central park 5 confession transcript
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, just a few moments ago the district attorney filed papers with the judge, the district attorney suggesting, recommending that the judge drop the charges against the Central Park Five. The teenagers, known as the Central Park 5, were exonerated by DNA evidence and a confession from the true perpetrator in 2002, 13 years after they were vilified by prosecutors and in the press . On April 19, 1989, Trisha was attacked and severely beaten. "He described being taken to the police precinct, and he accused Detective Nugent of slapping him and swearing at him, and telling him that he could go home if he lied and said he'd been there [at the scene of the rape],” Burns wrote. Rather, a confession is a statement that says, this is what I did, this how I did it, this is why I did it. Aired December 05, 2002 - 13:14 ET. That is the primary reason I think it is so important to see the process. All Rights Reserved. This is the . In these cases they typically recant the confession almost immediately as soon as the pressure of the situation is lifted. Collectively they spent about 41 years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Soon after the attack she quit her job as an investment banker to work with survivors of sexual assault. What makes the confessions so compelling that even DNA can’t destroy them, is that the confessions in these cases were not simple admissions of guilt. Yet, in 1989, despite quickly recanting their confessions, despite the lack of physical evidence linking them to the crime, and despite the only DNA evidence taken from the victim belonging to a man (Reyes) not one of the five, the New York City District Attorney prosecuted and juries convicted the five boys. Law and human behavior, 29(2), 211. Featuring independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events. The district attorney not giving his reason so far as to why he decided to do that. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! with the power of 500 watts. They made the boys believe they were acting merely as witnesses to a crime. How onions became a luxury in the Philippines, Africa's top shots: Hopeful dogs and malted brews. The "Central Park Five" case was one of the most publicized of the 1980s: five teens were falsely accused and convicted of raping a woman in Central Park and it would take years before they were exonerated. In 1930 Mr. Austin built the first Police Radio Station in Oregon. Salaam said: "I look at Donald Trump, and I understand him as a representation of a symptom of America. He was interrogated for hours until he provided multiple statements and two videotaped confessions, all of which wildly conflicted with each other and weren't consistent with the nature of the victim’s injuries. Law enforcement quickly apprehended five juveniles — four of them black and . First, they isolate the suspect. On average people could not tell the difference. SK: It’s virtually impossible for judges and juries to see past confessions whether they’re true or false. Each one calculated–given that they had been there from 14-30 hours of interrogation under tremendous pressure–that it was in his own best interest to cooperate. In the most general of terms, it is a two-step process. © 2023 BBC. On average people could not tell the difference. Once a person is judged deceptive, the Reid steps are as follows. The importance of this case to the research, but also to the public consciousness of this problem, cannot be underestimated.”, Since 1989, 27 percent of the 325 people exonerated through DNA testing originally confessed to their crimes, according to a recently released study by Craig J. Trocino, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, and director of the Miami Law Innocence Clinic. The Central Park Five is a 2012 documentary film about the Central Park jogger case, directed by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns, and her husband David McMahon. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Original, thought-provoking reports from the front lines of behavioral science. In this isolated setting, some steps are designed to break the suspect down in to a state of despair. In the first episode of the Netflix series When They See Us, members of the New York City Police Department lie to five teenagers as they’re interrogated about the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park. And even though people have struggled through it, it's being recommended as an important story to know about. “I wish to God I had just hung the jury on that and that’s been my biggest regret for 30 years,” Juror Victoria Breyer has said about her vote to convict despite having doubts about Wise's videotaped confession. In fact I’ve heard tapes of interrogators who say, you know what if I were in your situation, I probably would’ve done the same thing. The only violent exchanges he experienced that night came at the hands of police, he said. This high-profile attack upon a white investment banker in the heart of the city was quickly called the "crime of the century.". Though we were innocent, we spent our formative years in prison, branded as rapists.”. Ex-con at center of marijuana jailing debate arrested agai... 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Fast-forward to 2002, when convicted rapist and murder, Mathias Reyes, admitted to the rape of the jogger. City officials fought the case for more than a decade, before finally settling for $41 million dollars. Despite all the pressure the boys were under, implicating themselves, implicating their friends, somehow all of them protected somebody else. In the years since their release, the five men accused in the Central Park case have moved on with their lives. They told 14-year-old Raymond Santana they had evidence against 15-year-old Kevin Richardson, and if he just helped them build a case against Richardson by placing himself into the crime scene, he’d get to go home. An April 21, 1989 story in the New York Daily News reported that on the night of the crime, a 30-person gang, or so-called “wolf pack” of teens launched a series of attacks nearby, including assaults on a man carrying groceries, a couple on a tandem bike, another male jogger and a taxi driver. They are led to believe that it is possible for people to transgress without awareness, for people to do something terrible and repress it. Now a new confession has reopened old racial scars . I am not looking to psychoanalyse or understand them, I am looking to punish them. Several years ago my colleagues and I went to a prison outside of Boston, and we interviewed prisoners and we had them state their confessions on camera to the crimes for which they were incarcerated. First, a diagnostic process is used. 9 on. EN: What do you think is the biggest misconception surrounding false confessions? Weekly quiz: What was said about Doja Cat's Paris look? Sometimes you want to rip your hair out watching a suspect say 60,70, 80 times I didn’t do this, and with every denial he or she is called a liar. The document dump includes records related to the conviction of the Central Park Five, the vacating of their convictions after Reyes' confession and a $41 million civil settlement with the city. What can you tell us, Deborah? I think that it is a win for defendants, a win for police, and win for judges and juries. During cross examination, lead prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer asked him to read something and he couldn't. It seemed to feed into the atmosphere of high crime rates and poor race relations in the city at the time. The reason Korey's statement is so long is due to the fact that it was done in two parts, as allegedly he approached the investigator saying he wanted to cha. Then New York City Mayor Ed Koch called it the “crime of the century.” Twelve days after the arrest of the five boys, Donald Trump took out full page ads in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post and New York Newsday calling for New York to “Bring Back the Death Penalty. As Ava DuVernay's new four-part Netflix film "When They See Us" shows, Raymond Santana, 14, Kevin Richardson, 14, Antron McCray, 15, Yusef Salaam, 15, and Kharey Wise, 16, were convicted of the rape of Trisha Meili, an investment banker who was attacked in Central Park in April 1989. I’m not going to do this again. The woman, then 28, was raped and nearly beaten to death. No money could bring the life that was missing or the time that was taken away.". What they don’t get to see, and never saw in those Central Park jogger cases, was the 14 to 30 hours of interrogation that preceded and produced those confessions. It also increases the risk of false confession. It’s actually the third station to occupy the site. All three samples were linked to a single person, and that person was not any of the five. When you stop to think about that theory, it implied that each of the five boys was for some reason protecting some unknown, unnamed sixth individual. Early in their investigation, police brought in five black and hispanic teenage boys between the ages of 14 and 16 for questioning. In the United States — and most European countries, they don’t understand this — police are allowed to overtly lie about the evidence. "The Central Park Five" is a heartbreaking and powerful documentary about five teenagers, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise and Yusef Salaam who were . ", In an interview with CNN at the time, he said: "Maybe hate is what we need if we're gonna get something done.". Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE tells the story of how five lives were upended by the rush to judgment by police, a sensationalist . Does video recording alter the behavior of police during interrogation? Weeks of claims to central five teenagers accused of the need of this, forming a lot to suspects whose family were removed from the confessions on behind the statements. Reyes is still in prison. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. It lit the world on fire,” says Laura Nirider, co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. It just didn’t line up.”. Will a Picasso sold to flee the Nazis be returned? They don’t become better human lie detectors; they only become more confident lie detectors. Several years ago my colleagues and I went to a prison outside of Boston, and we interviewed prisoners and we had them state their confessions on camera to the crimes for which they were incarcerated. [Another] recommendation I would make is for the courts to impose an absolute ban on lying to suspects about evidence. He confessed to raping the Central Park jogger, and it turns out that when forensic evidence was re-analyzed, it was his semen and it was his pubic hair that was found on the jogger that evening. And every one of those 14-, 15- and 16-year-old boys who confessed later said, "I knew I didn't do it. Salaam is a published poet, public speaker and criminal justice reform advocate. She still has some scarring from the attack and lost her sense of smell. Now, second to that, I would certainly recommend a certain degree of overhaul, or at least tinkering with the Reid-style method of interrogation. The idea that people have in their minds is that if you force somebody to confess, that act of compliance will be so obvious. When I ask that question, almost to a person, everybody has this response — Unless you put a gun to my head, there is no way I would confess to a rape or a murder or something that serious unless I did it. Around 9:30, four male joggers were attacked at the northern end of . Do you think this will limit the number of instances of false confessions? He'd come across one of the Central Park Five, Korey Wise, twice during imprisonment. They told Yusef his fingerprints could be found on the jogging shorts of the victim. I wouldn’t confess to a crime that I did not commit becomes the framework and the anchor point for judging other people — if somebody confesses he or must be guilty because if he was innocent he would not have confessed. The five confessed - after apparently having been questioned for hours without legal representation, and in some cases . But the Five took back those statements - saying they'd been coerced by police into giving false confessions. Documents released on Thursday night were only from that last category, of original police and DA investigatory notes. The judgment has already been made that the suspect is lying and is a criminal. The 5 young men convicted at the time . When a 28-year-old investment banked named Trisha Meili was found raped and beaten into a coma while jogging in Central Park in 1989, cops frantically searched for suspects. Richardson was found guilty of attempted murder, rape, assault and robbery. Kate Storey is a Writer-at-Large for Esquire covering culture, politics, and style. But in 1989, little was known about why someone would admit to a crime they didn’t commit. While imprisoned, Wise met the real rapist, Matias Reyes, who eventually admitted to the crime. Today, 36% of juvenile wrongful convictions . A Conversation with Daniel Pink. they remember a brutal rape and murder. After he was released, Wise both established and funded the Korey Wise Innocence Project at Colorado Law School which offers pro-bono legal counsel to wrongfully convicted people like himself. A key reason for false confessions comes down to interrogation tactics. The Central Park Five: A Film By Ken Burns & David McMahon and Sarah Burns. Sign up for Oxygen Insider for all the best true crime content. We showed [the videos] to police officers. "And this is all because of prominent New Yorkers - especially Donald Trump.". Our families were afraid. He remains in prison on a life sentence although has a parole hearing scheduled for 2022. He works as an advocate for criminal justice reform. Then only those who are seen as deceptive are interrogated. Central Park 5 Confessions and Interviews. That was known to the judge when he ruled the confessions voluntary at a pretrial hearing. Thirty years ago, a 28-year-old jogger named Trisha Meili was beaten, raped and left for dead in New York City's Central Park, and it wasn't long before five teenagers-African-American and Hispanic, dubbed by the press as the Central Park 5-were arrested, tried and convicted of a crime they didn't commit. One of the crimes he'd been found guilty of was another rape two days before the Meili incident - but he was never a suspect in the Central Park Jogger case. In a courtroom, judges and juries often see the confession, but not the interrogation that produced it, so they do not understand what the interrogation process looks like. The convictions were based largely on confessions that the teens later recanted, saying they were forced. McCray lives in Georgia with his wife and six children. I have found that lay people have an easier time understanding why someone would kill themselves…than they do why someone would confess to a crime he did not commit. The Central Park Five served between six and 13 years before their convictions were . There was a case when five false confessions were produced in a single investigation. (Full disclosure: Saul Kassin serves on the Advisory Board of this publication.). McCray, Salaam and Santana were found guilty of rape, assault, robbery and riot. I believe that the most important means of reform is to ensure the videotaping of the entire process, without exception, without loopholes; the entire process from start to finish. By observing recorded interrogations, judges will make more informed judgments of voluntariness. The complex, which stretched in an “L” shape ...read more, American popular culture in the 1980s reflected larger social, political, technological and media trends, from the rapid spread of cable television to the cultural peak of suburban malls. A taxi driver said several teenagers threw rocks at his car. The city on Thursday began releasing about 100,000 pages of court, police and prosecution documents connected to the infamous “Central Park Five” case. Eventually, the five men were cleared of all charges having almost served their full sentences. art and culture of odisha and maharashtra Right now the lawyers are going to be coming out with the papers very soon. He may have also been particularly vulnerable, despite being the oldest.In her 2011 book, "The Central Park Five: The Untold Story Behind One Of New York City's Most Infamous Crimes," Sarah Burns writes that Wise had hearing problems from an early age and a learning disability that limited his achievement in school. These are cases, like the Central Park jogger case, where innocent people, who know they are innocent become so stressed, so broken down, and so confused as to what their best means of escape is that they confess fully knowing they’re innocent. Last year the Supreme Court said they wouldn't hear Dassey's appeal, but there are still options available, like filing a post-conviction petition if new evidence is discovered or approaching the governor of Wisconsin to seek executive clemency. JIM DWYER The fact is there was a kind of rampage in the park that night. SARAH BURNS: Well, we actually just had a really amazing. I just keep wondering why iâve never heard of the story before seeing that film. There is an additional wrinkle to the innocent person in the interrogation room. The Central Park Five's convictions were overturned, and the men eventually settled a civil rights lawsuit with New York City for $40 million. That’s perfectly legal in the United States.”. Burns, whose dad worked at a lawyer’s office who represented the five in a lawsuit, referred to him as "the least developed emotionally and intellectually of the boys.”, Wise took the stand during the second trial in the case, the one for both him and Richardson. In that pre-interrogation interview they train their detectives to use all sorts of behavioral cues, verbal and nonverbal cues, to determine whether this person is lying or telling the truth. When the five former teens convicted in the case were finally exonerated, many community leaders decried the miscarriage of justice that sent the Central Park Five to prison. The big question is, is that the confessions, how were those confessions obtained? The parties had originally believed 200,000 pages would be made public, but only 100,000 will see the light of day because “the rest will remain confidential pursuant to court order, party agreements and applicable statutes,” a source close to the talks said. By Kate Storey Published: Jun 1, 2019 Getty Images From left, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, and Raymond . THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. Korey, who was 16 at the time of his arrest, landed in the adult system because, up until 2018, New York . Deborah Feyerick, thank you so much for that breaking news from New York. In that pre-interrogation interview they train their detectives to use all sorts of behavioral cues, verbal and nonverbal cues, to determine whether this person is lying or telling the truth. First Police Dispatcher: Captain John Schum. The first was Grand Central Depot, built by railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt and opened in 1871, which served as a hub for a number of railroad lines entering Manhattan. Why did they confess to crimes they did not commit? The Central Park vacation Today 5 Facts to go About the. They bank on that innocence. It should be small, windowless, barely furnished, and soundproof, so that the suspect can’t hear voices and phones ringing and whatnot. The problem is, despite the belief that they have already identified and sent home the innocent, they often interrogate innocent people, and these tactics, while they are very effective on criminals are also effective with innocent people. After a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1930s and ‘40s, American police were forced to change their practices, relying instead on psychological techniques and strategies. Then we had each of them make up a confession to a crime we knew they did not commit. "They would come and look at me and say: 'You realise you're next'. Within 72 hours of the attack, the jogger still in a coma, the NYPD believed they had solved the crime. The enemies were rich. It was four plus one. “The woman is bleeding from five deep cuts across her forehead and scalp; patients who lose this much blood are generally dead,” Meili writes in her 2003 book, I am the Central Park Jogger, of the attack. That was the legacy of the Central Park jogger case, which in 1989 introduced New York City and the world to the word wilding. Why confessions trump innocence. Five black and Hispanic boys, aged between 14 and 16, would be found guilty and jailed for the crime. They think they can sign a confession now, and when the cops conduct the rest of their investigation they will realize that the suspect is innocent and everything will be okay. As Ava DuVernay prepares to release a new Netflix series on the Central Park Five, we explain the polarizing 1989 case against 15-year-old Antron McCray, 14-year-old Kevin Richardson, 15-year-old . The boys later recanted and plead not guilty, saying their confessions had been coerced. At first glance, the fact that there is this two-step process makes sense. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com Aired December 5, 2002 - 13:14  ETTHIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. ...read more, The National Park Service, or NPS, is a federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior. I'd know a false confession if I saw one": a comparative study of college students and police investigators. You have to look at the fact that we’re 14, 15, 16 year old kids who’d never had involvement with the law, who had no criminal record,” Santana said recently. We're waiting on the information right now. Newspaper columnists joined in. The suspect is isolated, confronted with accusations, and not allowed to mount a defense. “Under duress, we falsely confessed. The big question is, is that the confessions, how were those confessions obtained? "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. (2005). " I think there are two myths that people hold The first is the myth that. I'm tired of hearing this,” he said, getting upset and standing up. A routine test at the power plant went horribly wrong, and two massive explosions blew the 1,000-ton roof off one of the plant’s reactors, releasing 400 times more ...read more, On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. The city of New York released thousands of documents from the 1989 Central Park rape case recently, provoking more weeping and gnashing of teeth over Donald Trump's full-page ads in four New York . The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Not only did Wise serve the most time behind bars, he did so in adult prisons, including at the much-feared Rikers Island. The charges against the five men were vacated and they eventually received at $41 million settlement. Five black and Hispanic boys, aged between 14 and 16, would be found guilty and jailed for the crime. The Central Park Five , a film from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, tells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New . He confessed to raping the Central Park jogger, and it turns out that when forensic evidence was re-analyzed, it was his semen and it was his pubic hair that was found on the jogger that evening. Dec 29, 2012. Spies are rarely punished by the people who send them, they're punished by the people they . And, most importantly, is it possible to prevent false confessions that can lead to such serious breakdowns of justice? Innocent people have this naive phenomenology that their innocence will set them free. In the interrogation, especially in American style interrogation, people can become so stressed and so broken down and they start to feel so hopeless about their current situation that they come to believe in a rational way a confession is in their best interest. … There is extreme swelling of the brain caused by the blows to the head. PHILLIPS: Deb, let's talk about the backgrounds here, because for those who maybe haven't been following the case, they remember a brutal rape and murder. During interrogations lasting up to 30 hours, all five confessed to taking part in the crime. A mock crime-and-investigation study. The boys were sentenced to between seven and nearly 14 years in prison for the attack before being cleared in 2002 after the actual rapist confessed. But those five teenage boys — Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana Jr., and Kharey Wise, who became known as the Central Park Five — didn't commit the crime. Juries don’t stand a chance of making accurate judgments if they don’t see the context, the process, and the pressure that was brought to bear on that confession. The reason these statements are so tricky for judges and juries is that typically what they get to see is only the confession on camera. Using these behavioral cues, they claim that they can train interrogators up to an 85 or 90 percent level of accuracy in judging truth or deception. There were other encounters with bicyclists. Ethan Herisse as Yusef Salaam in When They See Us (left) and the real Yusef Salaam now, Antron McCray (left) and Yusef Salaam (third from left) leave court in 1990, Alexandra Templer as Trisha Meili in the Netflix drama When They See Us, which is based on the story of the Central Park Five, New York city was very different to what it is like now, Reece Noi plays Matias Reyes in When They See Us, Protestors outside Manhattan's Criminal Court in New York City in 2002, Protesters march in front of city court in New York in 2002, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray and Korey Wise in 2019, Writer/director Ava DuVernay and Jharrel Jerome, who plays Korey Wise, on the set of When They See Us. These are statements filled with vivid details, often accurate details that only the perpetrator could have known.