« 13 Years, 14 Names | Main | Liminality (II) »
December 05, 2002
And while we're up north
Here's the Globe and Mail's take on the Central Park 5 case:
The five teenagers were convicted by two juries and put in prison, given sentences ranging from five to 15 years. The denizens of New York's Upper West and Upper East sides, who see Central Park as their backyard, began returning to the park for sunset strolls. Developer Donald Trump took out ads calling for the state to "bring back the death penalty," capturing the mood of a city that saw the near death of the jogger as proof that the NYPD needed to get tougher on criminals.But today, New Yorkers are expected to be told that in its zeal to solve the crime, New York's finest actually rounded up the wrong people. That will be an embarrassing revelation likely to strain the delicate détente between the city's white, black and Hispanic communities. It will also re-ignite a debate over just how the NYPD, already tarnished by past abuses in dealing with black and Hispanic people in custody, extracted those remarkable confessions.
I know, I know, there are no problems between "the city's white, black and Hispanic communities," and only outsiders like Canadians, blacks or Hispanics would claim that there are.
There's also an article in the New York Times this morning:
Prosecutor Is Said to Back Dismissals in '89 Jogger RapeThe Manhattan district attorney has decided to call today for the dismissal of the convictions of five men in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, including all charges that they participated in a gang rape and a rampage of muggings, according to two law enforcement officials who have read the legal papers.
[. . .] For the last 11 months, the Police Department and Mr. Morgenthau's office have conducted a sweeping reinvestigation of the original charges, after a convicted murderer and serial rapist stepped forward to say that he alone had attacked and raped a woman jogger. A series of DNA tests proved that the man, Matias Reyes, not only had sexually assaulted the victim, but had been the only person to leave any biological evidence. He later told a defense investigator that he was remorseful after meeting Mr. Wise in prison and seeing him suffer.
Until the emergence of Mr. Reyes, there had been no serious challenge to the premise of the original case: that a young investment banker had been gang-raped and beaten by boys 14, 15 and 16 years old.
Indeed, a number of police officials and prosecutors involved in that case, while agreeing that the convictions must be overturned because of flaws in the evidence at trial, continue to maintain the youths were involved in the assault. Mr. Morgenthau's views on their involvement could not be learned yesterday, but his senior aides have said privately that they do not believe the boys played any part in the rape.
Mr. Morgenthau has made it clear in recent days that he does not see any prosecutorial misconduct or illegal police coercion in the original case, a point that is likely to remain in dispute.
Emphasis added here and there, as is my wont.
Nothing in that story about problems between communities. We're a color-blind society, you know.
Just a statement from one of the defense attorneys -- the ones who made "no serious challenge" to the prosecution before Reyes stepped forward -- that, "Their only crime was being black and Latino teenagers in Central Park."
Defense attorneys, like Canandians and people of color, have no idea what they're talking about, obviously.
Want to know more? Give Ronn a visit, he's still doing much better at keeping up with the case than I am.
Posted by Aaron at December 5, 2002 11:22 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.uppity-negro.com/cgi-uppity-negro/mt-tb.cgi/716
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference And while we're up north:
» Northern Eyes Look at the Central Park 5 Case from { a burst of light }
Aaron returns with the biting wit and a new domain. He also sets his site on today's court proceedings [via [Read More]
Tracked on December 5, 2002 12:39 PM