A journalism class at Northwestern University has become the target of an intimidation and smear campaign by the Cook County state attorney’s office in Chicago after they uncovered compelling evidence suggesting the wrongful conviction of an Illinois prisoner.
For 10 years, students at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism have been engaged in gathering evidence of wrongful convictions by Chicago’s Cook County court system as part of the national Innocence Project, which re-examines cases of the long-term incarcerated.
Since 2003, Medill students investigated the case of Anthony McKinney, who has served 31 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a security guard in 1978. Medill students collected new evidence that has won McKinney a new hearing, which could lead to his exoneration and release...
On November 10, the attorney’s office accused students of paying off a witness, saying that an investigator working with the students overpaid a cab driver in 2004, with the intent to reward the witness for false testimony. The witness, Anthony Drake, told students that he was at the murder scene but that McKinney was not. Drake recanted this testimony later, and told Chicago prosecutors that he had used $20 left over from the cab fare paid on his behalf to buy crack cocaine.
The allegations are intimidation and smears intended to chill the Medill Innocence Project, which has focused scrutiny on the unjust, brutal practices of Chicago law enforcement over the past decade.
Moreover, the state attorney’s office is attempting to strip away a shield law that protects investigative journalism in the state. Presently, because of the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege Act, a prosecutor does not have the authority to subpoena confidential source materials of journalists. The prosecution has argued that because the Medill students were not publishing the material they had collected in the McKinney case as they acquired it, they should be treated like private investigators by the court system. This could set a chilling precedent for journalism in Illinois, particularly that focused on unearthing official misconduct...
In an interview published November 18 by the university’s newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, Protess stated that he would not comply with the attorney’s office’s demand for personal information on the students. “There are no circumstances under which I will reveal my students’ grades or emails—to do so would violate federal privacy law,” he said. “I will also refuse to comply with any demand to turn over unpublished information, because that would set a terrible precedent for other student journalists. We are picking up the slack because of the lack of resources nowadays to do investigative reporting.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/inno-d05.shtml
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