A federal judge just issued a ruling in the Central Park jogger rape case that can only be described as bizarre — because it completely contradicts his own ruling in a similar case just five months ago.
US District Court Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis rejected the city’s bid to obtain outtakes from a Ken Burns documentary on the notorious 1989 rape.
The documentary supports the contention by the five youths originally charged with the rape — whose convictions were overturned when someone else later confessed — that their confessions were coerced. The city claims the outtakes might raise questions about their credibility.
The issue remains relevant today, because the so-called “Central Park 5” are suing the city for millions in damages.
The judge ruled that under New York’s Shield Law, Burns is entitled to a “reporter’s privilege.” The city, he said, “failed to present . . . a concern so compelling as to override the precious rights of freedom of speech and the press.”
That’s ironic, given that in September the same judge ordered the BBC to turn over outtakes from a documentary on Yasser Arafat to the families of Palestinian-terror victims. These families wanted the footage for a suit they intended to bring against the Palestinian Authority.
Back then, Ellis obliged: “The standard for relevance to overcome the journalistic privilege is low, and the outtakes meet this lower standard,” he ruled.
Now Judge Ellis has raised the standard so high the city can’t meet it.
The city is absolutely right to fight, given the concern by many — including some of his senior staff — that then-DA Robert Morgenthau moved too hastily to vacate the convictions.
A panel headed by famed anti-corruption prosecutor Michael Armstrong later concluded that the five had “most likely” participated in the jogger attack. It also said they’d certainly engaged in a violent series of “wilding” assaults that night.
Burns has said publicly he wanted the film to “make a difference” and “amplify the pressure on the city to settle.” He’s certainly within his rights to do so.
But it strikes us as curious that a documentary maker would favor hiding from public view any evidence that could help a city torn apart by this case get to the truth.