Justice Through Investigative Journalism

Since 1987, Northwestern U. Journalism professor David Protess and his students have helped free eight men, four from death row


David Protess jumps into the arms of Anthony Porter,
a man who Protess and his students freed from prison on Feb. 5, 1999.
Porter had been less than 48 hours from his scheduled execution
at one point in his prison term, before being
given a stay of execution.
Image courtesy of http://www.cnn.com/US/9902/05/wrongly.convicted/


       Northwestern Medill School of Journalism professer David Protess began overturning wrongful convictions with his investigative journalism students in 1991, when they worked to overturn David Dowaliby's 45 year sentence. Dowaliby, a Cook County, IL native was convicted in 1989 of the murder of his seven-year-old adopted daughter, Jaclyn Dowaliby. The conviction came on shaky physical evidence at the crime scene and the testimony by a man with a history of mental illness. Soon Protess and his students exposed the errors in the trial, and the conviction was overturned.
       Ever since, Protess and his students, along with the help of Northwestern University School of Law professer Rob Warden, have overturned case after case.


Protess and Aaron Patterson, another man Protess helped free, embrace.
Image courtesy of http://www.medill.nwu.edu/inside/2003/protess.html/


       In 1996, in one of Protess' best known cases, he and his students overturned two 75 year sentences and two death sentences by proving the innocence of the Ford Heights Four. In addition to proving their innocence, Protess's group also found the real murderers.
       Originally, in 1979, the four natives of tough Chicago area the Ford Heights, Dennis Williams, Verneal Jimerson, Willie Rainge and Kenneth Adams, all black, were convicted of a double homicide of a white couple and rape of the female. Upon investigating the case, the students found grievous errors in the investigation, including a police force that was eager to make a prosecution because of the emotionally charged nature of the crime, and a media and community anxious to solve the crime fast. In fact, as the group soon discovered, a tip that would've led to the real killers was given to the police less than a week after the crime, but the police never investigated it.


David Protess and longtime partner Rob Warden.
Image courtesy of http://www.medill.nwu.edu/inside/1999/protess.html


       In all, the four men spent 65 years in prison between them before being released. In addition to Warden and Protess, the investigation also involved three journalism students, private investigator Paul Ciolino, a Chicago newspaper columnist and a group of volunteer lawyers.
       In another well-publicized case, Protess and then-seniors Shawn Armbrust, Lori D'Angelo, Erica LeBorgne, Tom McCann, Syandene Rhodes-Pitts and Cara Rubinsky gathered evidence which led to the exoneration of Anthony Porter, who was convicted for the 1982 shooting deaths of Jerry Hillard, 18, and his girlfriend, Marilyn Green, 19, on Chicago's South Side and sentenced to die. The team found many witnesses who changed their testimony from what it originally was in 1982, with the witnesses often claiming that police pressured them. They also solved the case, discovering that another man, Alstory Simon, committed the murder. In ended up taking the students, Protess, and Ciolino four months to track down all the interviews necessary, and gather sufficient evidence to prove Porter innocent.


Protess, Ciolino, and the six seniors that worked to free Anthony Porter.
Image courtesy of http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/inside/1999/protess022499.html/


       Protess presented the case to his students with a great sense of urgency at the beginning of the semester, according to student Erica LeBorgne. "A man could die before the end of this quarter if we don't get (the case) done," Protess reportedly told the students, in regards to the state of Porter's case.
       The students' first sign that they were on the track to freeing Porter came in Dec., 1998 (three months before Porter's conviction was overturned on February 9, 1999) when the lead witness for the prosecution changed his story, saying that police pressured him into implicating Porter. The students then received a confession from the Milwaukee man, Simon, which ultimately led to Porter's being exonerated.
       Protess and his students contributed in the release of Aaron Patterson from death row in 2003. He was convicted in 1989 of a double murder of an elderly couple which occurred in 1986, mostly on confessions and testimony which was threatened or tortured out of Patterson and others. Protess' students tracked down one supposed witness who originally claimed that she overheard Patterson bragging about the murders. However, she since recanted that story, saying that the police threatened jail time if she didn't comply. The police also allegedly forced a confession out of Patterson by punching him in the chest and suffocating him with a plastic bag, although the Chicago Police Department still denies these allegations.
       Protess and his students also proved Steve Linscott (40-year sentence for killing an Oak Park, IL woman) innocent in 1992, and helped in the exoneration of Ronald Jones in 1999.
       His success prompted Protess to found the Medill Innocence Project (named after Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism) in 1999, which is part of the National Innocence Network/Innocence Project. The National Innocence Network is a group of more than 30 journalism and law schools which investigate possible wrongful convictions. Protess' ultimate goal is the elimination of the death penalty, which he sees as, if nothing else, too inaccurate, seeing how many people he alone has worked to exonerate. Protess, therefore, rejoiced to hear then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted all death row sentences in 2003.


Paul Ciolino, the private investigator who has
worked with Protess and his students.

Image courtesy of http://www.cnn.com/US/9902/05/wrongly.convicted/link.paul.ciolino.jpg>


Image courtesy of http://www.sluh.org.

NPR interview with David Protess

Bibliography

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