
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The confessions were not legitimate.
Out of all these possibilities, the 3rd one seems the most likely. The 1st one is a stretch because the crime took place before the advent of widespread DNA forensics, so why would the guys have thought to be that cautious? Never mind the reality that those who engage in gang rapes rarely ever think to wear condoms (even in this current era of DNA fingerprinting). It just doesn’t seem likely that the perps would have been that cautious given the state of technology in those days.
The 2nd possibility is also quite iffy. Forensic labs are not infallible, but it stands to reason that if Reyes’ DNA was picked up, the DNA of those prosecuted of the crime should also be able to be picked up. If it’s not picked up, it makes more sense to conclude that there is no proof that it is there than it is to conclude that there is no proof that it is not there.
Like I said before, the 3rd possibility holds more water than 1 or 2. I can already hear someone saying “Well maybe the part about the rape is a lie, but everything else in the confession could be true.” But that’s an illogical argument. The point of a confession is to admit a truth. If that confession is shown to contain a lie (and not the kind of lie that profits the confessor by any means), then what happens to the validity of that confession? Does it still have merit? And if all you have to base a case on is that confession, what does that do to your case when it is shown that major parts of the confession have flaws in them? Shouldn’t it be thrown out?
I really hate to sound as if I’m coming to the defense of criminals (see also “Am I a Self-Hating Negro” thread), but I’m trying to see this thing in a scientific way. There seems to be more evidence pointing to police misconduct than there is pointing to the guilt of the men arrested for this crime.
I don’t necessarily call it “police misconduct”, since I believe that aggressive questioning not inherently a ‘bad thing’, certainly doesn’t rise to the level of police misconduct.
but when you have enormous pressure to clear the case, several viable suspects, aggressive questioning leading to a confession, which links to the circumstances of the crime, it’s easy to breath a sigh of relief and say 'we got ‘em’, vs. “well, gosh doesn’t it seem odd that there’s all this blood and tissue and stuff and none of it got on them?” and ‘what if we’re wrong?’