NEW VOICES: PBS Airing of ​“The Central Park Five” Underscores Problem of Innocence

George F. Will, con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor of the Washington Post, recent­ly drew a les­son about the death penal­ty from the doc­u­men­tary The Central Park Five, which airs on PBS on Tuesday, April 16. Will wrote, “[T]his recount­ing of a mul­ti­fac­eted but, for­tu­nate­ly, not fatal fail­ure of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem but­tress­es the con­ser­v­a­tive case against the death penal­ty: Its final­i­ty leaves no room for rec­ti­fy­ing mis­takes.” The Central Park Five tells the sto­ry of five juve­nile defen­dants (four African Americans and one Hispanic) who were con­vict­ed of the 1989 rape and beat­ing of a jog­ger in Central Park, New York, despite the absence of DNA evi­dence link­ing them to the crime. Four of the five gave con­fes­sions, which they lat­er said were the result of police intim­i­da­tion. All were sen­tenced to prison. In 2002, after a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Manhattan District Attoreny, their con­vic­tions were vacated. 

(G. Will, ​“Failure of Justice Argues Against the Death Penalty,” Hartford Courant, April 14, 2013). See Innocence and New Voices. Learn more about Ken Burns’s doc­u­men­tary, The Central Park Five.