Ken Burns, along with Sarah Burns and Ken McMahon, have
filmed a grim documentary about wrongful conviction, “The Central Park Five”. It’s relatively unusual for a PBS documentary
to get a theatrical release first (this one from Sundance Selects). I saw
it Saturday night, late, at the Landmark E Street in Washington DC before a
small audience.
The film is told largely through the “Five”, one of whom is
heard only in voice. The NYPD
apprehended the teens in the overnight hours of April 19, 1989 for mischief,
and then tried to pin the assault on a white female jogger on them. As juveniles, they were not able to resist
police pressure to confess. The police
then ignored factual evidence that might have made the confessions look
questionable. One of the five would meet
the real rapist years later in prison, and that prisoner would admit the guilt.
Even so, vacating the convictions was difficult at first,
and the press attacked DA Morgenthau, as the press could not accept its own
role in the miscarriage of justice.
Much of the trial occurred in the media, who grew the story
about “wilding”. The City was very divided in the late 80s, with Wall Street
booming under Reagan but with the underclass, mostly blacks and latinos,
growning even more desperate, following the financial decay and crisis of the
1970s. Ed Koch, who had become mayor in
1978, often appears, as do New York Times reporters, and at least one
juror.
The jogger, Trisha Miell, would eventually make a difficult
recovery and run NYC marathons.
New York City, in defending a civil lawsuit brought by the Five, tried to subpoena film material from the directors, who refused, claiming journalistic shield. The filmmakers also say that NYC had DNA evidence that contradicted the accusations against the Five but chose to prosecute them anyway.
Ken Burns’s company. Florentine Films, has a website
here.
Burns has reportedly refused to turn over material from the
film to New York City.
See a related review of the CourtTV fi;m, “
The Exonerated”, by the
Innocence Project, on the TV Blog, July 23, 2012.
Update: May 3, 2013
See the New York Times article by Jim Dwyer on p. A18, "From 'Central Park Five' Case, a Lesson in Assigning Blame", about prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer, link
here.
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