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False confessions,
eyewitness misidentification and criminal informants given benefits
for their testimony account for most wrongful convictions. Unethical
prosecutors use these techniques, hiding behind the colour
of law.
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on this story
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Linda Fairstein
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Central
Park Jogger 5
Central Park
Jogger case:
coerced confessions
NY Sued Over Notorious
Central Park Jogger Case
By Paul Thomasch, December
8, 2003
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three
young men who spent 7 years in jail for the notorious 1989 rape
of a Central Park jogger before their convictions were overturned,
filed $50 million lawsuits on Monday, claiming the district attorney's
office, police and others violated their civil rights.
Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson,
Raymond Santana Jr. and their families filed the suit in Manhattan
federal court almost a year after a state court threw out the
convictions of the three men and two others in one of the city's
most racially charged criminal cases.
The highly publicized case
was about the rape of a white female jogger, who was found unconscious
and beaten in the city's most popular park. She spent two weeks
in a coma, never fully recovered and has permanent neurological
damage including balance problems, headaches and double vision.
McCray, Richardson and Santana,
who were 14 at the time, along with Kharey Wise, then 16, and
Yusef Salaam, then 15, were convicted of rape, assault, robbery
and riot for attacking the jogger as well as a couple on a tandem
bicycle, two male joggers and a homeless man.
Evidence later uncovered --
the confession of a serial rapist that he alone attacked the
28-year-old jogger, backed up by DNA tests -- resulted in the
dismissal of the convictions.
By then, McCray, Richardson
and Santana -- all black -- had served seven years in prison.
Among those listed as defendants
in the suit are the city of New York, the New York City Police
Department, the New York County District Attorney's Office and
District Attorney Robert Morgtenthau. A number of officials who
worked on the case were also named in the suit.
The suit states the three men
were victims of an "illegal arrest, confinement and imprisonment,
malicious prosecution, and wrongful conviction" and seeks
$50 million on behalf of each of them.
The lawsuit said the incident
caused "grievous permanent injury, including more than 7
years of imprisonment in prison, and the attendant loss of freedom,
companionship and income; mental and physical pain, suffering,
anguish, fear, and humiliation and defamation of character and
reputation which was caused by their public branding as rapists."
McCray, Richardson, Santana,
Wise and Salaam were convicted largely on the basis of confessions
made to police after the attack. Wise or Salaam are not part
of the lawsuit filed on Monday.
Lawyers: 5 Teens Innocent
DNA, confession key in 1989 jogger rape
By Karen Freifeld, Staff
Writer, New York Newsday, September 5, 2002
Lawyers for the five teenagers
convicted in the 1989 rape and near-fatal attack on a jogger
in Central Park claimed yesterday that the youths have been cleared
because DNA and a confession have linked a convicted rapist and
murderer to the crime.
"These young men are innocent,"
said defense attorney Michael Warren, who is seeking to have
the guilty verdicts against Kevin Richardson, Anton McCray and
Raymond Santana thrown out. "There is injustice here."
Two other defendants, Yusef
Salaam and Kharey Wise, also are expected to ask that their convictions
be vacated. All five -- four of whom were under 16 at the time
-- have served their sentences in the rape. Santana remains in
prison on an unrelated drug charge. The five were accused of
attacking the jogger, an investment banker, on April 19, 1989.
The woman was beaten, raped and left for dead on a muddy ravine,
authorities said.
In January, however, Matias
Reyes, 31, who is serving 331/3 years to life for raping four
women and killing a pregnant woman in June 1989, confessed to
the jogger's rape. He has since given statements to prosecutors
and defense lawyers.
"I was drawn by her appearance
and I just had to have her," Reyes says in a notarized statement
for the defense on Aug. 23, explaining how he saw the jogger
from the 102nd Street entrance to the park.
"At one point, I picked
up a tree branch ... A short distance later, I hit her over the
head with the tree branch. She fell down and I dragged her into
a bushy area ... I took off her clothing ... grabbed her again
... beat her with a rock."
The Manhattan district attorney's
office said it is investigating Reyes' claims. Papers defense
lawyers filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan said Reyes
was interviewed by prosecutors several times and was taken to
Central Park "where he described the areas of the park where
he attacked" the victim.
The court papers also claim
that DNA links Reyes to the victim and that Reyes claims he acted
alone. "There are a number of different things that could
have happened," a law enforcement source said yesterday.
"He could have come onto the scene afterward, before or
even during ... What you have to do is figure it out and that's
what we're doing."
The source said prosecutors
always said there was DNA evidence that did not match the defendants.
At the same time, all five teens gave written and/or videotaped
statements incriminating themselves in the attack, including
admissions by several that they held the victim while others
raped her.
Three of the defendants were
convicted of rape and assault and sentenced as juveniles to 5
to 10 years. Richardson was convicted of attempted murder, rape
and sodomy and received 5 to 10 years. Wise, who was 16 at the
time, was convicted of assault and sexual abuse and sentenced
to 5 to 15 years.
But defense attorneys say Reyes'
involvement exonerates their clients. "If Reyes did it,
then it is almost unimaginable that a group of kids out on a
wilding in the park had anything to do with him," said Myron
Beldock, who represents Salaam. "He was older. He was completely
different. He was a man who was into violent rape."
The attorneys also noted there
was no forensic evidence linking the jogger and young men. "The
only evidence that linked them to the crime was statements taken
from each," Warren said in his papers. "The statements,
however, were taken by second-grade seasoned detectives, with
20 to 30 years on the job, who in effect separated these children
from their parents for hours, ultimately securing statements
from each of them through coercion, psychological duress and
manipulation."
Attorney Roger Wareham, co-counsel,
added he believes the prosecution was driven by racism. "There
are many inconsistencies that were pointed out during the trial
but really were ignored because the overriding issue was a white
woman had been raped by blacks and Latinos and there was going
to be a conviction," he said. The case is back in court
Sept. 9.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday,
Inc.
- The Lesson Of The Central
Park Jogger Controversy:
- Start Videotaping Interrogations
by Christopher Dunn and
Donna Lieberman, Op-Ed published in Newsday, September 27, 2002
Manhattan District Attorney
Robert Morgenthau must decide by October 21 how to respond to
the extraordinary disclosures of earlier this month about the
Central Park Jogger case. Though five black and Latino teenagers
were convicted and spent many years in jail for the 1989 rape
and near murder of a white woman jogging in Central Park, it
was publicly revealed this month that another man has confessed
to the attack and claims to have acted alone. And recent DNA
analysis of evidence from the crime scene fails to tie the teenagers
to the attack.
One of the most troubling issues
confronting Mr. Morgenthau and the public in this case arises
from the videotaped confessions obtained by the New York City
Police Department from the teenagers. Those confessions, which
were detailed and given in the presence of parents, were introduced
at trial and undoubtedly contributed significantly to the resulting
convictions.
The teenagers and their families,
however, claim that the confessions were coerced, the result
of illegal and improper police interrogations that took place
before the videotaping of the confessions. The recent disclosures
lend considerable credibility to these charges.
This controversy points to
the need for a fundamental reform of police practices: the NYPD
must start videotaping interrogations of suspects in serious
crimes. This simple reform will help eliminate coercive interrogation
practices and will help police and prosecutors respond to false
allegations of coercion.
There is every reason to believe
that unreliable confessions are a substantial problem in law
enforcement. In the most thorough investigation so far, the Chicago
Tribune last December reported hundreds of cases in Chicago that
involved coerced or otherwise improper confessions since 1991.
Earlier this year The Washington Post chronicled abusive interrogations
practices in Prince Georges County, Maryland that produced false
confessions. And state supreme courts in Minnesota and Alaska
have ordered that interrogations in those states be recorded
to assure that defendants are not being coerced into false confessions.
Far too often, cops pressure suspects by lying about evidence
or about the statements of supposed accomplices; by making false
promises of leniency; by denying suspects access to lawyers and
parents; and by taking advantage of their age, fatigue or simple
fear.
Though there has not yet been
a systematic review of confessions in New York, even prior to
the Central Park Jogger case, several highly-publicized cases
involved allegedly coerced confessions that proved false. For
instance, earlier this year the government told a federal judge
in Manhattan that an Egyptian man named Abdallah Higazy had confessed
to owning a ground-to-air radio that allegedly was found in his
room in the ruins of a hotel abutting upon the World Trade Center.
Targeted as a terrorist who facilitated the attacks of September
11th, the Higazy insisted that his "confession" was
coerced, but he was released only after a pilot came forward
to claim the radio and after a hotel security guard admitted
that he had lied about the radio being in Higazy's room. The
government has yet to explain how it obtained the "confession,"
though Higazy says he made statements only after he and his family
were repeatedly threatened during an hours-long interrogation
outside the presence of his lawyer.
Before that was the case of
Bently Grant, a homeless man arrested by the NYPD in July 2000
and charged with smashing a chuck of concrete into the back of
the head of social-work student Tiffany Goldberg in midtown Manhattan.
After approximately 20 hours of interrogation with no lawyer
present, Grant allegedly "confessed" and was held without
bail on charges of attempted murder. Prompted by the doubts about
the confession by an assistant district attorney, a further investigation
led to a videotape of a Virgin Records store that showed Mr.
Grant and exonerated him.
In New York, a precedent already
exists for the recording of interrogations by the NYPD. When
a police officer or other member of the Department is suspected
of wrongdoing, the NYPD is entitled to interrogate the officer.
Before starting such an interrogation, however, the Department
is required to turn on a tape recorder, the entire interrogation
is taped, and the tape is preserved. If this is good enough for
cops, it is good enough for New Yorkers who face felony charges
that might lead to lengthy imprisonment and perhaps even the
death penalty.
Thirty five years ago the United
States Supreme Court observed, "We have learned the lesson
of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law
enforcement which comes to depend upon the 'confession' will,
in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses
than a system which depends on extrinsic evidence independently
secured through skillful investigation." As a society, we
have an interest in bringing criminals to justice; however, we
have no legitimate interest in concealing abusive interrogations
that lead to false confessions.
Dunn is the Associate Legal
Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union; Lieberman is
the NYCLU's Executive Director.
Jogger case confession
DNA evidence from con may clear teens in '89 park attack
By ALICE McQUILLAN, DAILY
NEWS STAFF WRITER
One of the most savage entries
in New York's crime annals - the 1989 Central Park wilding attack
on a female jogger - may have to be rewritten after DNA testing
now clearly points to a new suspect, the Daily News has learned.
New DNA analysis has confirmed
that genetic evidence taken from the victim belongs to a convicted
rapist and murderer who first admitted to the attack in January.
What's more, key pieces of
physical evidence that swayed juries in two racially charged
trials to convict five teens are being discredited through DNA
tests.
The new testing was done with
forensic technology not available when the case was tried.
Law enforcement sources said
these tests show hair found on one youth is not from the victim,
as prosecutors had said.
They also said blood - believed
to be from the jogger - found on a stone allegedly used in the
attack is not hers.
Other physical evidence introduced
at the trials included grass- and dirt-stained clothing that
prosecutors said came from the scene.
The viciousness of the April
19, 1989, attack, in which the jogger, a white investment banker
then 28, was brutally beaten, sexually assaulted and left for
dead, stunned New Yorkers and flamed racial tensions.
The black and Hispanic youths,
ranging in age from 14 to 17, were initially among some 30 teens
who were picked up after rampaging through Central Park that
night, assaulting as many as nine people.
Wild night
They described their escapade
as "wilding" and later were reported to have sung a
streetcorner hit called "Wild Thing" from their cells.
Eventually, they confessed
to attacking or sexually abusing the jogger - but all said later
that the confessions had been coerced.
Yesterday, a lawyer for defendants
Antron McCray, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson said he has
taken court action to reverse the convictions.
"It was a great miscarriage
of justice," said the attorney, Michael Warren.
The others convicted, Yusef
Salaam and Kharey Wise, are expected to follow suit, according
to an adviser, City Councilman Bill Perkins (D-Harlem).
"From their point of view
... they were falsely convicted and sentenced for a crime they
did not commit, which has blemished them and their families,"
Perkins said.
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman
for the Manhattan district attorney, said the office "is
conducting a thorough review of the Central Park jogger case."
She declined further comment.
But a law enforcement source
familiar with the case said, "It's an [open] question whether
the outcome of the original case can survive this new information.
"There was no forensic
connection to the defendants," Warren said. "They were
prosecuted mainly on manipulated confessions and the emotions
of the day."
Con says he
did it
The case was reopened this
year after convict Matias Reyes suddenly admitted to the crime.
Reyes, serving 331/3 years
to life for the rape and murder of a woman on the upper East
Side in June 1989, said he attacked the Central Park jogger two
months before.
Finding God, he said, compelled
him to come forward.
"I had to get this off
my chest. I had to do one thing right in my life," sources
said Reyes told authorities. "I feel bad about this."
Reyes said he was alone in
the park when he saw the woman running on a deserted section
of the 102nd St. Transverse.
He said he hit her in the head
with a piece of wood and dragged her down a ravine, where he
raped her and beat her senseless.
Because this account matches
part of the confessions given by the teenagers, authorities aren't
sure whether Reyes was alone or attacked the woman with the youths.
The victim, now 41, is married,
living in Connecticut and writing a book about her life and recovery.
She was in a coma for 12 days
and has no memory of the attack.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
