Moderation Questions and General Chat Thread

Also, CV, you might want to explain why the DA hasn't bothered to re-try these guys who are 100% indisputably guilty, in your view. NY's DA's office is not exactly known for this kind of leniency toward minorities.

I don't know enough about the case to know who is right or wrong here, but I know CV is a true crime buff and "executing black teenagers" has absolutely **** all to do with his view on this or any case. Generally, this sort of appeal to ideology only serves to undermine your point, not strengthen it. Argue the case on its merits or don't argue it at all, IMO.

Again, speaking in generalities and not this case in particular, it's pretty hard to try cases reliant on victim/eyewitness testimony after decades have passed. Witnesses may no longer be available, memory is fallible, and any half decent defence lawyer will shred any eywitness identification of a defendant who has aged by the best part of 25 years on cross.

I've officially run out of ways to explain to you that the actual culprit confessed to the crime and forensic evidence has backed up his story. Maybe if I type real slowly?

That's a fair point, but CV still seems to think the evidence is rock-solid, so I have to wonder why the DA is sitting on their hands here.

As usual, people are oversimplifying how decisions are made and reducing decisionmakers to caricature. The NYC DA's office isn't full of bloodthirsty monsters who are just dying to put black teenagers in jail, no matter the merits. (Prosecutors tend to be rule followers and political actors, not evil incarnate.)

I am speculating, but I imagine that the NY DA's decision not to retry the Central Park Five was based on (i) uncertainty about their guilt; (ii) very significant doubts about the office's ability to win a new round of trials when another person had confessed to the crimes; and (iii) public sentiment, which wasn't in favor of new trials.

The only thing that is undisputed is that there was one person's semen on and in the victim. That there was only one person's semen was not disputed back when the trials were held in 1990, and that fact did not exonerate them back then. 30 years later, there are people shouting "DNA evidence proved they were innocent! You are racist if you disagree!" It is not only just wrong on its face, it is a completely absurd argument when you consider the facts of the case. Trolly conveniently hedges by saying "The CP5 still did not rape that woman", as a way to weasel out a win.

Using the statements of officials that had nothing to do with the investigation or prosecution of the case, and under intense political pressure to publicly exonerate the defendants, bears little weight, especially when you consider that none of the people that were involved ever said such a thing.

The evidence seems pretty clear that these kids, at the very least, attacked the Central Park Jogger, just as that large group of kids had been attacking people all night. Did they do all of the damage? No. Did they rape the victim? It's questionable, and I suppose it depends on your definition of rape. Maybe it is just the lawyer in me, but I subscribe to the notion that if a group of people attack and hold down a woman and only one of the people in that group penetrates that victim, that the whole group is guilty of rape. I am not suggesting that is what happened, though there is some evidence that can lead to that conclusion. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they may have just attacked the woman in a manner with some sexual overtones (as they admitted to fondling her during the attack), left her after beating her unconscious, and the other kid dragged her into a more secluded area and raped her. That would make them not guilty of rape, but hardly innocent victims.

The kids were bragging about what they had done before they were arrested and had given details to the police that the police did not know. Even after they were "exonerated", some of the members of the Central Park Five admitted to attacking the other people in the park that night. I can only hope that the "if you think these kids were anything but innocent victims of racism" line is borne out of lack of knowledge on the subject, and not just weaponized misinformation.

Like a lot of people, I watched "When They See Us", was interested in the subject matter, and made one Google search. It took about thirty seconds on the Wikipedia page that describes the events to see that the show was full of crap. Unfortunately, such distortions are taken by people, even intelligent people, at face value. You then have the position of people that claim that it is "undisputed" that they are innocent and others just claiming racism of people that question the "these were innocent victims of racism" line.

This is exactly the kind of bad faith, idiotic post that makes you such a terrible poster. "Agree with me or you are a racist", is the general theme of >90% of your posts.

They sure as hell didn't follow the rules in this case.

*yawn*

You're deliberately obfuscating the facts that the DNA evidence excludes the CP5 and matches the actual rapist, who confessed to the crime. The DA's office later recommended vacating the case and the city wound up paying the CP5 millions. Try again.

Cry harder.

Yes, donkjr isnt all that stupid afterall.
All true that.

Trolly on the other hand... lol
Why do you believe a serial rapist and murderers confession? Who doesnt have anythjng to lose and is in prison for ten thousand years anyways?
Could he be extorted??? Yes
Could he be less reliable??? NO

It's not an undisputed fact that they're innocent and I'm very sure indeed that you know that a vacated conviction isn't an exoneration. I'm also sure you're aware that a flawed due process doesn't equate to being "actually blatantly railroaded". In the cp5 thread Trolly didn't discuss the merits of the case, he just kept accusing me of being racist and made bare faced assertions of innocence along with a bunch of inaccurate claims- my response to him itt is within this context.

This topic was already covered. Reise didn't act alone and is a self serving psychopath anyway, so his claim to have acted alone isn't reliable. The armstrong report thoroughly covers him and his unreliability, which I've already linked. It's only a mere 43 pages so read it if you're interested. If not fair enough but again it thoroughly covers the issues you raised and I'm not rehashing it, sorry.

I'm not arguing anything re their due process, or making any claim re fake news. I'm very accurately stating their convictions were vacated as opposed to them being actually exonerated and I'm opining guilt based on the evidence. And based on said evidence I'm confident in and comfortable with my opinion in this regard.

Which thing that I described as undisputed, in fact, is disputed?

I don't know what you mean by this post.

Being called stupid by washoe has to be the nut low.

I think that doesn't apply here. Statute of limitations applies to time given to bring charges. Charges were brought. If the court of appeal takes 10 years to vacate a conviction, that doesn't mean the statute of limitations has run.

Where did I say that it was undisputed that they are innocent or that they had been exonerated in a court proceeding?

Correct.

I mean they very clearly railroaded these kids.

You are absolutely right. You mentioned the reasons why they weren't prosecuted again in another reply. (1) Eyewitnesses and evidence grows stale over time, making prosecutions 25 years later more difficult. (2) The political climate surrounding the case.

Your crap here was already covered. Typical gaslighting trolling from you

They extorted him to make that confession right CV??

For somebody that thinks so highly of himself, you sure don't have a problem with making yourself look stupid. I am sure if you keep repeating the same thing over and over again, you will eventually claim that win when the rest of us have to stop posting and go to work.

It's relatively standard practice to go forward with prosecutions when you have confessions to the police. It isn't as if the office went forward with the prosecutions in the first instance in the face of someone else confessing to the crime.

I don't know what this means either. Who "extorted" him? And why?

Their convictions were vacated in 2002, statutes of limitations on rape was five years, extended to 20 in 2019, after their vacated convictions
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/18/us/ne...

Besides all had already served their full terms so nothing would have come of it anyway even if they could be charged again.