Northwestern’s project to clear wrongfully convicted faces ethics probe (click for Trib article)
Prosecutors contend journalism students illegally recorded interview with convicted killer
Compared to most states, Illinois does not have very many “Innocent Projects” working to help review and free individuals who are wrongly imprisoned. Illinois only has about two such projects, and they are overwhelmed with inmate requests for assistance. Protess, and his students at the Medill Innocence Project have only had the resources to help about 10 inmates over the past eleven years.
Every case the project tackles has been an unpredictable learning experience for the project, but the results have revealed the truth behind the guilt or innocence of each of the accused which is more than the State and other attorneys accomplished despite their professional staffs and far greater resources. The parties to this proceeding and the court are losing perspective of this fact by allowing Cook County prosecutors to continue to destroy the project by their nitpicking witch-hunt over the investigation methods used by the project.
Yes, the project students are not trained investigators and they may not have been well-advised by the investigator who they were working with at the time, but that does not nullify the evidence they came up with showing that Anthony McKinney may be innocent. It is the innocence or guilt of McKinney which should be the concern of the State, not the supervision of the University students working at the project.
And, at the very least, the bias of the Cook County prosecutors in this case should be too great to allow them to participate in this inquiry of the project.
RichardWanke.Com 