VADP Exec. Dir., Steve Northup, Letter to the Editor in Times-Disp.
Death penalty should be abolished
Sunday, April 21, 2013 12:00 am
Editor, Times-Dispatch:
In his Op/Ed column about the documentary “The Central Park Five,” George Will accurately described it as a “meticulous narrative of a gross miscarriage of justice.” The film tells the story of zealous police and prosecutors who, determined to solve the high-profile rape and savage beating of a young Central Park jogger in April 1989, induced false confessions implicating five young men of color which lead to their convictions and lengthy prison sentences. The convictions were vacated in 2002 when a man serving a life sentence for other crimes said he committed the crime alone and DNA evidence confirmed his involvement in the rape.