If Neil Amrstong were to admit a hoax, you wouldn't believe it?

[gillianren]

I was actually reading a case from 1950 last night where literally the only evidence against a fourteen-year-old boy was his confession.  Fortunately, it was not at the time sufficient for a conviction of murder, since he was a minor, but his name has been public knowledge for sixty-six years for something I am not convinced he did.

And not to derail the thread, but there was a case back in 1999 where pretty much the only evidence for the prosecution was the confessions of the four accused. Yet despite the confessions contradicting both each other and the physical evidence, the four were convicted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Four

Or there's the Central Park Five.  Lots of cases along those lines, really.

[bknight]

...
Or there's the Central Park Five.  Lots of cases along those lines, really.

I haven't researched when DNA analysis was capable of identifying specific individuals, but 1989 seems to me a little premature, mid 90's seems more likely for the police to have a culprit in their files.  I could be wrong on the dates, if so let me know.

[gillianren]

At absolute minimum, the Central Park Five were convicted solely on their coerced testimony, and they were minors.  They were absolved by the DNA testing of someone else who confessed.  The first killer captured using DNA evidence was arrested in 1987.  The paper detailing the scientific validity of "DNA fingerprinting" was published in 1985, a year before one of the victims in that case was killed. 

[Peter B]

At absolute minimum, the Central Park Five were convicted solely on their coerced testimony, and they were minors.  They were absolved by the DNA testing of someone else who confessed.  The first killer captured using DNA evidence was arrested in 1987.  The paper detailing the scientific validity of "DNA fingerprinting" was published in 1985, a year before one of the victims in that case was killed.

The scary thing about the Norfolk Four case was that when another man (whose name had been given to police by a neighbour of the victim) confessed to the crime, the prosecution theory was changed from "the Norfolk Four did it" to "the Norfolk Four and this other guy did it together". Then, according to the Wikipedia, when it was pointed out that "...none of [the defendants'] DNA matched that found at [the victim's] apartment...prosecutors stated that the lack of DNA evidence couldn't disprove that the defendants weren't at the scene..." And these men were found guilty multiple times...

[gillianren]

A person who shall remain nameless still wants the Central Park Five executed.  Never mind that rape isn't even a death-penalty crime in the US.

[ka9q]

A person who shall remain nameless still wants the Central Park Five executed.  Never mind that rape isn't even a death-penalty crime in the US.

Yeah. And his followers couldn't understand why he polled at 0% among blacks in many areas.