The Central Park Five

In 1989, five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongly convicted of a brutal Central Park rape that horrified the nation—despite no physical evidence linking them to the crime.

Burns chronicles how police coerced confessions from five teenagers—ages 14 to 16—who spent 6 to 13 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit. Interrogated without lawyers, prosecuted despite weak evidence, and convicted by a media-inflamed public, the teenagers' lives were destroyed. When serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed in 2002 and DNA proved he acted alone, many Americans still refused to believe in their innocence.

A devastating examination of how justice fails when racism and mob mentality trump evidence —told from the perspective of the five men who survived it.