MovieChat Forums > The Central Park Five (2014) Discussion > Something no one seems to mention

Something no one seems to mention

posted 10 years ago by gb321
2 replies | jump to latest

There's a whole issue with wrongful convictions that no one seems to be mentioning. It was brought up in this movie, but only briefly, and I haven't seen much discussion on this aspect in these threads or anywhere else.

When you convict someone of a crime they did not commit, regardless of the reasons or circumstances that led to the conviction, it means that the actual perpetrator is still free. Not only is he free, but no one is even looking for him, even though he very well may be preparing to commit his next crime.

So when people say "Who cares that these boys were wrongfully convicted, they deserved to be in jail anyway" a ridiculous notion but even if it were true, you should still care, because the actual perpetrator is still free. And the victims of the perpetrator's next crime surely will care.

The point of solving crimes is not to close cases; it is to ensure justice and to prevent future crimes. Neither of the latter was done in this case. A simple Google search reveals that Matias Reyes raped at least one other woman four months after this crime, and that is one crime that could have been prevented if the police had found, or were even looking for, the right person.

Sure the police and the DA may have thought they had the right people at the time, but they definitely did not do their due diligence in confirming it. It seems to me that they were simply trying to close the case, turning a blind eye to contradictory matters, even if it meant the confessions may be false and the actual perpetrator may still be out there committing more crimes. As a result, not only were five people convicted of a crime they did not commit, but the actual perpetrator got to commit at least one more crime.

Of course, this occurred in a year when more than 3,200 rapes were reported in New York City alone, so the police and the DA I'm sure were overwhelmed and jaded by the whole matter. But that just further serves to show that they did not do their due diligence in this case.

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[–] There_Is_No_Sayid 10 years ago

I think that's less addressed in this case because, from my understanding, it doesn't quite fit the facts of this case as well. Mathais Reyes, the man who actually committed the assault, was arrested about four months later for another assault and thrown in jail. So he wasn't out there for years and years victimizing other people. In the Central Park Five case their false conviction was more a matter of injustice because it took years of their lives away for a crime they didn't do.

But you're right in general that there's a real problem with the idiotic logic of people who say "well they should go to jail anyway" for whatever reason. Sending someone to jail falsely isn't just a miscarriage of justice because it deprives the innocent of liberty. It's a miscarriage of justice because it allows the guilty to go free.

Unless Alpert's covered in bacon grease, I don't think Hugo can track anything.

[–] shanayneigh 8 years ago

They bring that up at the end of the movie. Did you watch the whole thing?