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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29345 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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Generally, I place very little trust in confessions, little trust in eyewitness accounts and a lot of trust in technological evidence.

We know that Reyes raped her. It is reasonable to assume that this was the same incident in which she was also murdered. We know that there is no DNA evidence linking any CP5 to the rape, which is at least strong circumstantial evidence that they did not rape her.

The accepted standard for criminal convictions is "beyond reasonable doubt". So the prosecutor had to convince the jury that the police had reconstructed the crime correctly. I doubt they told the jury "or perhaps some unknown third party raped her, we don't really know". We know that the police had done no such thing.

So we have cops who extracted confessions which were later falsified in the details, and sold them as the truth. This puts really sharp limits on the trust we can place on the police investigation.

Now, it is technically possible that they were randomly directionally correct and framed the guilty party minus one. But even if they were, the penalty for investigatory misconduct in the US is generally that the gathered evidence gets thrown out, which sets the correct incentives.

Trisha Meili wasn't murdered, she ended up living. And all 6 of their taped accounts (including Lopez who isn't counted in the "central park 5" because his parents made sure he didn't confess like the others did), and those of a few other people who had been around them that night, were really pretty consistent. The only difference was that each kid downplayed his own actions somewhat, thinking that they would be fine if they weren't the one who raped her. And the confusion that everyone knew she was raped, but these kids didn't actually see a rape, so they were trying to fit that into their confession incorrectly.

But the consistent picture of an assault and sexual molestation (but not rape, they were really too young and awkward for that) is pretty clear. It would be pretty remarkable if the detectives in a few hours of the untaped interrogation got them all to get on the same page of implicating themselves consistently in a made-up story, especially when they weren't even suspects in the initial questioning of ~30+ kids until kevin richardson happened to mention that the scratch on his eye was done by "the female jogger". Also especially because a few of them were borderline retarded, as was used in their defense. But they still all knew exactly which kid was hitting people with the metal pipe, who was throwing rocks at joggers' heads, and who was ripping her clothes off, etc.

That Reyes came along later and raped the woman who was lying there unconscious and nearly dead, really has no bearing on the assaults committed (on multiple victims) by the above 6 (which were attested to by multiple other kids as well, who somehow avoided being 'framed' by the detectives themselves).

Trisha Meili wasn't murdered, she ended up living.

I stand corrected.

The fact that the police managed to convince the juries that four of the five had committed rape beyond reasonable doubt certainly places an upper limit on the trustworthiness of their investigation. Given that the police did have DNA evidence and knew that none of the CP5 had anything to do with the semen, going for rape convictions seems downright malicious.

I will also note that DA Morgenthau (who recommended vacating the judgements) does not seem like a pink-haired 'defund the police' type (WW2 veterans generally are not, in my experience). Typically DAs are very reluctant to recommend overturning convictions, especially ones secured by their own assistants.

I assume that it is possible that he recommended that because he thought that given all of the convicted we had already served their time, fighting to keep the none-rape parts of their convictions was a fools errand (especially since it was obviously CW fodder and he would have to argue that only the rape part of the confessions were wrong and the rest was fine, which would be a tough position to defend), rather than because he personally believed that they had never touched Meili.

That Reyes came along later and raped the woman who was lying there unconscious and nearly dead

From WP, Reyes killed one of the four other women he raped. As far as I know, none of the other alleged victims of the CP5 had life-threatening injuries, which is likely why their case focused on Meili. It is not like we have a medical examination of her from just before she was raped. Given that the when the cops tried to blame the CP5 for the state Meili was found in, they might have exaggerated the injuries inflicted by the CP5 as well.

Potentially, they groped her and left her with a mild concussion, and the rest was Reyes doing. Or they did everything except the rape. Or they never met her.

Meta: I think that the CP5 case is great culture war material, even a scissor statement. Also, I find this discussion enlightening. I come from my niche, get blowback for what I considered an uncontroversial fact, think to myself "why do these idiots not believe in DNA evidence?", but try to argue halfway politely, get polite responses and eventually a more subtle picture emerges from the arguments. (I mean, @KMC is still completely beyond my understanding, in the appreciation of DNA evidence, the quality of evidence for the attempted murder charge in hindsight and the general morality of imposing the death penalty on 14yo's for attempted murder.)

Potentially, they groped her and left her with a mild concussion, and the rest was Reyes doing. Or they did everything except the rape.

Yeah I had forgotten about that part. The detectives knew she was hit with a big rock in the head as an attempted death blow finisher, so they were probing these 15 yr olds with questions around that, without giving it away. But consistently they all knew nothing about that (even when trying to come up with what the detectives were looking for, they never came close); they only knew about all the other injuries. So that was Reyes with the final attempted murder using the rock.

Within the North Woods, between 102nd and 105th Street, assailants were reported attacking several cyclists, hurling rocks at a cab, and attacking a pedestrian, whom they robbed of his food and beer and left unconscious.[12][13] The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.[12] Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider, testified that, at about 9:05 p.m., he was hassled by a group of boys, one of whom tried to punch him.[12] At about 9:15 p.m., Antonio Diaz, who had been walking in the park near 105th Street, was knocked to the ground by teenagers, who stole his bag of food and bottle of beer.[12] And Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean, riding on a tandem, said that a group of boys tried to block their path on East Drive south of 102nd Street at about 9:15 p.m.; Malone said that he and Dean sped towards the boys, causing them to scatter, though Dean said that a few grabbed at her; the couple called police after reaching a call box.[12]

At least some of the group of teenagers traveled farther south to the area around the reservoir, and, there, four male joggers were "set upon" between 9:25 and 9:50 p.m.[13]: ¶ 7  David Lewis testified that he was attacked and robbed about 9:25–9:40 p.m.[12] Robert Garner said he was assaulted at about 9:30 p.m.[12] David Good testified he was attacked at about 9:47 p.m.[12] And, between 9:40 and 9:50, John Loughlin was "knocked to the ground, kicked, punched, and beaten with a pipe and stick"; he sustained "significant but not life-threatening injuries".[13]: ¶ 7  At a pretrial hearing in October 1989, a police officer testified that when Loughlin was found, he was bleeding so badly that he "looked like he was dunked in a bucket of blood".[14]

According to a later statement by District Attorney Nancy Ryan, "[a]ll five implicated themselves in a number of the crimes which had occurred in the park."[13]: ¶ 10

I don't think I got anything wrong. Hitting someone with a pipe doesn't leave DNA evidence, and the fact that someone else raped her at some point doesn't mean these five are innocent.

As to the five defendants, the [2003 Armstrong] report said:

We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability. On the other hand, there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants' descriptions of the attack on the female jogger: she was knocked down on the road, dragged into the woods, hit and molested by several defendants, sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs, and left semiconscious in a state of undress.

I also believe this. Hang 'em high.

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