What detail?
Oh that detail. From Xeno’s cite.
:: stuyguy enters the room where Scylla, wring, Biggirl and all the rest are yelling at each other, “They raped her!” and “No they didn’t!”; he passes poor Sua who is rolling his eyes and desperately searching for the door as people tug at his coat; he pushes his way through the noisy crowd and across the room looking for EasyPhil to deliver this post regarding the boys involvement with the non-rape crimes ::
Phil, you asked:
“They admitted to the most serious thing they were charged with, why is it such a stretch that they also admitted to the other crimes for the same reason?”
Well, I’ll respond by posting a quote from the Times that I posted earlier in this thread:
“On the [non-rape] crimes, the teenagers’ accounts are broadly consistent with the versions offered by the [non-rape] victims. Even more telling, a few of the incidents described in the confessions — attacks on runners or bicyclists who got away — had not yet been reported to the police when the teenagers mentioned them.”
So, bottom line is that the kids mentioned stuff THAT THE POLICE DID NOT KNOW HAPPENED until it was later corroborated! I’m sorry, but that pretty much proves that the kids were not just parroting what the police told them regarding the non-rape assaults.
:: stuyguy slinks out the door unnoticed, on the heels of SuaSponte. They get a beer and talk about girls. ::
two things leap out at me at this point from that lengthy cite:
-
the Prosecutor admits that the confessions themselves constitute the bulk of the evidence against the defendants;
-
in his lengthy criminal history, Mr. Reyes recounted quite a few assaults, and they noted that “some he recalled in great detail, others only recalled sketchy detail” many had not been prosecuted but were linked to him after the fact with his confessions (ie he accurately described events that matched witnesses and victims statements).
So out of all that he claimed, you disbelieve the one statement ‘I acted alone’.
which do you suppose happened first? Reyes (who stalked many of his prior victims) or the kids?
If Reyes first, then why (again for the umpteenth time) was there no bloodstains from the victim on any of the kids clothing (including shoes)? there was copious amounts of blood. how could they lay on top of her w/o getting blood and fluids all over themeselves?
IF the kids first, then Reyes statement is untrue as well - he stalked his victims.
RE: the ‘she ran off’ - she was found at the bottom of an incline, lots of blood trails etc, she certainly could have stumbled off and fallen.
which to me is much more likely than one bunch of people jumping on a jogger, beating her etc nearly to death then a rapist coming along and raping her or the rapist raping the woman and a group coming along later and mounting her, beating her some more and not getting any blood on themselves, nor leaving any hairs, blood, fluids on her.
oops - nope Scylla you read that wrong “at the time he left her, she was unconscious but alive”, the 'saw her running off part occurred eariler - he nabbed her again after that.
Sorry - she was not ‘running off’ when he left her, per **xeno’s ** cite page 32 of 56.
Yeah, I know. He said she tried to run off after he raped her, but then he caught her again and beat her some more.
And the kids had no blood on them because they beat her with foreign objects about the head.
The parts of her body they sexually assaulted weren’t her head.
I would also suggest that you look again at page 49 of 58, wherein it describes such things as time lines, suggesting that the larger group split up at one point in time, and that “it’s difficult to construct a scenario that would allow the defendents the time to interrupt their progression south” (paraphrased) detoured, commit the crime and regroup.
None of the 5 accurately described where the crime took place, nor came up with a viable scenario that included the fact that there were multiple crime scenes. several were flat out wrong about specifics such as if the victim was stabbed or cut, if she was clothed when they left her; they all said ‘several’ raped her, though only 1 DNA was found. So, apparently, of the ‘several’ who raped, only one ejaculated?
only Reyes’ statement included the multiple crime scenes, accurately described when/where she was coming from, and described the condition in which she was found. Only his. None of the others.
Rest assured that I understood you perfectly when you said you are not on any side. I just disagreed when you said:
In the absence of physical evidence (and I know you later qualified your statement with that disclaimer, but initially you did not), I would agree that Reyes’ confession would have less weight than the 5 guys’. But it is unreasonable to dismiss that confession when corroborating physical evidence is shown to be present. And that’s all I wanted to say. Didn’t mean to offend you by disagreeing.
by Scylla
What??? Blood splatters. Splattering is what blood does best. I don’t care if you are beating someone with your fist or with a sledgehammer, the blood will splatter. In the victim’s case, the assault was quite traumatic and I have a hard time imagining that not one of the guys supposedly involved escaped the scene without getting blood on their shoes, if not on their clothes. If not under their fingernails. And blood, BTW, is quite hard to wash away once it gets under the nails. It tends to stick around awhile.
Right. But was there blood on her clothes? Probably, because she’d been stabbed and repeatedly banged in the head with a rock. Pretty brutal stuff. If there was blood on her clothes and they touched her clothes (doesn’t sexual assault usually involve touching?) then what is a reasonable explanation for why not even a trace of blood was found to be on their clothes or in their homes?
Were these teenagers that good? Even Hannibal Lecter couldn’t be so slick.
You answer your own query here- 1989 was indeed “before the advent of widespread DNA forensics”, thus they simply didn’t look for the kind of evidence that they show on “CSI”. Besides- why continue to collect evidence when you have suspucts that have confessed? It was not nessesary for the “fornesics lab (to have) fucked up”- just for them to follow normal proc for that sort of case in that day & age. Thus, the fact that we have no DNA forensic evidence NOW showing that they actually commited several lesser crimes upon the victem is not proof at all that there was no such evidence. There could have been scads of great evidence that in 1989 they didn’t recognize.
Actually, not all that unreasonable. Some “rapists” are even unable to get an erection, let alone ejaculate.
This is the shit that bothers. This crap doesn’t matter. The juries specifically dealt with this in the original trial. This is not new evidence, it’s rehashing of old evidence that was duly considered and as such has no bearing on the present circumstances, i.e is there enough new evidence to overturn the verdicts?
This falls under the category of old evidence.
I wonder what the hell this Ryan is doing putting together a defense. It seems to me that she’s supposed to be the D.A. and it is her job to prosecute cases and make existing convictions stick.
That is her job isn’t it?
Why the hell is she mounting a defense? That seems to me to be undermining the whole point of the adversarial process of the rule of law. Yet she’s not making arguments for the case, she’s making them against it.
Could it be that she’s politically motivated? Wouldn’t she look good in the eyes of the liberal press to be instrumental in overturning this egregious miscarriage of law?
by DrDerth
Confession or no confession, the police still have to do an investigation, and that means collecting as many samples as they can for analysis. Yes, I’m sure the detectives believed (or wanted to believe) the confessions were damning enough on their own merit, but they still should have made sure to support their case with physical findings.
Since current forensics were able to find Reyes’ semen on the jogger’s sock, I’m assuming that access to the jogger’s other clothing remains available for analysis. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. But regardless, forensics back in the '80’s still should have been able to find and match blood and semen types. Maybe the matches were lower in specificity in those days, but they could have been used to support the prosecution.
Like what? Semen? Blood? I know the 80’s was a rough and raunchy time, but there was enough technology to recognize these “scads of great evidence” had they been there. And if there had been a lot of evidence that alluded us during those days, then they should be detected today.
I don’t, either, but it seems it’s pretty common. In a high profile case here, a young guy (18-20 at the time of the murder, IIRC) admitted to have salvagely killed a kid. This admission weighted heavily during his trial, despite him denying later he was actually guilty. He stayed in jail for perhaps 10 years until a police officer inquiring about another case discovered that a well-known serial killer was present in the little town where the crime was commited on the same day (and later other evidences that he could be the murdered were discovered). The young guy has been freed last month, after a new trial, and it has made the headlines here.
The reasons why he admitted being the murderer, according to psychologists who testified during both trials felt down to him being immature and very submissive, and even …“eager to please” 
(I don’t want to dissapoint you, officer, so I’m going to say I murdered the kid???).
Worst than that : during the second trial, it surfaced that the young guy had been the ** third ** suspect to admit to the crime. But the police had found quickly that the two previous one couldn’t have commited it. A reasonnable person would suppose that they were torturing people in this police station, or something…But nope. Nor the guy who was sentenced, nor the two others complained about any violence. They just told they were pressured into saying they were guilty.
And since someone mentionned that an innocent could admit to a crime because he’s facing a dilemna like “pleading guilty and be life sentenced or pleading innocent and being sentenced to death”, I would add that in France, plea bargains aren’t allowed (precisely to avoid such situations, or false accusations following a deal), so it’s not necessarily the explanation.
So it seems there are a significant number of people who, though innocent, without violence, and without any carrot like a plea bargain, are going to admit they’re guilty, apparently only because they’re weak-willed and can’t bear the pressure of the interrogations.
Well, macroscopic evidence was about all they looked for back than. Such things as epithelials (small amounts of skin shed) and such simply weren’t checked for back then- and nowadays would be considered “scads”. Yep, you’re right about “blood & semen”- but that’s about it- those, along with hairs, were about the extent of NORMAL DNA forensic evidence looked for back then. Nor should we assume that they kept all the clothing- rather doubtful in the 80’s.
This will just get worse, you all know. We’ll be able to find better & better evidence in smaller & smaller amounts. And dudes 20 years from now will be calling our “modern” forensics “fucked up”. The only way to CYA will be for forensics to store HUGE amounts of materials from EVERY case- even those “solved”. And, frankly, that just isn’t practical. And interesting enough- even now- for just about EVERY crime- if they want to throw enough resources & money at it, they can solve it. But the amount of such resources are severely limited (which is why I snicker ironicly when I see the “CSI’s” taking a bunch of time on the murder of a “homeless person” or some such- not that they couldn’t- just that they don’t have the time & money to do so).
So, I am sorry- the fact that 23 years later they can’t find the kind of evidence they could find now proves nothing. Nor does the fact that they COULD have done better forensics. You can’t try this case in a lifeboat. The dudes were violent criminal scum. They confessed. There was some physical evidence they did it. There wasn’t any strong evidence they didn’t. No one could know what we now know 23 years later. Thus, there was no reason to keep investigating. Nor- was there any reason to try & convict the scum on other, “lesser” charges (which is seems they could have). Thus, the Police & Prosecutors did nothing wrong- except in the light of 20-20 hindsight.
Now I do know & agree that confessions can be coerced. But these dudes were NOT “innocent”- altho it seems like they were “not guilty” of at least one crime they were convicted of.
OTOH- their “real” crimes were not so heinous as to require Life, and the time they have served already wouldn’t be that too far off. So, maybe commuting their sentance to “time served” or something like that would 'serve justice for all".
(you w/face - there was no stabbing**)
Scylla, yes, of course all of that (the stuff that bothers you) was seen by the first jury, but, to beat the dead horse once again, they saw it in the framework of the confessions, the lack of confession of the other guy and with physical evidence that at the time seemed to support that the kids did it, but now we see, doesn’t.
And as for the prosecutor’s motives - what about, as an officer of the court, to serve justice. If she feels (as she does, apparently) that the evidence to support the conviction is no longer there, it would not serve justice to allow the conviction to stand.
and you again neatly avoided : The REyes statement that you cited, you were wrong. His statement and his alone accounts for :
- Where the body was found. 2. Where the intial attack occured. 3. The specific injuries she sustained and with what kind of weapon, 4. the condition the body was in when she was left; 5. the fact that there were multiple crime scenes that she was first assaulted on the foot path, dragged up a ways, she broke free, then was dragged down again, making a total of 3 distinct scenes of the attack.
If he’d come along afterwards, he’d not have known this. And, after he left her, she was hidden, was not found for hours and hours the kids were on the paths, assaulting folks, why would they have gone off the path at all?
actually, the doctor who treated the jogger disagreed that Reyes was the only one. He said the weapon Reyes claimed (branch) was inconsistent with the injuries, wehich required a sharp edge (Face’s stabbing?) . There were also reports Reyes could not lead the cops to the location.
according to the link provided by xeno, he correctly described the location(s), the kids were not able to.
according to the link provided by xeno the injuries sustained were consistent w/being hit by a branch (specifically they note that his description of her shoulder injury matched the description).
To be humble, I admit that I’m not an expert on this case. But what physical evidence was there that suggests all 5 of them were involved? I wouldn’t be debating this topic if I thought there was sufficient physical evidence linking the confessors to the crime, honestly.
“Innocent until proven guilty” implies that the burden of proof rests upon the side striving to get a conviction, not on the side defending itself against accusations of guilt. In other words, there’s not any strong evidence that Osama Bin Laden didn’t commit the crime either. But that’s neither here nor there.