Reaction Essay On Central Park Jogger

Reaction Essay on “Central Park Jogger”

On April 19, 1989, Trisha Meili, an investment banker was found severely beaten at 1:30am. She was raped and cut so severely that she loss almost 70 percent of her blood. Five young boys were convicted of the rape. Although the young boys were recorded on video tape confessing, it turned out that they weren’t responsible for the rape at all. Interrogations took place during the process in which the young men were on trail, but there is no actual way that we as citizens can tell if any physical violence or threats took place to push their suspects to confess. The Fifth Amendment discourages police officers from using violent or otherwise coercive means to persuade their suspects to give into a crime they probably didn’t even commit. More specifically, when police officers do use coercive pressure to seek confessions, they create a significant risk that someone innocent will confess to crimes they did not perform, thus resulting in a flaw by violating constitutional rights.

Should we allow legal limitations on Police Investigations? According to historic belief, we as people do not want to give police absolute power to pursue investigations and prosecutions. This poses a threat to constitutional rights and values of individual liberty, privacy, and due process. Although crime control is an important policy, law enforcement personnel must still protect individual rights. Law enforcement officers must protect citizens from crime and punish wrongdoers. The court has strict defined rules for circumstances that deal with officers’ legal limitations. Legal limitations are so strict that if evidence is obtained illegally, such as improper interrogations, the offences may be dismissed; a person may go free despite the fact that the evidence clearly proves his or her guilt (exclusionary rule.)

Although improper interrogations are prohibited, they still take place. In the case “Central Park Jogger”, some kind of threat or physical abuse took place. Why else would five teenagers confess to a crime that they didn’t commit? These