The Central Park 5: Interrogation Gone Wrong

Describe the specifics of the case and the court outcome 

The Central Park Five case is a historical case in the 1980s that saw the wrong conviction of five black teenagers by a court for alleged rape of a white woman in Central Park. After serving part of long sentence in jail, the court ultimately released the five teenagers after a psychopath confessed to committing the rape incident and the matching of his DNA with samples of DNA collected at the crime scene. 

At the time of the teenagers’ convictions, the United State was grappling with a crack epidemic and street violence. In particular, the first half of 1989, when the crime took place, there law enforcement authorities reported 837 murders, 1,600 rapes, and over 43,000 violent robberies and 34,000 physical assaults. A permeating racial tension in the city also predicated the Central Park incident whereby whites and non-whites took swipes at each other. The wrongful conviction of the five teenagers therefore reflected the criminal justice system reaction to the growing discontentment of New Yorkers with the escalating violence putting unnecessary pleasure on New York’s first mayor. 

The Central Park incident unfolded on the spring night of 19 th April 1989 when the 28-year old white female Trisha Meili, an investment banker was assaulted and raped when jogging at the Central Park. Unknown to Meili was the fact that up to thirty five teenagers had taken up to the park at night for “wilding” or random attack on innocent people. Police apprehended and interrogated a couple of teenagers for the “wilding” attack (Mexal, 2013) . Meili’s became the most unfortunate victim of the “wilding” gang after subjection to brutal rape, assault that permanently damaged her brain, fractured her skull, crushed her socket and left for death at a the park’s shallow, muddy gully. 

Among the teenagers arrested, the police pinned Meili’s assault and rape on Antron McCray aged 15, Kelvin Richardson aged 14, Clarence Thomas aged 14, Raymond Santana aged 14, Yusef Salaam aged 15, and Steve Lopez aged 15. The court ruled Thomas and Lopez noninvolvement in Meili’s assault but committed the rest of the five black and latino teenagers to full trial for rape and attempted murder. 

Elizabeth Lederer, the then Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan presided over the prosecution of the five teenagers. The only evidence presented by Lederer before the court as proof of the teenagers’ participation in Meili’s assault was their confession, which investigations later revealed were obtained through coercion. However, the court convicted the five teenagers based on the weak evidence and sentenced them to thirteen years in juvenile facilities. Later DNA evidence further showed a mismatch of the hair of one of the teenager presented by Lederer as evidence in court and the DNA samples collected at the crime scene. Similarly, the semen in the rape kit of Meili mismatched that of the five teenager, but matched that of Matias Reyes, the psychopathic rapist who confessed to committing the crime later. Ultimately, the court vacated the teenagers convictions after Reyes confession, which ended their 13 years stay in jail. 

In his statement on the court’s decision, the Manhattan Supreme Court judge Thomas Galligan condemned the teenagers in uncertain terms. As a “law and order” judge, he described the teenagers as “mindless marauders: who turned Central Park into “torture chamber”. 

Describe the interrogation methods used by investigators 

Under the pressure of the crack and violence epidemic in Manhattan neighborhood, the criminal justice system skewed away from the standards of fair trial and instead joined the lynch mob baying for the teenagers’ blood. Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney had also presided over an era of mass incarceration in the city that reflected Morgegenthau’s punitive rather than fairness approach to law enforcement at the time. 

The wrongful conviction of the five teenagers reflects a fault with interrogation techniques approved by the Manhattan District Court under the leadership of Robert M. Morgenthau, the district attorney, and the overall interrogation methods relied upon by police for decades. Among them include the routine lying to the suspect on variety of issues that convince the suspect to give incriminating statement. For instance, in the Central Park jogger case, the suspect families claimed that the police deceived the teenagers that they were simply submitting statements as witnesses to the case rather than as suspects, and that after giving taped interviews the police would set them free to go back home. Furthermore, the interrogation technique of deceiving each teenager that their peers had pleaded guilty to the charges and implicated their accomplish successfully played the boys into the prosecutors’ hands. A typical example is the testimony of Kharey Wise, one of the exonerated teenagers, who after initial confession about his absence from the crime scene later offered factual information on the jogger’s incident after the police deceived him that his peers submitted that they had seen him at the scene. After retracting his statement under the promise of release, the police went back on their promise and locked up Wise. One of the detectives went as far as deceiving a suspect that his fingerprints longed on the jogger’s shot would proof his guilt. 

The Central Park 5 miscarriage of justice indicts the “Reid Technique” of interrogation relied upon by police. The Reid Technique represents a controversial police interrogation method employed to extract suspects’ confessions. In the Central Park 5 case police used Raid Technique tactics to manipulate the teenagers to confess a crime, which they did not commit through coercion and deception. Raid technique falls under the confrontational interrogation methods characterized by a three-phase interrogation process including fact analysis and behavioral analysis interview, and the final Reid technique that encompasses nine interrogation steps (Kostelnik and Reppucci, 2009) . 

The nine steps of Reid interrogation techniques as used or misused in Central Park 5 case include direct confrontation whereby the police deceptively counseled the five teenagers separately that the evidence submitted by their peers pointed at their involvement in Meili’s rape and assault. The police reinforced the trick with giving the teenagers an opportunity for an extrajudicial trial and pardon. Second step reflects polices’ effort to shift the blame to others as evident in Wise’s incriminating confession and attempt to recreate the set of conditions that prompted him to participate in the “wilding” attack. The second step of Reid technique demonstrates the police’s effort to solicit the teenagers’ version of the crime by prompting emotional defense of their alleged crime after a period of psychological torture. Evidently, the detectives and police in Central Park 5 case denied the five teenagers food and water as a psychological attempt to instill a sense of desperation. 

The third step of Reid technique reflects in the police extrajudicial effort to manipulate the suspects against denying their involvement in the crime as an effort for a fast conclusion of the case. Fourth step saw the five teenagers separately confess their commission of the crime as well as justification for engaging in the crime, which the police vide recorded and presented as evidence before the court. Noticeably, the police selectively presented the teenager confessions in court but did not record the three steps of the Reid techniques, which led to the confession. Otherwise, if the judge saw the brutality of the interrogation techniques they would have questioned the legality of the confession under the judicial doctrine of “malice, aforethought and sound mind”. Also, worthy noting is that the police locked out the teenagers parents throughout the three seven interrogation steps, and only brought in the parents as a formality to witness their admission of guilt before media and the parents (Gruenewald, 2015) . Contrary polices’ claim, the parents were partially rather than fully present when the police interrogated the teenagers. 

As the police psychological torture wore down the teenagers’ resolve to defend their innocence, the police reinforced their sincerity about the confession as false promise of release quieted their defense reducing them to passive followers of the police imperatives (Stratton, 2015) . At this juncture, the Reid technique had completely worn out the teenagers’ freewill reducing them to passive collaborators. As the teenagers broke down due to psychological torture, the police video recorded their psychological devastation characterized by tears a evidence of their guilt. 

During the seventh step of Reid technique, the police presented the teenagers separately with a set of alternatives including a socially acceptable alternative of release after confession and a punitive alternative of maximum sentence with deception of solid evidence to achieve such sentence. Expectedly, the suspects opted to confession as the easiest option, but in so doing admitted their guilt to committing the crime. In the eight stage, the police now called the media and parents to parade them as self-confessed criminals. Finally, the police document the teenagers’ confession in a video, which they presented to the court as evidence. 

Although, the Central Park 5 interrogation followed Reid technique to the letter, the detectives in charge misused rather than used Reid techniques. As observed by the techniques author, Joseph P. Buckley, John E. Reid president, the Best Practices and Core Principles of Reid Techniques teaches against use of physical force to threaten the subjects or excessively long interrogation as that conducted in Central Park 5 case. 

How would their investigative techniques be classified? Accusatory Model? PEACE Model? 

The Reid technique employed in Central Park 5 case falls into the accusatorial system of criminal prosecution whereby the state after accusation of a suspects uses adversary process to prove its criminal allegations before a court. In an adversary process, the prosecution and the defense table the best persuasive argument before a court bench. In the Central Park 5 case, the prosecution relied on the teenagers’ confession as the most persuasive evidence as evident in its override of DNA evidence that delinked the suspects from the crime scene. Confession is the most reliable evidence used by judges or jury to make judgment on the case. On their part, the defense pointed out weaknesses of the prosecution argument and its invalidity. A typical example is the defense proof that the DNA evidence and semen from all the teenagers did not match the semen in Meili rape kit or the DNA evidence collected at the crime scene. As determined by court judgments, the Central Park 5 case fits into the accusatory system that characterizes American criminal justice system (Levine et al., 2013) . In particular, the case focused on five arrested suspects in the jogger’s rape and assault crime out of the more than forty teenagers who participated in the “wilding” at the park. Secondly, the police and detective carried out the interrogation not to establish the truth about the crime but with a premeditated goal to get a conviction through confession by whatever mean at their disposal. In particular, the police investigation had the sole purpose of soliciting for incriminating evidence from the suspects. 

What interviewing and interrogation method do you feel should have been used in the investigation? 

The confrontation method relied upon by police in Central Park 5 case is ineffective in guaranteeing a fair trial. Confrontational methods also goes against the principle of “presumption of innocence” until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. Instead, the peace methods of suspects’ interviews and interrogation offers a scientific and ethical, information gathering method capable of soliciting for probative evidence (Pollock, 2019). PEACE models represents the acronym of a humane investigative interviewing that represents planning and preparation, explanation and engagement, accounting, closure, and evaluation. In PEACE model, the criminal justice system use “investigative interview” instead of the intimidating terminology “interrogation”. As opposed to interrogation “investigative interview” reflects the PEACE model focus on an ethical and humane philosophy. Unlike the accusatory approach of confrontational methods, interviewers gather information before decision-making on the innocence or guilt of the suspect, a move that mimic testing of hypothesis in scientific research. As opposed to the confrontational method reliance on behavioral cues prejudices, PEACE interviewers are open-minded, shun lies or psychological coercion to manipulate suspects (Sebek, 2016). As observed by commentators’ a PEACE approach to the Central Park 5 could have saved the 41 years collectively served by the suspects and the $41 million compensation paid to them by the government for wrongful detention. Instead, the Manhattan District Attorney used the five innocent teenagers as a lesson to the unruly youths. 

References 

Gruenewald, J. (2015). Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story. By Natalie P. Byfield. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014. Pp. viii 233. $29.95. American Journal of Sociology, 121 (2), 611-613. 

Kostelnik, J. O., & Reppucci, N. D. (2009). Reid training and sensitivity to developmental maturity in interrogation: Results from a national survey of police. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 27 (3), 361-379. 

Levine, T. R., Shulman, H. C., Carpenter, C. J., Deandrea, D. C., & Blair, J. P. (2013). The Impact of Accusatory, Non-Accusatory, Bait, and False Evidence Questioning on Deception Detection. Communication Research Reports, 30 (2), 169-174. 

Mexal, S. J. (2013). The Roots of “Wilding”: Black Literary Naturalism, the Language of Wilderness, and Hip Hop in the Central Park Jogger Rape. African American Review, 46 (1), 101-115. 

Pollock, J. M. (2019). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice . Australia: Cengage. 

Sebek, V. (2016). PEACE model of investigative interviewing. Nauka, Bezbednost, Policija, 21 (1), 161-186. 

Stratton, G. (2015). Transforming the Central Park jogger into the Central Park Five: Shifting narratives of innocence and changing media discourse in the attack on the Central Park jogger, 1989–2014. Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 11 (3), 281-297.