This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 14, 2012 - The horrific attack that left a young woman jogger near death in Central Park was called "the crime of the century" by New York Mayor Edward Koch, and it introduced a new word to the national vocabulary: "wilding." Five young blacks, ranging in age from 14 to 16, were arrested for the attack, amid enraged tabloid cries for the death penalty. They admitted they had been on the fringes of a group that had roamed through the park that night, terrorizing bicyclists and joggers, but denied they had attacked or raped anyone.
The victim was white, and the racial tension that was already high in New York in 1989 turned to fury, adding to the pressure on police and prosecutors to move the case along. After many hours of interrogation, the teenagers gave the police signed confessions admitting they had participated in the rape, and implicating each other. They became known as "The Central Park Five," and that is the name given to an emotionally moving, skillfully assembled documentary about the case.
The five teenagers quickly recanted their confessions, saying they were coerced. There was no other evidence against them, the details of their confessions did not fit the facts of the case, and the woman victim could not remember who had attacked her. Still, the five were tried and convicted and sentenced to prison.
In 2002, a convicted murderer and serial rapist who had befriended one of the five in prison confessed that he had been the Central Park rapist and said he had acted alone. DNA confirmed that he had been at the crime scene, and the details of his confession fit the evidence. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said the young men would never have been prosecuted without the confessions. Indeed, evidence suggested that the five young men were in a different part of the park from the brutal rape when it occurred. A judge ordered the 1989 convictions overturned, and the young men were released. By then, they were in their late 20s and had served sentences ranging from six to 13 years.
Several years ago, writer-filmmaker Sarah Burns became interested in the case. She wrote a book about it, published last year, and she collaborated with her father, documentarian Ken Burns, and his associate David McMahon in the film version of "The Central Park Five."
As DNA exonerates more and more imprisoned men and women who once confessed to crimes they almost certainly didn't commit, it is becoming increasingly clear that confessions (like eye-witness identifications) are not the rock-solid proof of guilt they once seemed to be. For "The Central Park Five," the filmmakers interviewed all five young men, and were able to obtain footage of the original confessions, and they give us a fascinating look at how accused people -- in this case frightened teenagers who had unwisely waived their right to representation -- can be manipulated into false confessions.
Each young man was falsely told by law enforcement officials that one or more of the others were blaming him for the rape, and police and prosecutors encouraged them to "tell their side of the story." In the end, after many hours of interrogation, the accused seemed willing to say anything on the false promise that they could then go home. Of course, it would be years before any of them could come close to doing that.
In the main, the film is thorough in presenting the case, and does a commendable job of presenting the racial and class battles of the period and place, but it fails in one regard. The five are presented as victims, and they were. But they were more than that.
In her generally favorable review of "The Central Park Five" in the Nov. 22 New York Times (http://nyti.ms/TghiGR ), Manohla Dargis makes the point that interviews with the neighbors of the five young men in 1989 suggested they were part of a violent group in the neighborhood, a group of marauders. While there is no question that knocking people off bicycles (or out of wheelchairs) is not as serious a crime as a brutal rape, I would like to have heard more about the five young men and what they were doing that night in Central Park -- if for no other reason than to understand what happened in a realistic context.
What's admissible in court is one thing; who the protagonists of a fact-based narrative actually are (or were) is another thing entirely. The fact that Ernesto Miranda was a convicted car thief does not lessen the legitimacy of the court-ordered warning that bears his name, but it's interesting and valuable information in understanding our legal system. "The Central Park Five" needs to tell us more about the Central Park Five.
Opens Friday Dec. 14