What do you base that view on?
Not to continue to beat a dead horse, but that’s the whole point, DrDerth. There’s no evidence that their admission to the assault was anymore truthful than their admission of rape. “It appears” it does not.
that’s what Scylla kept arguing as well, but never would answer how on earth would 5 guys not leave traces of themselves, or pick up traces of her, yet assault her (he claimed that they assaulted her w/other objects, except that Reyes’s claims accounted for her injuries, w/o additional assaults w/other objects, and the 5 specifically claimed things like ‘dry humping’ etc. claimed the others in their group raped her etc. which should have led to transfer of blood and other physical evidence.)
I’m not second-guessing the jury results and claiming the prosecution’s case was weak. You are.
well, so is a prosecutor and judge who’ve reviewed all of the evidence and evaluated all of the evidence, not only from the trial, but afterwards. 
I’m not dodging it Wring. I don’t know. I don’t particularly care. Clearly that was an issue at the original trial, and it was handled satisfactorily, and the jury decided to convict.
It seems to me that if you want to overturn the verdict you wouldn’t rehash the old arguments that have already been tried and judged. You would stick to the new facts.
The new facts are:
-
It’s Reyes’ sperm
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He says he acted alone.
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His story fits the facts of the case better than the original confessions.
Those are the three new facts.
Can we agree on that much?
If so, than #1 isn’t really a blockbuster either. The jury knew the semen belonged to a party that was not being prosecuted.
#2 and #3 seem to be the entire issue.
#1 adds a degree of weight to his story, right? We know at least he’s telling the truth about raping her.
On the other side of the coin we have 5 other timely self-incriminating confessions.
Reyes’ confession is not self-incriminating. He has nothing to lose. Arguably he may have something to gain. We don’t know, because nobody seems to be asking the question as to what Reyes’ motives are besides a sudden motive to goodwill after the statute of limitations has expired.
This makes me skeptical. I think it’s unwise to overturn a jury verdict based on this Yahoos thirteenth hour confession.
It makes me skeptical to see the way this thing is being handled in the press.
It makes me skeptical to watch the DA working as a defense attorney.
Scylla, the ‘self incriminating’ confessions were also inaccurate. If you believe their confessions, then you also need to believe that there were multiple rapes, not simple ‘touching w/objects’. they claimed that the others raped her, plural others. didn’t happen. wounds and methods of causing wounds they claimed didn’t happen the way they claimed it did.
and you keep sniping at the DA who’s re-evaluted the case. any evidence that she’s wrong or biased? or just that you disagree w/her? any DA who believes that the person was wrongfully convicted has the obligation to present that to the court.
and what about the judge? who’s specifically supposed to be on the side of ‘right, just, truth’? the judge also evaluated all of the evidence, (not simply the stuff that went to the jury 13 years ago) and finds that the convictions should be set aside.
**and, ** once again, it’s not being overturned ‘based on this yahoo’s 13th hour confession’, but based on 'this yahoos confession that actually matches the forensic evidence both what was publicized and what wasn’t, matches his MO for his years of criminal activity, matches known records of the events (including his meeting up with a cop who was on duty) etc.
there’s compelling reason to believe him. and you, seem to also believe at least part of his confession.
what I don’t understand is that you wish to:
- believe that the 5 were mistaken about some things, but truthful about some of the others assaulting/raping the woman;
and
2. that Reyes was being truthful about raping her (that pesky DNA after all), but lying about not only acting alone, but that she was unconscious when he left her.
I believe that the confessions of the 5 are untruthful WRT their actions w/the woman jogger (which was the thrust of that case, the one that got all the attention, the one that people were lusting for blood about) because there’s a lack of physical evidence linking them to her and there’s another person who not only confessed to the crime, stating he acted alone, but his confession matches the forensics etc. and there was a compelling reason for them to ‘confess’ to jogger (in each individual’s case, if they confessed that they met up w/the jogger but that their buddies raped her, they presumably would get less of a sentence, presuming that they’d be found not guilty of that one assault in the park when they were guilty of other assaults in that same park at the same time was a long shot at best).
I beleive there is a degree of untruth all around, Wring.
I think the original confessions naturally tend to mitigate the individual’s role and emphasize the role of others, i.e. “I only hit her once. Yuseff raped her.”
I believe none of these confessions in their entirety.
Personally, I don’t think that any of the original 5 committed penetrative rape.
I think she was raped by Reyes after the 5 (and others) had harassed and attacked her. I think she was assaulted and molested by them. I think Reyes was probably involved in the group. It was a large group apparently, and they all didn’t know each other. Reyes raped her byhimself after the others had moved on. He was either with them and came back, or heard the commotion and awaited the opportunity.
This would account for him misidentifying the keys. It would also account for Richardson being able to lead the police to the scene of the attack as he did. It would also account for one of the larger discrepancies. The police were after the identification of the rapist. All the five insisted that they didn’t do it, and were happy to implicate another or others to clear themselves. But none of them knew the actual rapist. They weren’t there at the time. Hence their stories don’t jibe in this respect.
Then too is the problem of confessing. Generally one is not willing to confess to something unless they think it is in their interest to do so. Why then confess to something that will put you in jail?
Naturally you want to confess to something lesser than what you did, That’s the perceived advantage.
It is entirely possible that these five and others simply accosted the jogger. Maybe they threatened her, hit her a few times, stole her keys, some money, what have you. maybe they groped her some, and then she ran off and encountered Reyes in her weakened and disoriented state. Reyes may have then done the majority of the damage in the beatings and raped her and put her in a coma.
Other joggers and people had been attacked by these kids that night, you know?
The kids may be confused and their stories not jibe perfectly because there were basically two attacks. In this scenario Reyes’ confession may be entirely truthful and accurate.
There are lots of possible scenarios. I don’t know.
What I do know is that tow seperate juries found the arguments that these five were involved compelling enough to render a verdict.
I also beleive that it is law that if other injuries and crimes are sustained as a result of a given crime then those who committed the original crime are also responsible for those crimes as well.
For example, if a criminal breaks into my house, and while trying to fight off the criminal I injure my wife, that criminal is responsible for her injury even if he didn’t directly do it.
Similarly if these 5 beat and molested the jogger and left her vulnerable for Reyes they may also be responsible for Reyes’ rape of her.
The juries knew that none of the five belonged to the semen in the jogger, yet they convicted of rape. They may have been thinking along thes lines.
I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t seem that this new evidence is enough to automatically exonerate the 5 of all charges. Perhapsit’s enough to overturn the rape charge. Perhaps not. Doesn’t realy seem germaine to me in terms of the assault.
I am personally against just throwing out wholesale the jury’s entire carefully considered verdict.
I am not against a revision a retrial, or even a revisitiation of the charges in a court of law. Perhaps there is grounds for another appeal. Almost certainly so.
I think the jury brought the verdict in a court of law and it shouldn’t be easily overturned. I think the adversarial process should be maintained. I think justice is in danger when all of a sudden the DA is abondoning the process. I think somebody needs to be arguing the other side and I am disturbed that nobody seems to be doing so.
Scylla, Reyes didn’t need any help because unfortunately he’s quite adept at beating and raping women because he’s a serial rapist, it’s one of his professions, or at least used to be. That’s why your argument that he was somehow in cohoots or that the 5 youths softened her up for him are ludicrous.
Who cares what they were thinking, they were wrong, that, we now know.
Could it be that nobody is arguing the other side, because there is no side to argue other than for arguments sake? Check out how twisted your logic is. You’re all for the case presented against the 5 youths by the DA’s office. In your mind, the confessions are good as gold, the 5 got their just rewards. But now, your against the same DA’s office when they have figured out, from other evidence about the case, that they made a mistake and want to act in the interest of justice to correct that mistake. The DA isn’t abandoning the process, they’re engaged in it, they’re leading the battle, with more information about what happened than you or I will ever know. Accept the fact Scylla, that the DA’s office knows what it’s doing the same way you did when the original case was presented.
Again, the confessions were BOGUS, B-O-G-U-S. No one that was assaulted that night could pick any of the 5 out of a line up. There’s no certainty that they comiitted any crimes, only in your mind. The president of the US may have assualted her too, in addition to some Central Park zoo animals too, anything is possible.
Scylla writes:
> Perhapsit’s enough to overturn the rape charge… Perhaps not.
Perhaps? Are you now claiming that there’s not enough evidence to overturn even the rape charge? When somebody else’s sperm was found in the women’s vagina and when that other person confessed to the rape? Do you really believe this or are you playing, “I refuse to concede anything because if I did I might have to change some of my beliefs.”
Did you read this website which was cited on the first page of this thread?:
http://innocenceproject.org/causes/falseconfessions.php
It’s about how confessions are often false. What are your reactions to this? (Please actually read it and the attached pages before you reply.)
No. I’m not going to read all the attached pages. I’ve looked at that before.
There’s an explanatory gap between the statement “false confessions sometimes occur” and “The confessions of the 5 convicted in the Central park jogger case are false confessions.”
Scylla, I think a lot of us our simply wondering what would it take to convince you the 5 confessions are false.
I already answered this question.
O.K., you’ve answered my questions. You don’t intend to modify your beliefs in any fashion no matter what further evidence you encounter and you don’t intend to read anything that disagrees with you because it might cause you to modify your beliefs. Thank you. That was all I needed to know.
No Wendell. I’ve looked that over, and I looked at it before the first time it was presented.
I’ve identified the explanatory gap. You’re ignoring it.
The fact that false confessions occur doesn’t mean that all confessions are false.
The fact that elements of a confession are false doesn’t mean that the entire confession is false.
This is why I advocate the adversarial process. Both sides of a case get argued and an impartial third party judges the relative merits.
We have had a conclusion based on this process. I think we need a similar process to overturn it, and I get very disturbed to see the DA arguing for the defense.
In a case like this I would expect to see the defense atorneys putting together arguments for the defense and as to why the verdicts should be overturned and presenting them to a judge.
If the DA then wishes to concede the prosecution is without merit than I would have no problem with it.
With both sides actively seeking an overturning of the verdict though there is no longer any impartiality. There is no two sided argument.
IANAL, but my understanding is that that’s exactly what they’re doing with the affirmation document we keep referring to. They can’t just say “Hey, Judge, we concede.” They have to present an argument one way or the other, because vacating a conviction is too important a request to be uncontested. So when, as in this case, the prosecutors actually agree that new evidence, if it “had been received at trial… would have resulted in a verdict more favorable to the defendants on one or more charges,” they must present to the Judge the reasons underlying that agreement.
Lawyers? wring? Am I correct?
I’m no lawyer, but what I understand is that the argument is generally presented by the defense in front of a judge, and the DA says something along the lines of “In light of this new evidence the State does has no objections to the vacating of such and such verdict”
[qute]They have to present an argument one way or the other, because vacating a conviction is too important a request to be uncontested.
[/quote]
This is my point exactly. Somebody needs to be critical of this new evidence, new confession and see if there’s still a case and how strong it is.
Maybe I’m making too big a deal about the DA arguing for the defense, but it certainly seems to me that that’s not the way it’s supposed to happen.
Just so. And once the District Attorney has made that critical evaluation (and remember, this is in response to the defense’s Motion to Vacate, to which I can try and find a cite if you want), they must present their evaluation to the Court, either by affirming the motion to vacate or by contesting it. They can’t shrug it off.
Scylla, a motion to vacate the convictions was made by defense attorneys on August 30th, 2002, which is why the DA’s office did what they did.
From Newsday: