Prosecutors Turn Tables on Student Journalists
By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times
October 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/25innocence.html?th&emc=th
EVANSTON, Ill. - For more than a decade, classes of
students at
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
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
prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading
criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail
messages of the journalism students themselves.
The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the
methods of the students this time. The university is
fighting the subpoenas.
Lawyers in the
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
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.
who leads the students and directs the Medill Innocence
Project, say the demands are ridiculously overreaching,
irrelevant to Mr. McKinney's case, in violation of the
state's protections for journalists and a breach of
federal privacy statutes - not to mention insulting.
John Lavine, the dean of the
Journalism, said the suggestion that students might have
thought their grades were linked to what witnesses said
was "astonishing." He said he believed that federal law
barred him from providing the students grades, but that
he had no intention of doing so in any case..
A spokeswoman for Anita Alvarez, the
attorney, who was elected last fall, said the
prosecutors were simply trying to get to the bottom of
the
"At the end of the day, all we're seeking is the same
thing these students are: justice and truth," said Sally
Daly, the spokeswoman. She said the prosecutors wished
to see all statements the students received from
witnesses, whether they supported or contradicted the
notion of Mr. McKinney's innocence.
"We're not trying to delve into areas of privacy or
grades," Ms. Daly said. "Our position is that they've
engaged in an investigative process, and without any
hostility, we're seeking to get all of the information
they've developed, just as detectives and investigators turn over."
If the courts find that Mr. Protess and the journalism
school must turn over the student information, they risk
being held in contempt if they refuse, said Dick
O'Brien, a lawyer who is representing Northwestern.
But if the school gives in to such a demand, say
advocates of the Medill Innocence Project and more than
50 similar projects (most involving law schools and
legal clinics), the stakes could be still higher,
discouraging students from taking part or forcing groups
to devote time and money to legal assistance.
"Every time the government starts attacking the
messenger as opposed to the message, it can have a
chilling effect," said Barry C. Scheck, a pioneer of the
Innocence Project in
seen a similar demand from prosecutors.
In October 2003, Mr. Protess's investigative journalism
classes began looking at the case after Mr. McKinney's
brother, Michael, brought it to the attention of the
Medill Innocence Project - one of more 15,000 cases the
project has been asked to consider investigating over the years.
Mr. Protess, who has been on the faculty at Northwestern
since 1981 and began leading his investigative reporting
students on such cases in 1991, created the Medill
project in 1999, the same year he and his students drew
national attention for helping to exonerate and free
Anthony Porter, an inmate who had come within two days of execution.
The
student reporters, all of whom have since graduated from
Northwestern. In the end, the teams concluded that Mr.
Lundahl, a security guard, with a shotgun one evening in
September 1978 in Harvey, a southern suburb of
The students said they had found, among other things,
that two eyewitnesses had recanted their testimony
against Mr. McKinney and could not have seen him commit
the killing because they were watching a boxing
championship (Leon Spinks vs. Muhammad Ali). The
students collected an affidavit from a gang member who,
they say, confirmed Mr. McKinney's alibi that he was
running away from gang members when the shooting took place.
The students have also suggested alternative suspects in
the case and offered witnesses who said they had heard
the others admit their involvement.
In 2006, the students took their findings to the Center
for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern's law school,
and by late last year, the claims were being considered
by a
in an article in The
Innocence Project Web site.
The students provided their videotaped interviews of
critical witnesses and affidavits to the prosecutors,
but in June the prosecutors subpoenaed far more - the
students' investigative memorandums, e-mail messages,
notes from multiple interviews with witnesses and class grades.
In their quest, prosecutors have raised a central
question about the role of the students - suggesting
that they should be viewed as an "investigative agency,"
not journalists, whose unpublished materials could,
under certain circumstances, be protected under a state statute.
"The school believes it should be exempt from the
scrutiny of this honorable court and the justice system,
yet it should be deemed a purveyor of its inadequacies
to the public," a legal brief from prosecutors said.
Professional journalism groups have said the students
are clearly journalists, and offered support for their
wish not to reveal their notes. Beth Konrad, president
of the
a discussion with Ms. Alvarez, the state's attorney.
"We want to know, what was the decision to overreach on
this?" Ms. Konrad said.
Donald M. Craven, the interim executive director of the
Illinois Press Association, questioned the prosecutors'
motives. "Taken to its logical conclusion, what they're
trying to do is dismantle the project," Mr. Craven said.
Mr. Protess said his students most assuredly functioned
as journalists and, as such, did not wish to become "an
arm of the government" by providing their notes and
private exchanges.
"It would destroy our autonomy," he said. "We function
with journalism standards and practices to guide our work."
The notion that students would have been rewarded with
better grades for witnesses who confirmed the thesis
that Mr. McKinney was innocent is simply false, he said.
"My students are told to uncover the truth, wherever
that leads them," he said. In the last four years, he
said, students had twice concluded that the convicts
whose cases they were studying were indeed guilty.
Sarah Forte, one of the students who investigated Mr.
McKinney's case and who graduated in 2006, said she was
frustrated that prosecutors were making the requests,
even as Mr. McKinney, 49, remained in a prison in
downstate
"Why are they focusing on these unrelated things?" asked
Ms. Forte, a defense investigator at the Southern Center
for Human Rights who said she went to Northwestern
partly to get involved in Mr. Protess's project. "I
cannot even imagine what they think they are going to find."
_____________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment