Another lengthy, insightful article by investigative journalist Jim Dywer on the Central Park Jogger case in Sunday's New York Times: New Light on Jogger's Rape Calls Evidence Into Question.

The new evidence, of course, refers to new DNA testing excluding the five convicted youths, the confession by Reyes and a new review of the taped confessions.

One interesting facet of this article is that it goes throught the confessions and actions of each of the youths individually, for example, whose parents were there, whose weren't, and whether the parents were there for part or all of the interrogations. It also reviews the youths' lawyers attempts to have evidence of low IQ's introduced at trial.

Towards the end:

"Over the last decade, DNA testing has cleared 27 people nationwide who were convicted of crimes based on some form of confession, according to records kept by the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School. In another category, Prof. Steven Drizzen at Northwestern University School of Law, and Prof. Richard Leo, at the University of California at Irvine have identified 130 people who falsely confessed but were cleared before trial."

"Many people close to the case feel that the legal verdict is bound to be overturned in the coming days. If Mr. Reyes's statements and the recent DNA tests do not exonerate the original five defendants, they qualify as "newly discovered evidence" for which verdicts may be vacated under the New York State penal code."

We wonder how much clout former DA Linda Fairstein, widely reported to want the job for DA when Morgantheu retires, still has. If it's a lot, it's unlikely there will be a lot of fault directed at her for (what we believe is) mishandling the investigation. See our prior posts on this here.