Ken Burns Illuminates Jogger Case

It takes more than the truth, sometimes, to change the way people think about an event. It may require an award winning, investigative book, or a clear-eyed, hard-hitting documentary to trigger a change in perception. In the case of the Central Park jogger trial and its aftermath, which I wrote about in my last post, it might take a new film by Ken Burns, the director of epic documentaries on the Civil War, baseball and jazz, to set the record straight.

At the time of the trials in 1990 and 1991, the assumed guilt of the five African American and Latino teenagers, who would be wrongfully convicted of raping Trisha Meili, was trumpeted in the media. "Their video-taped confessions and convictions were an extended page one story," Burns, whose film on the subject is still a work in progress, recently told me on the phone. "The barrage of headlines set in the public mind the bugaboo of black and Hispanic youths 'wilding' in the park. But when the boys were exonerated in 2002, it was not a page one story. It was in the back pages," he said.

Today, few people remember that the convictions were vacated. Much less that the men were exonerated at the request of Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau after "an extensive, complex and painstaking investigation of newly discovered evidence." Nor do many realize that these men, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Kharey Wise, who served between seven and thirteen years behind bars, are still waiting for the city to settle a six-year old civil lawsuit they've filed for malicious prosecution and wrongful conviction. Recent commemorative events, this being the 20th year since the attack, community demonstrations, and city council member initiatives have so far had no effect on the city's determination to continue to fight the suit.

Attorney Jonathan Moore, who represents four of the Central Park Five, says that the case may drag on for years more. It took U.S. District Court Judge Deborah A. Batts two years to rule against a motion by the city to dismiss the lawsuit. Now Moore and other plaintiff attorneys have to re-investigate thousands of files from the Police Department and the district attorney's office and they have to conduct dozens of interviews and depositions.
It's in the city's interest to drag out the process, hoping the plaintiffs will tire or run out of money. "The city will not do the right thing and settle," Moore says.

It was Ken Burns' daughter, Sarah, who interned with Moore's law firm in the summer of 2003, when she was still an undergraduate at Yale, which brought the case to Burns' attention. Sarah, who was majoring in American studies and researching civil rights law, says she was interested in the media representation of race in the case and the historical roots and context of the public's reaction to it. "The narrative in the press was such a powerful story that it stuck with the public and once it's there it's really hard to erase," she says.

The burden these exonerated men carry, Sarah and Moore told me, was the lingering, prevailing sense out there that they are still guilty. Despite the fact that there was never any physical evidence linking them to the crime, that the real rapist, Matias Reyes, admitted being the sole attacker and that his DNA matched the evidence on the victim, and no matter that Morgenthau reported that the boys' so-called confessions "differed from one another on the specific details of virtually every major aspect of the crime," a New York City Police Department panel investigation following the exoneration concluded that the five were "most likely" still guilty in some way!

"If, in fact these five young men were innocent, no one wants to explain how they were made to confess to a crime they did not commit," Moore says. Former detectives and prosecutors, who made lucrative careers out of their roles in the jogger case (Linda Fairstein, a sex crimes prosecutor at the time, is a name that frequently comes up) would have to admit that they prosecuted the wrong people and that they didn't do their jobs in following up on Reyes (who was in police custody the summer of 1989), Moore says.

Sarah Burns, who is writing a book on the case to be published next year, agreed that for political and financial reasons the city would resist a settlement of the civil case. "That there are people who are still pretty invested in the guilt of these men is probably not insignificant," she says. "My job is to help get the information out there."

Ken Burns' decision to focus a film on a single contemporary event is a departure. But race, he says, has been an ingredient in all his documentaries. "Not for any politically correct reason," he says, "but because it's there and it resonates...Any thinking person who scratches the surface of American history is going to get to the great sub theme of our country, which is race."

If Burns' documentary on the jogger case hastens some form of recompense for these unlucky men, whose youths were wasted in prison, so much the better.

Comments

[skippy20008]

Were these guys choirboys, or were they out mugging and terrorizing people that day? Yes, they were innocent of the rape, but they weren't innocent guys -- don't want to get an "unjust" jail sentence, obey the law and respect people!

As a victim of a mugging, let me say I'm not exactly losing sleep over this.

[Nommo]

So the fact that you were once mugged means that justice means nothing to you. If they were doing that, they should have been arrested for that. In point of fact, the point you miss is that the rapist was free and continued to rape while the press and prosecutor viciously went after those boys. If you are not capable of comprehension of injustice and official misconduct, then you have a far bigger problem than having been mugged once.

[skippy20008]

A bunch of criminals decide to terrorize innocent people. Instead of being in jail for six months, they're thrown in jail for 6 years. Boo hoo.

The lesson here is, DON'T COMMIT CRIMES. PERIOD.

Are you really as dense as you sound?

[LLNYRN]

Glyn,
I know I made some cynical and somewhat snide comments in response to your last post about this case. I still stand by some of what I said.
But I really want to "THANK YOU" for giving attention to this travesty.
These young men are marked for life.
And they will never receive any form of apology from those involved.
But people need know that these men were innocent from day one.
And it's good to know that folks like you are finally on the case.

[IncredulousGeezer]

It won't make any difference.
The NYC establishment, which includes the Police Department, DA Office (Ms. Fairstein, in particular), the tabloids, the racists on talk radio, etc. have too much invested in this story to have it get the broad treatment it deserves.
Ken Burns may do a splendid job; he generally does, but you won't see it on the front pages of the NY Post or Daily News, with the appropriate expressions of contrition and WABC and like stations will barely mention it at all.

[MankyInky]

As a recent immigrant, it was a huge adjustment to me to realise the role of racial division in this country. As you say, you scratch the surface, and there it is. Ive never been anywhere where I felt people were so divided along racial lines. Im always conscious of being whatever it is that I am, in a way Ive never felt I had to before.

Im glad you are drawing attention to this story. This should not have happened, this is injustice.

[porth99]

I applaud your decision to revisit this case and discuss its ongoing significance. There has rarely been a more textbook example of an unjust conviction, coerced confessions, junk science, police and prosecutorial overreaching and misconduct, racism, public hysteria, and lynching by the press. You should continue monitoring the lawsuit, the city's reaction and the press coverage of the whole mess. Bravo.

[Glyn Vincent - Huffpost Blogger]

I will. Thanks.

[porth99]

I applaud your decision to revisit this case and discuss its ongoing significance. There has rarely been a more textbook example of an unjust conviction, coerced confessions, junk science, police and prosecutorial overreaching if not misconduct and racism on the part of many of the parties. You should continue monitoring the lawsuit, the city's reaction and the press coverage of the whole mess.

[GrainOSand]

Thank you Mr. Vincent for presenting this story. I always say, I would rather that I never have to consider race or talk about race in any aspect of living this gift that is life. I always say, that the color of one’s skin is no indication of anything. I always express my belief that America has made progress beyond its dark history of murder, rape, government sanctioned and organized crime, and all the other hateful things that so tarnish a nation claiming shining beacon status. I always say that America has massive potential to be a truly great nation, and that is a testimonial which stems from knowing many American people who have confirmed this fact for me -- personally! I always say that all human beings are my brothers and my sisters. I always say each is worthy of love!

My personal experience informs what I always say. America is a dirty lowdown rotten environment full of sharks and weak and scared people (call them sheep or guppies), selling out for dimes, and all order and manner of societal dysfunction stemming from individual dysfunction; stemming from individual indoctrination; which stemmed from the one individual nation’s history of tortured and hypocritical existence.

The story presented only serves to highlight that fact -- my American experience. Yet people deride and deny when one points to the inequities that exist. They hurl “victim mentality” slanders while they never seem to take notice the difference between goose and gander.

[Glyn Vincent - Huffpost Blogger]

I understand your frustration. As Ken Burns said to me, race has bedeviled and enobled our country since it's foundation. And much as we would like our country to be perfect, it certainly is not.

[Glyn Vincent - Huffpost Blogger]

I understand your frustration. As Ken Burns said to me, race has bedeviled and ennobled our country since its foundation. And much as we would like our country to be perfect, it certainly is not.