Prosecutors Attack Innocence Project Journalism Students - EmptyWheel

[WillyT]

Prosecutors Attack Innocence Project Journalism Students
By: bmaz Sunday October 25, 2009 12:34 pm

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Cook County Illinois is the gift that keeps on giving. From the aggressive G-Men of the Roaring Twenties to the Red Squads to the original Richard Daley Machine to the Burge Torture Scandals, Chicago and Cook County have a certain reputation for political corruption, police brutality and and prosecutorial misconduct.

A new chapter in heavy handedness has been penned with the current tactics of the Cook County Attorney’s Office taken against Northwestern University journalism students participating in the Medill Innocence Project. From today’s New York Times:

For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director says, and an Illinois governor once cited those wrongful convictions as he announced he was commuting the sentences of everyone on death row.

But as the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.
…
Lawyers in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office say that in their quest for justice in the old case, they need every pertinent piece of information about the students’ three-year investigation into Anthony McKinney, who was convicted of fatally shooting a security guard in 1978. Mr. McKinney’s conviction is being reviewed by a judge.

Among the issues the prosecutors need to understand better, a spokeswoman said, is whether students believed they would receive better grades if witnesses they interviewed provided evidence to exonerate Mr. McKinney.

The Cook County prosecutors cite no evidence to support a credible belief there is anything nefarious behind the student journalists’ work. The students work, conclusions and supporting materials are all part of their project report. The prosecutors already have access to all of said pertinent material, as well they should. But what they now want are “grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students”. Here is the actual subpoena. This is information that has nothing whatsoever to do with the students work on the project. “Fishing expedition” would be far too kind of a term.

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More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/10/25/prosecutors-attack-innocence-project-journalism-students/

:wtf:

[dmr]

1. Sounds like a CYA fishing expedition

used as intimidation. I doubt it will work on the students or the school.

This case is dated back to 1978, and from the fascinating discussion over at FireDogLake, the police and the DA's office has had quite a dirty reputation - including torture - which Patrick Fitzgerald is in the midst of prosecuting.

Hopefully this fishing expedition will be squashed.

[EFerrari]

2. Cook County needs a visit from Mr. Clean.

[WillyT]

3. Kick !!!

:kick: