False confessions the rule not the exception in this country: like in convictions in Central Park rape case
By Nobel Johns
NEW YORK (BNW) -- White people in this country are stocked that someone could be forced into a false confession, only to end up spending years in prison for crimes they didn't commit.
I don't know why!
False confessions and lies are the main reasons that Black men make-up over 70% of prisons populations, mostly in the southern states, when Black men make-up less than 10% of the states' populations. Don’t be shocked at Niggers getting locked down for crimes that they didn’t commit; this is the rule and not the exception in this country!
Ever since the end of slavery, the criminal justice system in this country has been used to discriminate against Black men as a means of controlling them.
For example, the decision on whether to dismiss the convictions of five men in a notorious 1989 rape and beating of a Central Park jogger rests with a state judge now that prosecutors have called for the charges to be tossed out.
The prosecutor's recommendation Thursday contradicted the long-held theory in a case that became a symbol of New York's struggles with crime and race relations in the late 1980s.
For the past decade, it was thought that the white female jogger had been gang-raped and beaten by the five black and Hispanic youths during a "wilding" spree in the park.
Instead, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said an 11-month re-examination found a DNA sample from the victim's sock pointed to Matias Reyes, a murderer and serial rapist who confessed last January that he alone had attacked the jogger.
Supporters are pressing for an immediate vindication of the defendants, who have completed prison terms of six years to 11 1/2 years for the attack.
"We would urge him to make the decision in the next 24 to 48 hours so this saga of injustice can end," City Councilman Bill Perkins said at a news conference with family members and lawyers for the defendants.
Tejada could not be reached for comment.
Defendant Antron McCray hopes to restore his reputation and move on with his life, said his mother, Linda McCray.
"I was never ashamed of my son -- never -- because I always knew he was innocent," she said.
For Deloris Wise, mother of defendant Kharey Wise, the recommendation was bittersweet. She said her son entered prison a bewildered youth and left a broken man.
"He doesn't even realize what's going on today," a tearful Wise said. "He doesn't care. Why should he?"
Tejada's ruling carries extra significance for defendant Raymond Santana, who remains in prison for an unrelated drug conviction. Defense attorneys said he was given a longer drug sentence because the rape was on his record; without that, he could be freed immediately.
In his recommendation, Morgenthau stopped short of declaring the five innocent, but said the confession and tests create "a probability that the verdicts would have been more favorable to the defendants." Morgenthau said his office would withdraw all charges, and would not seek a retrial.
"No useful purpose would be served by a retrial of the defendants for any crimes stemming from events on the evening of April 19, 1989," said a statement from Morgenthau's office.
Protesters march outside New York's State Supreme Court building Thursday, demanding a reversal of the convictions.
The jogger, an investment banker, spent 12 days in a coma after she was raped, beaten and left for dead. She could never recall anything about the attack or identify her attackers.
Now 41, she lives in a Connecticut suburb, has been married for five years and works for a nonprofit organization.
Her book, "I Am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility," is due out in April.
Through a spokeswoman, the jogger declined comment on Morgenthau's recommendation.
The prosecutor's report did not question the methods used by detectives in securing confessions from the five youths. McCray, Santana, Wise and Kevin Richardson confessed on videotape. Yusef Salaam made admissions but no videotaped confession, detectives testified at his trial.
Supporters of the defendants charged the confessions were coerced.
Police were outraged at the remarkable reversal by prosecutors.
"This new evidence -- all it does is implicate an additional perpetrator," said Michael Palladino, vice president of the Detectives' Endowment Association. "None of the evidence exonerates or eliminates the additional five."
Police questioned the veracity of Reyes' story and said the DNA link could prove only the serial rapist's presence -- not the other defendants' absence.
I guess the whole think can be summed up by Jeffery Toobin when he said, “I think that this is a sort of chilling legacy of this case. We all sort of understand when cops go wrong, when cops and prosecutors violate the law. What's scary about this case is that these cops and prosecutors played by the rules. These are honorable people. And, still, they wound up prosecuting the wrong person.” Toobin ended.