Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump still believes the “Central Park Five,” a group of black and Hispanic men who were convicted but later exonerated in the 1989 rape of a female jogger in New York City’s Central Park, are guilty, he told CNN this week. The news comes more than a decade after the men were cleared by DNA evidence and a confession by the actual culprit about his role in the crime. “They admitted they were guilty,” Trump told CNN’s Miguel Marquez. “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.” Trump’s statement underscores a fundamental disregard for the criminal justice system. While the five individuals accused in the case did at one point confess to crimes related to the rape of then-28-year-old Trisha Meili ― though never actually admitting to rape ― they all later retracted their statements to police. The suspects, then juveniles, claimed that during hours-long interrogations, police lied, intimidated and ultimately coerced them into falsely confessing to crimes they never committed. It’s now better understood that teens can be especially susceptible to police coercion during the interview process. False confessions continue to be one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Read more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry..._57f7ceafe4b0e655eab3c002?section=us_politics
