The Central Park Five

Sotomayor... explained that the pressure of a custodial interrogation is "so immense that it 'can induce a frighteningly high percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed' " and referred to studies showing that youngsters are particularly susceptible to such pressure. Therefore, she explains, "a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go" and that ... "such conclusions apply broadly to children as a class. And, they are self-evident to anyone who was a child once himself, including any police officer or judge."

Dahlia Lithwick was discussing a ruling in which the Supreme Court held that age should be specifically taken into consideration when determining custody under Miranda.  The idea that people would falsely confess on a common sense level seems ridiculous, particularly for serious crimes, such as rape or murder, but it does happen.  And, those under sixteen or those with some sort of mental deficiency or learning disorder would be particularly susceptible to this.  Though not just them.

The Central Park Five, a book and now a documentary by Sarah Burns (the daughter of the well known Ken Burns, who helped make the documentary) underlines this fact.  The book is about the horrible rape of a young white woman (notable: multiple rapes occurred about that time, many not involving whites, but her case was singled out) in Central Park (NYC) which was blamed on five teens (one Hispanic, four blacks) that was part of a so-called "wilding" bunch that harassed various bikers and others in the park that night.

Some members of the much bigger group did do that and it is unclear by the book just what these teens did in respect to that.  But, none of this group raped the woman.  That was the work of a solo rapist who was in the midst of a serial rape spree involving a death.  Unfortunately for the five teens, though there were clues at the time, this only came out years later after all but one was out of prison already (the meeting of the actual rapist with one of the five led to the confession, the guy in prison for a long time for his multiple crimes).  Beforehand, basically everyone, even the media sources somewhat supportive of their cause (such as those with mainly black readership) assumed guilt, down to the likes of Bob Herbert, the left leaning columnist who joined in.

As a few realized as early as the first trial (there were two trials), the evidence provided was clearly problematic. The "confessions" had numerous problems, particularly conflicting details that didn't match the known facts.  The teens (either under sixteen or one under eighteen with a learning disability) were interrogated in coercive conditions, repeatedly their parents or guardians stepping out of the room (one such time, conveniently, one or more decided to "confess"), deprived of sleep or in at least one case, much to eat.  The timeline was skewered.  By the time of the trial, a semen sample was found that didn't match any of the suspects.  The physical evidence made the guilt of the boys questionable.  And, it seemed that basically from the night of the attack, the teens were deemed guilty, the unfortunate fact of clear reasonable doubt worked around.

The book, a quick reading 200 or so pages, is devastating reading, starting with a discussion in effect of how my city is a basket case about twenty-five years ago.  We also learn a bit about the teens themselves, some having some problems, but as a whole not basket cases, including doing well in school and having people on their side. The crime is explained and then the one note response, both the media and the justice system not having their finest hour. Most devastating is a summary of the actual rapist's crime spree, the Central Park rape in the middle of it, with certain aspects that matched a pattern.  A police officer actually talked to the rapist (wearing the headset of the jogger) shortly after the rape.

It gets to be rather depressing and some readers will be quite upset at what seems to be a very shoddy prosecution.  Once the rapist confessed, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office did show some class, having a special investigation and eventually supporting the defense's move to revoke the guilty verdicts.  Linda Fairstein, the head of sex crimes at the time, and various representatives of the police were upset at this, but the evidence was simply glaring that there was a miscarriage of justice here.  The confession techniques might work in other cases (some degree of trickery was used to have the rapist confess some of his crimes) but in this case, particularly involving teens as young as fourteen, mess.

I put above a link to the author's Facebook page and there is a clip there of a Democracy Now! appearance, which includes one of the accused and a very clips of the documentary. I myself was quite shocked when reading over a decade after the events that the joggers were innocent.  It is an important example of the fallibility of the justice system, even when horrible crimes are involved. The book covers a lot of ground -- race relations, media portrayal, the criminal justice system and the personal stories involved.  The documentary has also received good reviews, though I have not myself seen it.  Both are worthwhile.