Murray Richman, a distinguished criminal defense attorney, in a letter to the New York Law Journal (June 14, 2019) bemoans the “abuse heaped on Linda Fairstein” as a result of the recent Netflix miniseries “When They See Us.” The show portrays Ms. Fairstein's role as chief of the Manhattan D.A.'s sex crimes unit who orchestrated the arrests, confessions, prosecutions and convictions of five boy-–four African-Americans and one Hispanic–for a horrible rape in Central Park they didn't commit.

Mr. Richman argues that the show contains “made up facts,” “half-truths,” and is a “rush to judgment to condemn Ms. Fairstein.”  However, Mr. Richman does not point to any facts in the series that are false or inaccurate, nor does he note that far from inciting a rush to judgment, the show's depiction of Ms. Fairstein's conduct already has been amply documented: a 2012 PBS documentary “The Central Park Five;” a 58-page motion in 2002 to vacate the convictions filed by District Attorney Robert Morgenthau; scientific evidence that Ms. Fairstein knew at the time did not match any of the boys and pointed to another perpetrator; the boys' false confessions that were obviously coerced and the confession of the real rapist supported by his DNA and who attacked several other women in Central Park during the time Ms. Fairstein was orchestrating this travesty of justice.

Mr. Richman argues that the large and concerted vocal attack on Ms. Fairstein constitutes “mob rule” and is “morally and intellectually indefensible.” But what really is morally and intellectually indefensible–which Mr. Richman overlooks–is the mob-like rush to judgment in 1989 against these five innocent boys by the media, the public and Donald Trump, who insinuated himself with his front-page incendiary call for the death penalty.

My guess is that whatever blot there is to Ms. Fairstein's reputation is not nearly as acute as the suffering that her wrongful conduct, which she continues to deny, caused to the lives of five innocent boys and their families.  And I search in vain for a letter to the editor of the New York Law Journal back then condemning the “rush to judgment” and “mob rule.”      \

Bennett L. Gershman is a professor of law at the Elisabeth Haub Law School at Pace University.