What was the evidence against them?
Bascially a spoon-fed confession by one of the kids, who has an IQ of 78. The cops spent 12 hours giving him details, telling him he could go home if he said he did it.
The lead juror also lied to get on the jury so that he could convict, based on what he'd read in the papers, and was talking to the prosecutors during the trial, telling them what they had to do to get a conviction.