Not long after the rape and beating of a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989, Donald J. Trump took out full-page newspaper ads about the case, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.

The five Black and Latino teenagers accused in the attack — Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray, known as the Central Park Five — served years in prison before being cleared in 2002 by DNA evidence and the confession of another man.