Central Five Jogger Case Summary

“It is difficult to prove a causal relationship between permissible investigative and interrogatory deception and testimonial deception.  Police freely admit to deceiving suspects and defendants.  They do not admit to perjury, much less to the rationalization of perjury.  There is evidence, however of the acceptability of perjury as a means to the end of conviction.  The evidence is limited and fragmentary and is certainly not dispositive” (Skolnick, 1982).

When this Central park case was made public, the New York Police Department and District Attorney office’s main focus was to solve the case as quickly as possible. When the five teenagers were found “wilding” in the park the night of the women’s death, the police believed they had found the suspects. The police were so confident of the teenager’s guiltiness, the five boys were interrogated of their involvement in the crime. The police used their authority and persuasion to get the boys to confess and promise them that they would go home if they talked. Through strenuous and intense interrogation, the five boys confessed to the killing and rape of the young women on videotape. These confessions were given even though

Determining a false confession proves difficult due to the multitude of dimensions involved. According to Kassin and Wrightsman’s (1985) survey of the literature, there are three main types of false confessions—voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized. Unlike coerced false confessions, voluntary false confessions arise as a result of someone willingly turning themselves into the police with an account of their crime (McCann, 1998). Voluntary false confessions can result from multiple motives, including an internalized need for punishment or to save someone else’s face. In contrast, coerced false confessions directly result from police interrogations. While coerced-compliant confessions are made to avoid interrogation, escape the stressful situation, or achieve some other reward, coerced-internalized confessions emerge when a suspects begins to

“It was me. I did it. I’m guilty.” It’s what every interrogator is waiting for and hoping to hear. Any variation will do the job, as either is the heart of each and every confession. The main purpose of an interrogation is to elicit the truth from a suspect that they believe has lied or is guilty of the crime they’re investigating. They are looking for a confession. Confessions are the most damaging and influential piece of evidence of the suspect’s guilt that the state can use against a defendant (Leo, 2009). It makes sense. People instinctively trust confessions. After all, why would someone confess to a crime they did not commit? The mere idea that someone would admit to committing a crime they did not do boggles the mind simply because it just does not seem rational. However, the fact remains that false confessions do happen, and for a multitude of different reasons. This paper will begin with an examination of false confessions in general, then focus on the different types of false confessions, including what leads to their occurrence, and will conclude by discussing ways in which false confessions could be avoided.

[I]n 2001, three young men robbed a McDonald’s restaurant in Milwaukee. 14-year-old Jerrell C.J. was arrested in connection with the offense, taken to the police station, booked, and placed in an interrogation room. In the room, Jerrell was handcuffed to a wall and left alone for approximately two hours. At 9 a.m., Police Detectives Ralph Spano and Kurt Sutter entered the interrogation room. The detectives introduced themselves, removed Jerrell’s handcuffs, and asked him some background questions. Jerrell stated that he was 14 years old and in the eighth grade. He also provided the names, addresses, and phone numbers of his parents and siblings. Jerrell was advised of his Miranda rights, and the detectives then began to question Jerrell about the armed robbery. Jerrell denied any involvement. The detectives challenged this denial and encouraged Jerrell to be "truthful and honest" and "start standing up for what he did." Jerrell again denied his involvement. The detectives again challenged his denial.

On April 19, 1989, 29 year old Trisha Meili was brutally attacked and raped in Central Park. The attack was a high profile case for a few reasons: the victim was a white woman in an affluent part of Manhattan, and the perpetrators were thought to be a group of young, low class Black and Latino teens from Harlem. Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise were interrogated and manipulated, leading to their arrests and imprisonment for a brutal rape that they did not commit, or even know of initially. With the only incriminating evidence being the confessions of the teens, which were coerced and pressured by detectives and police officers, the Central Park jogger case is a prime example of the scapegoating

In 1989, five African and Hispanic-American boys, between the ages of 14 and 16, were “wilding” in New York City’s Central Park, unaware that the events of that evening would change their lives forever. That same evening a female jogger was found beaten, raped and left for dead. She had multiple fractures as well has her eye socket being crushed and having lost over three quarters of her blood. She survived the attack but was unable to recall any of the events of that evening. Within 48 hours of the attack the five African and Hispanic-American boys were arrested and charged with the crime based solely on the confessions obtained by the police. There was no physical evidence tying any of the boys to the crime. Four of the confessions were videotaped and were later used in court to incriminate the boys. The boys described the crime in gruesome detail and the role that each of them played in the crime. After the arrests, the boys all recanted their confessions, and said that the reason that they felt compelled to confess was because they were lead to believe that if they would confess they would be allowed to return home. Despite the lack of evidence and the fact that the boys recanted the confessions persuaded the police officers, the prosecutors of the case, the jurors, and the nation that the boys were guilty and led to their convictions and the boys were sentenced to prison. Thirteen years later a man named Matias Reyes came forward on his own volition and confessed to the

Do you ever wonder why people make false confessions? I believe this is a huge problem. One reason why people falsely confess is because they honestly feel there is no way out. Juveniles can be manipulated into confession to something they did not do. There should be laws that help others who falsely confess. The Innocence Project is an organization that is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. In both Picking Cotton and in the Central Park Five, the suspects made False confessions.

In New York, the picture of the brutal young blacks was terrifying. Both prosecutions were structured up on confessions. The rest were turned away after others confessed and matched the evidence. Now the race was not a factor; non-whites in New York were as shocked as whites at the aggressive and unruly behavior of the

My question is who would want to confess to a crime they didn’t commit? I can understand that the pressure of the police can be a bit intense but to own up to something that you didn’t do is just I can’t wrap my mind around it, but if someone is doing this to cover for someone else then I would have to say that is completely insane. I am not sure that they know the consequences of their actions. “The Reid Technique trains officers to first ask non-accusatory questions in order to determine whether the subject is lying about their involvement in the crime.” If the officer believes that the subject is involved in the crime, then an accusatory interrogation takes place. At this stage, the officer asks questions believing that the subject is guilty and the goal is to have the subject admit guilt.” The Reid technique is one of the most used techniques that the police officers use currently. I really don’t think there are pro’s for convicted someone who didn’t do a crime that they are accused of. But looking at the cons of it, they really do outweigh the

A false confession is when an innocent person is forced to admit to a crime they did not commit. False confessions were responsible for nearly a quarter of convictions reversed by DNA evidence. People are forced into false confessions by authorities, like police interrogators, who trick them into believing that it would be more beneficial if they confessed, regardless of their innocence. A major factor in false confessions is stress, those who are innocent actually feel less stress during an interrogation and they may drop their guard and not think about their words carefully.

This leads to wrongful convictions in about 25 percent of cases. Mentally capable adults also give false confessions due to a variety of factors like the length of interrogation, exhaustion or a belief that they can be released after confessing and attempt to prove their innocence later. Even though these factors lead to false confessions, they are not the only ones. Sometimes law enforcement use harsh interrogation tactics with uncooperative suspects. But some police officers, convinced of a suspect’s guilt, occasionally use tactics so persuasive that an innocent person feels compelled to

Substantial evidence exists to demonstrate that juveniles are at higher risk for false confessions. Juveniles constitute a large group in the series of identified false confession cases: 35% of the proven false confessors in the Drizin and Leo (2004) sample were younger than age 18, and within this sample of juveniles, 55% were aged 15 or younger. In fact, a large portion of the juvenile participants complied with the request to sign a false confession without uttering a word.

The role of race in criminalization can be examined through the case of the Central Park Five. A group of five young African-Americans and Latino boys were accused and convicted of raping a white business woman.

Rick talked to me after class (4:15pm) about the incident that happened. He said that he fell off the treadmill because the previous member who used it didn’t turn off the treadmill. I asked him if he needed anything, he said no and that he was fine. I told him that I will write an incident report, he said that it would not be necessary.