En amerikansk deckarförfattarinna, Linda Fairstein, har fått sitt utnämnande
till Grand Master av Mystery Writers of America tillbakataget. Skälet har inte
att göra med Politisk Korrekthet (det handlar numera gärna om sådant...jfr HP
Lovecraft, Laura Ingalls Wilder, m fl) utan om en rättskontrovers. Fairstein
var tidigare åklagare i ett våldtäktsfall där en grupp ungdomar kallade Central
Park Five blev oskyldigt dömda, något som inte uppskattats (den riktige
gärningsmannen återfanns senare med DNA-bevis). MWA säger sig ha varit
omedvetna om hennes roll när hon utsågs till Grand Master. Två artiklar i
ärendet (den första tydligen MWAs officiella, den andra frpån NY Times). --AE
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Mystery Writers of America Withdraws Fairstein Award
November 29, 2018 – New York, NY – On Tuesday, November 27, Mystery Writers
of America announced the recipients of Grand Master, Raven & Ellery Queen
Awards, special awards given out annually. Shortly afterwards, the MWA
membership began to express concern over the inclusion of Linda Fairstein
as a Grand Master, citing controversy in which she has been involved.
When the MWA Board made its selection, it was unaware of Ms. Fairstein’s
role in the controversy.
After profound reflection, the Board has decided that MWA cannot move
forward with an award that lacks the support of such a large percentage of
our members. Therefore, the Board of Directors has decided to withdraw the
Linda Fairstein Grand Master award. We realize that this action will be
unsatisfactory to many. We apologize for any pain and disappointment this
situation has caused.
MWA will be reevaluating and significantly revising its procedures for
selecting honorary awards in the future. We hope our members will all work
with us to move forward from this extremely troubling event and continue to
build a strong and inclusive organization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/nyregion/linda-fairstein-central-park-5.html
Literary Group Is Under Fire for Honoring ‘Central Park Five’ ProsecutorLinda
Fairstein, a former city prosecutor who handled part of the Central Park
Five case, has written 20 mystery novels involving the character Alexandra
Cooper.CreditA Scott/Patrick McMullan, via Getty
A New York organization that promotes mystery and detective fiction is
under fire for honoring a best-selling crime novelist who, before she
turned to writing, oversaw the prosecution of the Central Park Five —
teenage boys wrongly convicted of a 1989 rape that shocked and divided New
Yorkers.
The furor began on Tuesday when Mystery Writers of America, creator of the
annual Edgar Awards, announced that Linda Fairstein would be one of two
writers honored as Grand Masters for literary achievement at the
organization’s awards banquet next spring in New York. Ms. Fairstein is the
author of 20 novels about a fictional Manhattan prosecutor, Alexandra
Cooper, modeled on her own real-life past work as the chief of the
sex-crimes unit of the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
In June, the city released thousands of pages of internal law enforcement
documents from the original Central Park Five investigation — some never
previously made public — that reinforced the decision in 2002, based on DNA
evidence, to overturn the convictions for all five defendants, who had
confessed to the crime. In July, Ms. Fairstein wrote an op-ed in the New
York Law Journal defending the prosecution. “The confessions were not
coerced,” she wrote.
Another writer and Edgar Award winner, Attica Locke, in a series of tweets
on Tuesday, urged the organization to honor someone else. “She is almost
single-handedly responsible for the wrongful incarceration of the Central
Park Five,” wrote Ms. Locke, who also worked on filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s
upcoming Netflix docudrama on the case.
Ms. Locke wrote that Ms. Fairstein “never apologized or recanted her
insistence” on the boys’ guilt despite their subsequent exonerations. “Just
because she has a flourishing publishing career does not mean we should
ignore her past — or her continued unwillingness to accept responsibility
for ruining five innocent men’s lives,” she wrote. “I cannot support this
decision.”
Ms. Fairstein fired back at Ms. Locke on Twitter, defending her office’s
handling of the prosecution while also minimizing her own role in it. “I
was neither the prosecutor nor investigator in the case you mention,” Ms.
Fairstein wrote. “I was certainly NOT the person who ‘single-handedly
spearheaded’ the investigation,” Ms. Fairstein wrote.
“Why don’t you and I have a civilized conversation, so I can refresh you
with the facts?” She wrote. “Thank you.”
*Ms. Fairstein was chief of the sex-crimes unit of the Manhattan district
attorney’s office.Credit New York Daily News, via Getty Images*
Ms. Locke, reached by email, declined further comment. “I’ve kind of said
everything I want to about it,” she wrote.
Ms. Fairstein could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, and officials
with the Mystery Writers of America did not immediately respond to calls
and emails. “We are taking seriously the issues raised by Attica Locke,”
read a statement postedto the organization’s website. “Our board is going
to discuss these concerns as soon as possible and make a further statement
soon.”
On Facebook, novelist Andrew Gross defended Ms. Fairstein as a worthy Edgar
Award recipient. “But for a person who has devoted her career to real-world
situations that have advanced women’s rights to be attacked and demonized
by people whose toughest real-world decisions are how to define a gerund or
what book to review is a sign that the inmates are truly running the
asylum,” Mr. Gross wrote.
Kellye Garrett, a novelist, said in an interview on Wednesday that Mystery
Writers of America should rescind the award if Ms. Fairstein does not
volunteer to give it up. Ms. Garrett praised the organization but said its
leaders should explain how they came to choose Ms. Fairstein in the first
place. “It’s not a secret, her connection to the Central Park Five,” she
said.
“They have work to do,” Ms. Garrett said, “especially when it comes to
inclusivity and embracing writers from marginalized communities.”
At an anxious moment in the city’s history, with violent crime near its
peak, police in 1989 arrested five boys, all black and Hispanic and ages 14
to 16, for the rape and near-fatal beating of Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old
white woman who was attacked as she jogged through Central Park after work.
All five youths said their confessions were coerced. But all were convicted
in 1990. Four of the teenagers spent about seven years in prison. The other
was incarcerated for 13 years. Twelve years after the convictions, DNA
evidence pointedto a serial rapist, Matias Reyes, who confessed to the
attackwhile serving a life sentence for other crimes. The Manhattan
district attorney agreed to vacate the Central Park Five convictions in
2002. The five — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond
Santana Jr. and Kharey Wise — later received a settlement from the city
totaling nearly $45 million.
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