Lawyers for New York City have subpoenaed notes and outtakes from the film The Central Park Five, Ken Burns’ documentary about five black men convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger rape case.

The documentary, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, details the rush to judgment by police, media and an outraged public in a crime-ridden New York. It includes in-depth interviews with the five convicted men, who are suing the city for $50 million US for wrongful conviction.

City lawyers are hoping unpublished interviews and unreleased footage from the film will help them defend against the lawsuit. The city contends that prosecutors had probable cause to proceed against the men, because they confessed during questioning.

But Burns said the city had rebuffed requests for interviews as he made the film.

“There is a great deal of disappointment that it came to this, given the fact that we had given so many of the factions in this complicated story many, many opportunities, on a regular basis, to comment,” he told the New York Times.

In April 1989, a 28-year-old investment banker was found in the park after being beaten and raped while jogging. She was in a coma for 12 days and was left with permanent damage.

A convicted serial rapist, Matias Reyes, later confessed to the crime and his DNA was shown to match evidence found in the case.

The men known as the Central Park Five were just teens in 1989 and say they were coerced into confession during police questioning in the racially charged climate of the time.

Burns’s daughter, Sarah, began researching their case while a student at Yale University, curious about a confusing chronology that put the men at different locations far from the park and the fact that the confessions were contradictory.

John Siegal, a lawyer representing the filmmakers, said the city must prove the material is necessary to its defence and unavailable elsewhere for its subpoena to be successful.

“We don’t think they are going to be able to make that showing,” Siegal told the New York Times.

Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and her husband, David McMahon, wrote, directed and produced the film together. It is scheduled for theatrical release in theatres next month.