Kammerer 1

Margaret Kammerer

Blind Injustice

Mark Godsey

22 April 2018

Blindness Leading to Wrongful Convictions: A Study of the Central Park Five

At 1:30 a.m. on April 20, 1989, the body of 28-year old Patricia (Trisha) Meili was

discovered off of a jogging trail in the northern part of Central Park. She had been raped,

severely beaten, and had been there for multiple hours, losing blood and getting colder.

However, she was still alive, though not expected to make it through the night. It became a

sensational case in New York City especially, but made headlines all throughout the US. She

ultimately would survive, and became a symbol of the resilience of New Yorkers. People

demanded justice for the jogger, and the police were eager to give it to them. Five teenage boys,

among the ages of 14-16 who were in the park that night were taken in, arrested, indicted, tried,

and convicted of the crime against the jogger. After their initial time in the precinct, all five

(Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana Jr., and Korey Wise)

maintained their innocence and were later exonerated. All of this is laid out in Ken and Sarah

Burns’ 2012 documentary, The Central Park Five. By applying the precepts as laid out in

Professor Mark Godsey’s book, Blind Injustice, I will attempt to explain how these five boys

could have been convicted of such a heinous crime of which, in reality, they were innocent and

how our justice system failed them.

First, we must return to the night in question: around 8:50pm on April 19, 1989. A large

group of teenage boys (numbering over 30) entered Central Park around 110th Street and

Madison Street (at the northeast corner of the park). It was a holiday, so there was no school and
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they were all excited to go out and have fun. They did not all know one another; McCray

mentioned that he had seen some around the neighborhood or at school, but not even all five of

those convicted of Meili’s attack knew one another. The large group of teens moved through the

park and started “wilding”. 1 They threw rocks at cards, harassed a couple on a tandem bike, and

attacked a pair of men jogging. They also took a homeless man’s food, poured out the contents

of a beer bottle, and smashed the man over the head with it. All of the five deny any personal

involvement in these crimes except for harassing people verbally. Salaam says that “the only

crime I committed that night, was I hopped the turnstile”.2 All these crimes were reported to the

police soon after they happened, thus providing a relatively accurate timeline of the group’s

movements.

Around this time, the police showed up in the park and the group scattered. Richardson,

Santana, and McCray, among others all get taken by police into the precinct. Richardson reports

that he was told by an officer: “Freeze or I will shoot”. He was also tackled by the officer, was

called an animal, and got a helmet swung across his face. They sat in the precinct for a while,

until their parents show up around 11pm. They are not allowed to leave right away with their

parents. However, they are about to be released (around 1:30 or 2am) when a detective with

Meili calls the precinct and tells them to hold onto the kids. Meili’s skull had been fractured from

repeated blows to the head; she was dragged through the woods; her wrists were bound to her

head; she had been exposed for several hours, allowing acute hypothermia to set in; and had lost

an estimated 75-80% of her blood. She was not expected to make it through the night, let alone at

1
This term was later used in the press to help sensationalize the teens’ actions that night. It connoted a long violent
rampage undertaken by teens, harassing and attacking people at random in a public place.
2
Burns, around 17.20
 Kammerer 3

all. A detective with her, realizing this, and knowing that the Central Park police had teens in

custody, told them to wait, since they might have seen something or been involved.

The boys were interrogated about the woman, whom they knew nothing about. A name of

other boys who were there that night gets made and other police officers arrive at Schomberg

Plaza, where Salaam, Wise, and Richardson lived, at 10:00, the morning of April 20th (eight and

a half hours after Meili had been found). Salaam and Wise were approaching Salaam’s apartment

when they noticed police officers outside Salaam’s door. They asked for Wise’s name as well,

and when it was not on their list, they told him to accompany his friend to the precinct anyway.

Throughout the course of about a day, the police ended up with written and videotaped

confessions of Wise, Richardson, Santana, and McCray (Salaam’s mother had stopped his

interrogation).

Though they denied any wrongdoing once they left the precinct, though none of their

stories matched the actual account of what had happened, and though DNA from the scene

matched none of the boys, they were ultimately convicted. McCray, Salaam, and Santana were

all found guilty on seven counts, including the rape and assault of Meili and assaults of two men

in the park that night, Richardson was found guilty on eight counts, including the rape and

attempted murder of Meili, and Wise was found guilty on three counts, including the sexual

abuse (but not rape) of Meili. McCray, Salaam, Santana, and Richardson were all given 5-10

years, which is the maximum sentence for a juvenile, while Wise, the only one of the five who

was 16, was tried as an adult and given 5-15 years. The four juveniles would serve seven years

before they were released, and Wise would serve twelve until they were all exonerated.

If they were all later exonerated (and won a civil suit for $41 million), how were they

even convicted in the first place? Many factors went into this, and can even be broken down into
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categories: situational causes, facts of the people involved, mistakes in the investigation, and

mistakes at trial. And many of these causes inform another, which causes another, which

heightens the first in an unending loop of error. Once these five were narrowed in as targets, they

were screwed. New York City at the time was incredibly under-policed. This was not helped by a

rise in crime. There had recently been a new boom of economic activity, leading to some very

wealthy residents. However, this had not affected the poor, who were still poor and struggling,

which led to an extremely split city. Jim Dwyer, of The New York Times, called it a “completely

schizophrenic, divided city”.3 And then, in 1984, crack hit New York, which led to increased

crime and teenagers with cash and guns. The whole city was on edge. Because of this, it became

easy to see teenagers as heinous criminals. This economic split was also seen in the case itself.

Meili was a well-off investment banker who worked constantly and did well for herself. The five

boys were not, to the point that two could not even make bail. They all lived in Harlem, which

was one of the “darker enclaves of the city” and where many of the victims of the drug wars

lived. 4

However, situational causes were not the only reason this case resulted in a wrongful

conviction. The investigation process was riddled with misconduct, and many biases were

revealed and went unchecked. From the very beginning, given the extent of Meili’s injuries, the

case was moved to the homicide department. Not only are homicides in general usually

investigated with more pressure than any other crime, the Manhattan North homicide department

specifically was a prestigious department with a good record they felt they needed to maintain.

However, by far, the most compelling piece of evidence against the boys, and thus, the

major cause of their conviction, was their testimony. Once the police found out about the jogger,

3
Jim Dwyer in Burns, 9.15
4
Michael Warren in Burns, 59.00
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all five boys were interrogated for hours. No one knew about the female jogger. They repeatedly

told police that they had no idea what they were talking about, but the police did not believe

them and pushed harder. The detectives got in their faces and pushed and shoved at them. They

were screamed at, with one detective in their face and another in their ear. They got no food, no

water, and no sleep for hours. Salaam was told that his fingerprints were found on the victim’s

pants. Often, interrogation had to stop due to the boys crying. All of them were interrogated

separately, sometimes with parents present, sometimes without. They all had been kept for so

long, and their truth had been ignored, that they just wanted to get out of the situation. Antron

McCray’s dad was taken out of the room by the police, and then brought back in. He told Antron

to just tell them what they wanted to hear, so that he could go home. And Antron cracked. The

police wanted him to give other names, so he confirmed the names police gave him. As Ray

Santana said, “he [the detective] just fed it to me, ‘what did he do? What did Antron McCray

do?’ I couldn’t tell you who they were, who they looked like, if he woulda gave me 100 names, I

woulda put 100 people at the crime scene”. The police fed answers to the boys by asking leading

questions. Or, to put it another way, “they’re trying to make this story climb some sort of ladder

of facts.”5 When Santana was asked where the crime took place, he answered, “the reservoir”.

The detective looked at him funnily, and hesitated. Santana knew he had given the wrong

answer. Or when McCray was asked what the jogger had been wearing. Of course, he had no

idea. But he remembered that one of the male joggers who got assaulted had blue shorts and a

white shirt, so that’s what he said she had on. Each of the five was eventually told that another

boy implicated him as the rapist, so to avoid such a serious charge, he would admit to being

there, but denied the rape. They all thought that if they told the detectives what they wanted to

5
Jim Dwyer in Burns, 26.00
 Kammerer 6

hear, they would be allowed to go home, and might have to testify as a witness in a trial for

whomever they implicated. None of them thought that he himself was confessing to the crime.

They signed confessions that the police had written out. Both Dwyer, a journalist at the

time, and Santana (in the documentary) noted that a 14-year old boy does not talk like that. Then,

the confessions were videotaped (except for Salaam). It is important to note that they had already

signed confessions, saying exactly what happened. All four either internally felt, or were

explicitly told, that they had already said the story, now they just had to repeat themselves on

camera. Korey Wise says that he was told by Detective Nugent, “you’re going to go into this

room, tell the story you’ve already told me, and I’m gonna be in the room to make sure you tell

it.”6 Richardson says he felt ashamed that he now had to lie in front of his father, but also felt

that he needed to sell it, now that he was on tape, to make sure people knew he was not involved

in the rape. Not only were the videotaped confessions conducted by the prosecutor, Elizabeth

Lederer, but the boys were still asked leading questions. The degree of these questions is almost

unbelievable, but one instance exemplifies it best. Lederer shows a picture of Meili, in the

hospital, to Korey Wise. She asks him who is in the picture. He says, “it’s her”. Lederer clarifies,

“that’s the woman you saw?”. Korey replies, “yes”.7 Meili had been completely mangled, and in

the picture, was under a lot of hospital equipment. Her friends had not even been able to identify

her by her face, because it was so beaten up; they had to identify her by a ring she always wore.

Also, it would have been dark when Wise would have seen her anyway. And yet, he can make a

positive identification after looking at this photo for a few seconds. More likely, he knew that if

Lederer was showing him any picture of a woman at all, in the investigation of a woman who

had been raped and beaten, it was probably the woman in question. He wanted to go home and

6
Burns, 42.10
7
Burns, 47.30
 Kammerer 7

knew what to say to get out of there. Or, the police had shown him earlier and he knew the right

answer, but that part had not been recorded.

The boys had been “in custody and in varying degrees of interrogation for a range of 14-

30 hours”.8 Prolonged time in an interrogation room will not miraculously result in an expression

of truth. In reality, the opposite happens. The person in custody will realize that they only way

out is to agree with what the detective is saying, even if that means admitting to a crime. It is the

only way out of extreme pressure that he is facing. Once the person is out of that extreme

situation, he will recognize that what he had said was crazy, and factually untrue, and will recant.

This exact thing happened in the case of the Central Park Five. Once they were out of the

interrogation room, immediately when they were out of police custody, they categorically denied

any involvement in the attack. They maintained their innocence throughout everything, when

confessing would have gotten them a shorter sentence through a plea deal, and when it could

have gotten them out early on parole. They denied the crime.

Tunnel vision had assuredly set in. Once the detective with Meili had called the precinct,

and the targets were set on Richardson, McCray, Santana, Salaam, and Wise, there was no going

back for the investigators. Tunnel vision, or the focusing on one suspect, means that the

investigators would ignore anything that contradicted their theory of the case, such as DNA. And

in fact, DNA did not match any of the five. This was treated as circumstantial, and not at all

important to the case. It just meant that there had been a sixth person that night, whom the police

had not caught. Believe it or not, this is a common defense, the so-called unindicted co-ejaculator

theory. Just because the DNA does not match, does not mean that these five are innocent; it just

means they left behind no DNA. However, this is also incredible: that in this violent, brutal

8
Saul Kassin in Burns, 39.10
 Kammerer 8

attack, none of them would have left behind any blood, and none of them would be found with

Trisha’s blood on them. Again, this is treated as circumstantial, along with the inaccuracies in

their confessions: that the confessions do not match that of the other’s or the known facts of the

case. The detectives also ignored any evidence that pointed to anyone else. There had been a

serial rapist terrorizing the Upper East Side that summer, who was caught on August 5, 1989,

whose name was Matias Reyes. Two days before the Central Park Jogger attack, there had been

another attack on a woman in North Central Park. This woman had noticed fresh stitches on her

attacker’s chin, so a detective went around the hospitals in the area, and finds out about Matias

Reyes, who had just been in for stitches on his chin. This was ignored, even though one

investigator, Detective Sheehan, was working both the jogger case and one of the East Side

rapist cases. So he had the DNA markers in both files, and never did anything about them.

Finally, also regarding tunnel vision throughout the investigation was the disregard for

the timeline. There was a clear timeline of the boys’ movements through the park since they had

harassed other people, who reported the crimes soon after they happened. The police then added

the attack on the jogger to the end of the events, at 10:05. However, days after the arrest was

announced, Meili’s movements that night began to come out. She could not remember the night

after she left her apartment, but she knew when she did that. Knowing when she left, and

knowing the path she would usually take through the park put her at the spot where she was

attacked at 9:20. The boys had an alibi at this time. They were across the park, beating up

someone else. This timeline, and the subsequent alibi afforded to the boys was never brought up

in trial.

One of the major compounding reasons for a wrongful conviction in this case was the

overwhelming media presence. The case hit the news, and it hit hard. Jim Dwyer, of The New
 Kammerer 9

York Times, remembered that there would often be six murders a day throughout the city. But

this one was different. Then-Mayor Ed Koch attributes this to the fact that “Central Park was

holy”. It was the one place left in this city ravaged by unchecked crime that was still a sort of

sanctuary. And New Yorkers were livid that such a heinous crime had occurred in its borders.

Even Donald Trump, then just the real-estate mogul, took out a full-page ad in four New York

newspapers, a cost totaling $85,000, calling to “Bring back the death penalty, bring back our

police”9. Michael Warren, Richardson’s lawyer post-conviction, said that he thinks “that if she

were a young woman who had been found in an alley in Bedford-Stuyvesant, if she had been

found in Harlem, if she had been found in any of the darker enclaves in this city—or in this state,

Donald Trump wouldn’t have spoken. He wouldn’t even have whispered a word.”10 But it was

not just Trump. The case was everywhere in the media.

Perhaps a reason for all the press coverage, as well as a major reason for conviction, was

the race of those involved. Trisha Meili was a white woman, and four defendants were black,

while one (Santana) was black and Hispanic. The frenzy of the case in the media and the race of

both the victim and the accused perpetrators reminded many who defended the boys of Emmet

Till. Till was a 14-year old boy in Mississippi who was beaten, mutilated, shot, and thrown into a

river for flirting with, and allegedly groping, a white woman in 1955. Reverend Calvin Butts

stated that “if this had happened in 1901, they would have been lynched. Perhaps castrated. And

their bodies burned. And that would have been the end of it.” 11 It is impossible to deny the effect

race had on the proceedings, and nothing more clearly illustrates that than another major, violent

rape at the time. A woman in Brooklyn had been raped and then thrown off of a roof, yet this

9
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/23/nyregion/trump-draws-criticism-for-ad-he-ran-after-jogger-attack.html
10
Michael Warren in Burns, 59.00
11
Rev. Calvin Butts in Burns, 1.00.20
 Kammerer 10

story received little to no media attention while the Central Park Jogger case was everywhere.

But all parties involved (both victim and perpetrator) in the Brooklyn case were black, so there

was no need for a public outrage.

Regardless of the causes of the media frenzy, the heightened publicity led to extreme

pressure for the police, and thus, an accelerated timeline. Everything was rushed and not

properly investigated by the police because they felt pressured to solve the case quickly and

appease the troubled minds of New Yorkers. The arrests were announced on Friday, April 21st,

not even a full two days after Meili had been discovered, and still ten days before she would

awake from her coma. And once the five teens were arrested, the narrative of their guilt was

completely unquestioned; by the media and everyone in the case—even their own communities.

The only ones who stood by them were their families. The media was rampant with bias. Mayor

Koch said in an interview, “…alleged perpetrators—we always have to say alleged because

that’s the requirement.”12 The mayor himself has shown to the public that he is not unbiased in

this case. Even prison inmates agreed with their guilt and that they were deserving of

punishment. The Wall Street Journal reported “Inmates vow to make prison a living hell for

accused rapists.”13 The boys were repeatedly vilified in the press, making it impossible to get an

untainted jury pool.

In addition to the jury being already influenced by the case, there were other factors at

trial that helped result in a wrongful conviction. The most egregious were the ineffective

assistance of counsel for the defense, and the prosecution’s appeal to emotion, rather than fact.

First, at least two of the boys’ lawyers were sleeping through the trial. Salaam’s lawyer was a

friend of his mother’s and was a divorce lawyer—who had never tried a criminal case. Yet, this

12
Burns, 57.00
13
Burns, 56.04
 Kammerer 11

ineffective assistance of counsel did not yield any result from the Court of Appeals. Second, the

prosecution brought Trisha Meili, the victim, to testify. She could not remember the night of the

attack after she left her apartment, or even the six weeks following the attack. Yet, she was

supposed to testify. She was the hero of New York City. She was learning how to walk again. So

she limped up to the witness stand, painting a picture that could say more than her words ever

could. The jury saw the victim, and what she had been through because of her attack, and wanted

someone to pay for it—and they had the power to do so.

In late 2001, after running into Wise in prison, and feeling guilty, Matias Reyes comes

forward and admits to the crime. The DA’s office starts a re-examination of the case and finds

that the DNA matched Reyes. When they interviewed him, Reyes could immediately describe

details of the case that the boys were not even able to, like what Meili was wearing, he details

how he took her shoes off, and how he had taken her keys and tried to figure out her address.14

They also discovered that this crime was consistent with his others. So, on December 19, 2002,

their convictions were vacated. The city later settled a civil suit brought against them by the five

for a total of $41 million (about $1 million for each year in prison). The justice system was found

to be guilty of no wrongdoing. Many, including Meili, Linda Fairstein (the prosecutor whose

career was made from this case), and now-President Donald Trump, still believe in their guilt,

and in the theory that Reyes was the “unindicted co-ejaculator”.

This case, along with the thousands of cases like it, stand as a testament to the necessity

of fixing our justice system. If all interrogations had to be recorded from the very beginning, not

just when it is time for the confession; if the defense and the prosecution were afforded equal

14
The keys had been a source of contention for the police because her door had been locked, but her keys were
not with her and they were never found. Reyes had started with petty crimes like robbery, and would continue to
rob his rape victims.
 Kammerer 12

resources; if police could stand firm to external media pressure, this would not have happened.

Because of the blindness of the investigators, the number of victims rose considerably. Instead of

just Trisha Meili and her family suffering, it became them, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana

Jr., Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, all five of their families, Reyes’ victims after

Meili (one of whom he murdered), and their families. It is unconscionable.

Word Count: 3932

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Bibliography

The Central Park Five. Directed by Ken Burns, David McMahon, Sarah Burns. 2013.
Cook, Lauren. “Central Park Five: What to know about the jogger rape case”
https://www.amny.com/news/central-park-five-1.19884350
“Emmett Till Is Murdered”.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till
Wilson, Michael, “Trump Draws Criticism for Ad He Ran After Jogger Attack”. New York
Times, 2002.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/23/nyregion/trump-draws-criticism-for-ad-he-ran-
after-jogger-attack.html