I just caught “The Central Park Five,” a new documentary by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns. The documentary, released late last year and shown on PBS in mid-April, recounts the story of five black and Latino teenagers convicted of raping and nearly killing a young woman — the famous “Central Park jogger” — in 1989. I am old enough to recall the case well: at the time, it generated a media frenzy in New York City and around the country. The story was compelling for any number of reasons. The assault was vicious. he victim — Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old white investment bank who struggled, first for her life and then to regain consciousness — was (and remains) sympathetic. Most of all, the perpetrators — allegedly “wilding” through Central Park in search of violence on the night of the attack — embodied an urban menace that terrified many Americans. Their convictions, based on confessions implicating each or other or themselves, were seen as a victory, not just for the New York criminal justice system but for public order and social decency.
The problem: the Central Park Five were innocent of the rape. In 2002, Matias Reyes, a rapist and murderer already serving a sentence of 33 years to life in prison, confessed to crime; he had been arrested a few months after the Central Park jogger case on an unrelated rape and assault. Reyes’ DNA linked him definitively to the attack on Ms. Meili; he asserted that he had acted alone. And the convictions of the Central Park Five were vacated.
To watch the documentary is to plunge into a harrowing period in the history of New York City, one poisoned by skyrocketing crime and simmering racial tension. But to see “The Central Park Five” is also to learn abiding and sobering truths about our criminal justice system and the media’s coverage of it.
The cases against the Central Park Five were actually quite weak. The jogger could not identify her assailant or assailants. A DNA examination, though primitive by today’s standards, was sufficient to exclude any of the defendants as donors of the semen discovered on the victim. But the videotaped confessions — though quickly repudiated and inconsistent, both internally and with each other — were enough for a jury to convict.
The existence of false confessions has long been well-documented. Their likelihood is increased if the accused is young and, at the time of police interrogation, inadequately represented by legal counsel. Both factors were present in the Central Park jogger case. Yet members of juries and of the general public — few of whom have had experience with protracted, high-stress and often deceptive police interrogations — continue to place huge evidentiary weight on confessions. The result, as in the case of the Central Park Five, can be a miscarriage of justice.
The New York Police Department and the Manhattan Attorney General’s Office do not come off well in “The Central Park Five.” Both rushed to judgment, focusing on the suspects at hand, rather than broadening their investigation to link the attack on the jogger to similar incidents, such as an assault on another woman in Central Park just two days before. (Reyes also confessed to this crime; evidence strongly supports his admission of guilt.)
The media, by and large, performed poorly. Most outlets — with the exception of some black newspapers — accepted the official narrative without question and fostered what can only be called an atmosphere of hysteria about the case: “circus” is not too harsh a word. The press may like facts, but it loves a story. And the Central Park Jogger case — touching, as it did, upon bitter racial divisions and a rising tide of panic about violent crime — represented in many ways a perfect story. It prompted our shock at the savagery of the attack, aroused our sympathy for the victim, and fed on our terrors. In short, it created an atmosphere where vengeance could all too easily be confused with justice.
Have we learned anything since the Central Park Five case? More extensive use of DNA has helped to exonerate individuals convicted of crimes based, in part, on false confessions; some have been awaiting execution on death row. But law enforcement around the country can still be very hesistant to admit error. This is true even of the Central Park Five case. The New York City Police Department has rejected any accusations of wrongdoing. And the City of New York continues to contest a civil lawsuit filed by the defendants.
What of the media? The circus continues — only now it is conducted 24 hours a day, on dozens of television channels and across the blogosphere. Sorting fact from conjecture has never been more difficult. And the rush for a compelling “story” — whether we are talking about the death of Treyvon Martin or the Boston Marathon bombing — has deepened an atmosphere conducive to shoddy reporting and even shoddier analysis.
As a society, we appear to have lost our ability to wait. We need to know now — and the truth be damned.
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.