False Admittance: The Central Park Five
Criminal cases rely on various forms of evidence to convict an accused individual: fingerprints at a scene, tangible items left behind, or probable motive, to name a few. One of the most prominent pieces of proof, however, is arguably a confession from the defendant himself. A person suspected of committing a crime admitting to doing so seems like the biggest implication of involvement and subsequent guilt—but what happens when the confession given is not true? And, if a confession truly is deceptive, why confess to the crime at all? Such questions surrounded the case of one fateful April night in 1989 for five Manhattan teenagers, more prominently known as the Central Park Five (or as of December 2002, the Exonerated Five).
On the evening of April 19, 1989, media and police were informed that a large group of teenage boys was making its way through Central Park, attacking and robbing park-goers. Soon after, in the early morning hours of April 20, a 28-year-old jogger named Trisha Meili was found severely beaten and sexually assaulted nearby. Meili fell into a coma for about two weeks and had no memory of the attack (and therefore no memory of who attacked her). 1 Five teenagers were brought in for questioning: Raymond Santana (14), Kevin Richardson (14), Yusef Salaam (15), Antron McCray (15), and Korey Wise (16). [1]
After hours of questioning, the five teenagers confessed on videotape, though these statements were ultimately recanted on the basis that they were coerced. [2] In a statement to the Washington Post in 2016, Yusef Salaam wrote that “when [the five] were arrested, the police deprived [them] of food, drink or sleep for more than 24 hours” and they therefore confessed under duress and inhumane interrogation circumstances. [3] Though the five teenagers’ confessions were significantly inconsistent with each other, these taped confessions along with little biological evidence (a hair found on Richardson that “resembled” Meili’s) were used to establish their guilt. [4] Over thirteen years after their arrests came a new development—the confession of a man named Matias Reyes. It was with this that the Central Park Five would become known as the Exonerated Five.
A landmark case pertaining to the issue of false confessions is Brown v. Mississippi (1936). The case surrounds three black defendants—Arthur Ellington, Ed Brown, and Henry Shields—who were accused of murdering a white man named Raymond Stewart. [5] The three men were found guilty and sentenced to death following a two day trial on the basis of their confessions, though “there was no evidence sufficient to warrant the submission of the case to the jury” and the men had testified their confessions were false and extracted through physical torture. [6] The Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed the convictions with two dissenting opinions from Judges Virgil A. Griffith and J.G. Anderson. Judge Griffith recounted the events of Arthur Ellington being tied up and brutally beaten by a white deputy sheriff who stated he would continue to assault Ellington until he confessed, to which Ellington agreed in order to free himself from the abuse. [7] Ed Brown and Henry Shields, the other two defendants, were arrested as well; the same deputy and other white men forced the two men to strip and beat them until they, too, confessed in a manner that was satisfactory to their assailants. It was upon these insincere confessions alone that the three men were found guilty. [8] The United States Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Mississippi on the basis that the brutal nature by which the admissions of guilt were extorted was in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [9] The Due Process Clause states that “No state shall…deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” for citizens subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. [10] In the case of Brown v. Mississippi, the Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes delivered the opinion of the Court that the use of violent coercion to elicit the confessions specifically violated the liberty protection under the Due Process Clause. [11]
Along with this, one major criterion of the Fifth Amendment following the ruling of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) is that the Miranda warnings (notifications given by police to suspects in custody to ensure their protection under the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination) are “prerequisites to the admissibility of any statement…made by a defendant” during an interrogation. [12] Despite this, Yusef Salaam reveals that he and the others were not told their Miranda warnings before questioning, and when officers finished questioning him, he was made to sign a card that acknowledged he understood his rights (though, again, they were not told to him originally). [13]
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there are certain benchmarks which disprove false confessions and therefore render them inadmissible, and several of these apply to the case of the Central Park Five. One of these benchmarks is characterized as evidence that “undisputably establishes that there is no way the confessor could have committed the crime, such as the timing and location” of the offense. [14] Yusef Salaam, one of the five accused teenagers, recalls that “the forensic scientist [in court] had a photograph of a drag line, and in the drag line, there could not have been a gang rape” despite rape being a charge on all but Korey Wise. [15] The drag line Salaam described references the fact that Meili was dragged away from the roadway she was jogging on before being assaulted. Another benchmark is fulfilled “when an alternative perpetrator’s guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt” and the original accused is found to not be connected/in collaboration with the new suspect. [16] The five, now adults, were officially exonerated in 2002 after convicted murderer and rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the crime. [17] Reyes’ confession was corroborated by his DNA matching that which was found on Meili the night of her assault, and he confirmed that he acted alone. 2 This DNA confirmation aligns with the last of NIH’s benchmarks: “scientific evidence…[which] undisputedly establish[es] the confessor’s innocence.” [18]
Yusef Salaam has been vocal about the difficulties of integrating back into society following his and the others’ release from prison. After the enactment of Megan’s Law (a federal mandate requiring law enforcement to release information about registered sex offenders to the public) in 1996, the five teenagers were listed as level-three sex offenders. [19] Level-three sex offenders are characterized as posing a high risk of re-offending and compromising public safety. According to Salaam, he and the others charged with rape were required to participate in therapy for sex offenders upon release from prison; a condition of the therapy experience was taking accountability and essentially admitting to having committed rape. [20] The characterization of the five men as “sexual predators” along with their overall convictions posed many challenges to their everyday lives. In the case of work, Salaam explains that it was generally quite difficult to secure a job with the infamous “Central Park jogger case” hanging over his and the others’ heads; in the event that they could find people willing to employ them, they would be given overnight shifts. This raised an issue for the five as their parole officers would not allow them to be out during those times, so employment was seemingly impossible to secure. [21]
The public image of the former Central Park Five is one that has been tainted and scrutinized since their arrest almost 37 years ago. Current U.S. President Donald Trump has been quite outspoken about the case of the Central Park Five since its beginnings. Following the assault of Trisha Meili in 1989, Trump inserted advertisements in several New York newspapers calling for a return of the Death Penalty for those responsible for the crime (not explicitly naming the five teenagers at the time but implying their identities). [22] Trump has made several statements pertaining to the case over the past three decades. At a debate at the National Constitution Center in September 2024, he stated that in 1989, the teenagers “admitted – they said, they pled guilty…they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately”—a statement that is deeply flawed in accuracy. [23] For one, the NIH emphasizes a clear distinction between a confession and an admission. A confession, it asserts, is “a statement in which one expresses that one has committed the actions of a crime” and acknowledges the wrongful nature of having committed said crime. [24] An admission, on the other hand, is distinguished as revealing information that can contribute to a guilty image, but the key difference is that an admission does not equate to a suspect confessing to the crime charged. [25] Moreover, none of the five teenagers pled guilty at their trials, and the victim Trisha Meili, though severely injured and affected for life, was not killed in the attack and is still alive today. [26]
Following the presidential debate at which the statement was made, members of the Central Park Five sued (at the time, former) President Trump for defamation. [27] Trump attempted to get the lawsuit dismissed, but the motion was denied in April 2025 by U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone. [28] The defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump is not the first time the members of the Central Park Five have sued on the basis of this case, however. A year after their exoneration in 2002, some of the men filed a civil rights lawsuit against the state of New York, and in 2014 a settlement of $41 million was reached (with Korey Wise, who spent the longest in prison, receiving $12.25 million and the other four each receiving $7.125 million). [29]
The case of the infamous “Central Park Five” is one that shines light on the glaring flaws of a criminal justice system that prioritized closure over accuracy. The very system designed to protect and uphold justice is the same as which compromised it upon relying on the fallible statements of a group of kids who were vulnerable to coercion. The “Central Park Five” is a misnomer. In truth, this is the story of a woman who was violated and forever deeply altered, a rapist who was protected for years under negligent investigation, and five young men who were denied the formative years of their young adulthoods and who forever live with the memories of their scarred childhoods. Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, and Korey Wise are not the “Central Park Five”—rather, the “Exonerated Five”.
Sources
Diaz, Jaclyn. “The Central Park 5 Are Suing Trump over Philly Debate Comments.” NPR, NPR, 21 Oct. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/09/11/nx-s1-5108632/central-park-five-trump-debate.
Ibid.
Ibid.
madeodev. 2008. “Six Years Later: The Central Park Jogger Case.” Innocence Project. December 22, 2008. https://innocenceproject.org/news/six-years-later-the-central-park-jogger-case/.
Welner, Michael, Matt DeLisi, and Theresa Janusewski. 2024. “False Confessions: An Integrative Review of the Phenomenon.” Behavioral Sciences & the Law 43 (2): 185–202. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2707.
Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 279 (1936).
Ibid, 281.
Ibid, 282.
Ibid, 278.
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.
Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936).
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 476 (1966).
“Central Park ‘Exonerated 5’ Member Reflects on Freedom and Forgiveness.” n.d. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1000454798.
Welner, DeLisi, and Janusewski, “False Confessions,” 185-202.
“Central Park ‘Exonerated 5’ Member,” NPR.
Welner, DeLisi, and Janusewski, “False Confessions,” 185-202.
Diaz, “The Central Park 5 Are Suing Trump.”
Welner, DeLisi, and Janusewski, “False Confessions,” 185-202.
“Central Park ‘Exonerated 5’ Member,” NPR.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Diaz, “The Central Park 5 Are Suing Trump.”
Ibid.
Welner, DeLisi, and Janusewski, “False Confessions,” 185-202.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Madden, Peter. 2025. “Judge Refuses to Dismiss Central Park Five’s Defamation Case against Trump.” First Amendment Watch. April 15, 2025. https://firstamendmentwatch.org/judge-refuses-to-dismiss-central-park-fives-defamation-case-against-trump/.
“Judge Signs off on $41 Million Settlement with ‘Central Park Five’ - Innocence Project.” 2024. Innocence Project. 2024. https://innocenceproject.org/news/judge-signs-off-on-41-million-settlement-with-central-park-five/.