Northwestern students find yet another innocent man in prison

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December 11, 2009 • Emily Mariscal  
Filed under National News

Could you honestly say that if you knew the wrong man was behind bars, you would go against the prosecutor to prove what you know? I know that I would. On November 10^th, a cook county judge listened to the testimony of Northwestern University students and their professor regarding a murder from 1978. These students have spent about three years investigating the case of a man convicted of killing a security guard. They believe that they have solid evidence which shows the wrong man was accused. Cook County prosecutors are infuriated by the university and the journalism community by issuing command to Professor David Protess seeking his students’ grades, his syllabus and their private e-mails. Prosecutors claim that, since the team was made up of students, they may have felt obligated to prove the case in order to get a good grade. It’s a first for Protess and his investigating students, who have helped free 11 innocent men from prison, not to mention some on Death Row, since 1996. Their work also is credited with prompting then-Gov. George Ryan to empty the state’s Death Row in 2003, re-igniting a national debate on the death penalty. “Why are we talking about our grades when we should be talking about whether there’s an innocent man in prison?” said Evan Benn, a former Protess student mentioned in the state’s subpoena.

None of the students have been individually subpoenaed. The prosecutor’s office — led by Anita Alvarez, said it’s just being thorough, and wants to determine if students may have skewed their findings to get a good grade. Northwestern’s lawyers have filed a motion to squash the subpoenas, and the judge may act on that Tuesday when a hearing is set to hear arguments about whether there should be a new trial in the case. In the prosecution’s response, they argue that Protess and his students aren’t journalists and therefore aren’t protected by reporters’ privilege. John Lavine, the dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, considers that argument chilling. He continues to express his resistance for the trial. Protess and his students spent three academic years investigating the case of Anthony McKinney, a man serving a life sentence for killing a security guard in 1978. After interviewing witnesses and inspecting documents, they’re convinced that McKinney is innocent. Several of the witnesses told the students that they involved McKinney in the murder only after they were beaten by police. Northwestern’s legal clinic filed a petition in search for a new trial. Prosecutors approved, and a hearing was warranted, but also required all the students’ notes and unpublished memos. The school continues to argue with the prosecutors. Protess and his students call that claim ridiculous — especially since the prosecutor’s office has never asked for such records before relating to investigations by the Medill Innocence Project, founded by Protess in 1999.

Legal experts also said it’s a rare request. “It’s extremely unusual to go after that kind of background material about the investigators because none of that is legally relevant to guilt or innocence,” said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Arlington Student Press Law Center. “It is worrisome that the response of the justice system is not to interview the witnesses, but to investigate the investigators.” Protess and his students have investigated nearly a dozen high-profile cases, several involving men on death row — including the Ford Heights Four, who were exonerated by DNA evidence in a double murder, and Anthony Porter, who was exonerated roughly 48 hours before he was to be executed. In some of the cases, Protess’ students found that police had bullied or coerced false confessions, and Illinois has paid out tens of millions of dollars to some of those who were wrongly convicted. But in two different cases they investigated in the last five years, students who did not find convincing evidence of prisoners’ guilt still got A’s in his class, Protess said, so students had no reason to manipulate their findings in the McKinney case. Meanwhile, prosecutors have declined to release records of the police officers who were involved in McKinney’s case. Benn, the former Protess student, said he thinks the prosecutors’ motives are clear. “The attorney’s office is simply trying to save itself from the embarrassment of students finding another innocent man convicted of murder,” he said.

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