I never said the Armstrong Report contained “new” evidence. You asked what new evidence I had, which implied that the guilt could not be based on the old evidence, and I disputed that premise (post #209). I subsequently introduced the Armstrong Report as a summary of the evidence supporting guilt.
You’re conveniently leaving out part of what you said. I’ll quote it for you, adding some helpful emphasis. You said:
“In this case, there was no witness to identify the attackers, no physical evidence linking them to the crime, and the only circumstantial evidence is that they were near enough to the crime that they were picked up in a canvass”
My response - that they were identified by witnesses as part of a group of attackers that night - was appropriately directed.
The only logical connection between the confessions and the DNA is that to the extent that the DNA proves innocence, then the confessions had to have been false. But that’s not as to the confessions themselves.
As I said, the Reyes confession cast significant doubt on the earlier verdict. That’s not the same thing as saying it showed conclusively that it was incorrect.
Conclude that the parents were also fearful, I have seen many videos were the police just ignore other relatives or case workers, even when they are trying to prevent the police from shooting a relative.
And in the end that testimony, like the others, was contradicted by the confession of the actual rapist. No, I already did see that opinion piece from the Daily Beast, not really worthy of consideration after what was found later.
Again that illogical position is only possible by ignoring the testimony of the actual rapist and the testimony of the accused before their “confessions”.
[Checks the current status of the Central Park 5]
Yep, still free.
Yep, the authorities still agree that the earlier verdict was incorrect.
Reyes is not exactly the most credible witness himself, considering his history of violence , the fact that “a defense psychiatrist concluded that Reyes was not capable of telling the truth”, and that his own confession had errors as well. (Plus the testimony that he had been threatened by one of the defendants - a member of the Bloods gang.)
As this example shows, the very reprehensible behavior of Trump regarding the Central Park 5 was/is a very good example of how Trump will behave as president.
He will be a president that will continue to dig deeper when stuck on a hole.
The reason why this already settled issue is still coming up is because of Trump and bigoted sources of information in the internet that keep repeating the opinion of people that will never admit that they were wrong.
Yes, and this after I asked if you had any new evidence of their guilt. You did not say that you did not have new evidence, but that you had a report from a panel of lawyers that made conclusions that had no legal bearing, and also happened to disagree with your own assertions.
In fact, you didn’t say anything like that at all, instead just pointing to the armstrong report as if it were an actual finding of a court, or new evidence or something. All it is is a summary of the “evidence” that was known at the time, all of which has been called into question by subsequent events. When I asked for new evidence, I was asking for anything that still stood up.
So, to make it easy for you, I will answer my question for you, as your evasiveness could make it a dozen posts or more before you finally admit that no, there is no new evidence to support their guilt.
Oh, I missed that part. I was not aware that they were identified as having been the rapists by other witnesses. Apologies on my ignorance.
Errr, wait, no, on looking back on it, I see that they were only identified as having been in the area, (and up to some activities that should be sanctioned, to be sure) not participating in the rape.
So, help me with my ignorance, who was the witness that ID’d the teens as the rapists? I am having alot of trouble finding that, but it must be, otherwise, you are once again, wrong; this time in your implication that there were witnesses to identify them as the rapists.
Unfortunately there seems to be no limit to the amount of BS you can attribute to me and insert into my words, and frankly it gets tedious. I am going to address your distortions for the last time.
Again.
I never claimed there was new evidence. I did not introduce the Armstrong report under the guise of it’s being new evidence. I did not “finally admit” that there was no new evidence because that has never been my claim.
I disputed the need for “new” evidence, because the “old” evidence has not been completely refuted, and still suffices to cast considerable doubt on claims that these defendants were innocent. This is shown in the Armstrong report.
Not only did I not claim that there were witnesses who identified them as the rapists but I explicitly said that there were not witnesses who identified them as the rapists. It’s hard to imagine how you could have missed it (in the unlikely event that you really did).
What I said was that there were witnesses who identified them attacking other people in the same general area on that same day. The notion that people who were engaged in gang attacks on people in the same park on that same evening might also be guilty of this particular attack is considerably more than being “near enough to the crime”. Which is why I said you “exaggerated” when you depicted it that way.
Your attempt to pretend that I claimed or implied that there were other witnesses to them raping this woman is on par with your approach in this thread.
No doubt you will bounce back with more jive. But I don’t have all day for this, so I think I’m done with you.
You are confused.
There is no doubt that Reyes was guilty of the crime to which he confessed. That’s not in question. The question is about his absolving of the others, about which there is much more doubt.
But you really need to understand what “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” means before trying to claim that the court vacating the convictions proves that the court (or legal system) believed were innocent.
No, I don’t(although I do understand).
I just need to understand that they were under no obligation to convince you of jack shit. BTW, one shouldn’t bitch about others putting words in one’s mouth when one does the same to others. I never made the claim you attribute to me.
That’s your prerogative, of course. But meanwhile, I stand by my interpretation of your remarks and don’t see a possible alternative.
Your statement was that “It’s rather evident that you doubt it [i.e. Reyes’ testimony absolving the others - F-P] much more than those who have heard all the evidence and ruled on the matter.”
To the extent that “those who have heard all the evidence and ruled on the matter” were using “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” as their yardstick, then there’s nothing evident in their ruling other than that they thought there was a good chance that the earlier trial would have ruled that the sum of the evidence failed to meet that standard. This would be true even if there remained a lot of doubt as to the validity of the Reyes testimony.
Therefore, the only way to conclude that those who ruled on the matter did not believe there was doubt as to the validity of the Reyes testimony - in contradiction to what I said - is to be ignorant of the “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” standard. Thus one might conclude that the vacating of the sentence would only be done if there was no doubt as to the validity of the testimony, and in contradiction to what I posted.
I interpreted your remarks along these lines, and continue to believe this to be the correct interpretation. And FTR, while I’m sure you’re in general aware of the concept of “guilty beyond reasonable doubt”, I believe you got lost in the logic here and did not appreciate how this played out WRT this particular argument.