TheAgitator.com
Prosecutor Wants Access to Journalism Students’ Grades, Email
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009So you’re a prosecutor in a county that has seen well more than its fair share of wrongful convictions over the years, including in several capital cases. Many of those innocence cases were uncovered by a journalism class at a nearby university. That class has just uncovered yet another possible wrongful conviction. What do you do?
If you’re Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, you start harrassing the journalism students.
After spending three years investigating the conviction of a Harvey man accused of killing a security guard with a shotgun blast in 1978, journalism students at Northwestern University say they have uncovered new evidence that proves his innocence.
Their efforts helped win a new day in court for Anthony McKinney, who has spent 31 years in prison for the slaying. But as they prepare for that crucial hearing, prosecutors seem to have focused on the students and teacher who led the investigation for the school’s internationally acclaimed Medill Innocence Project.
The Cook County state’s attorney subpoenaed the students’ grades, notes and recordings of witness interviews, the class syllabus and even e-mails they sent to each other and to professor David Protess of the university’s Medill School of Journalism.
Alvarez says she needs to know the students’ grades and snoop in their email in order to assess the credibility of the witnesses the students interviewed as part of their investigation. Her chief of staff defended the action by arguing Alvarez’s office needs to know if the students are biased in their work.
Given the number of wrongful convictions in Cook County over the years, Alvarez should probably be more concerned about policing bias among the county’s prosecutors.
I think the prosecutor just got an “F” in her Bill of Rights course.
However, she has been nominated for the Torquemada Award for prosecutorial zeal.
Yep, no surprise here. Prosecutors could care less about justice, their priority is winning cases…
this woman may have taken on the wrong people, hopefully.
One could hope, Pam, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some sort of “Obstruction of Justice” charge pulled out of her XXX, either.
Fine, the prosecutor wants to see all the notes that people on this project sent to each other. In that case make all the prosecution’s internal memos available and have tape recorders going all day in their office recording everything they say. I wonder what that would do to their credibility. Turnabout is fair play.
I hope those students told her what to put and where. She seems like the type who would need specific instructions in that fundament–er, department.
this could be entertaining- usually the worthless govt pricks take on people with jobs who don’t have the time or resources to fight back… hopefully, these students and their teacher have enough free time to make a real battle out of this. plus, it might keep the prosecutors to occupied to wrongfully prosecute anyone else…
Lately there seems to be a lot of stories about the “authorities” lashing out at those who dare to point out their errors and wrongdoing. This must be some sort of cyclical thing, like the return of McCarthyism.
Obviously she is after the identities of the witnesses who provide evidence of innocence. She can intimidate them much more easily than a bunch of rich college kids, they aren’t the issue, she is probably deeply annoyed that they have university lawyers (a law school’s worth, and many with interest in constitutional questions.) She wants to unravel the chain of parolees, contacts of the real perpetrator, whoever, and make up or find some dirt on them that will then be used to cloud whatever evidence they provide, or more likely intimidate them from exonerating a convict in the first place. It is like the “no-snitching” rule for prosecutors — Remember what happened the last time somebody in your neighborhood talked to a reporter?
The consequence of pulling the same stunt on a newspaper would be loss of editorial endorsements, gaining politically relevant antagonists. Illinois has a specific shield law for journalists — a relic of a time when politicians feared journalists. New media has to figure out a way to scare them again, they have to understand that there will be political consequences (the only kind these budding pols care about) for brazen contempt of the constitution and norms of decency.
Big Chief
I don’t think it is cyclical.
If you look back at every administration, you find the same sort of crap going on – from Nixon’s “Enemies List” to Obama’s current hate on Fox News. It happens on every level – the sycophantic media get the exclusive interviews (or invited along on SWAT raids) and those that question the bosses get their taxes audited or cameras confiscated.
She should be worrying about getting hauled away in a U.S. DoJ paddy wagon…
In fact, parts of Illinois are so corrupt that the state or federal government should simply dismantle their government altogether and rule them imperially.
I’ve lived in Cook county for most of my life. If anything, reality is worse than the way it’s depicted in da nooze. This place sucks. Hard.
Since the laws are vague enough to allow charges against anyone…and the courts are biased enough to always side with the state…I’d say the prosecutor’s primary objective here is to send the message for Prof. Protess to cease.
The incompetence and corruption of Cook County should be a dinner bell for lawyers to come running and file big money law suits. Sue ‘em straight.
While the students in the Medill School of Journalism were the investigators, similar to private investigators in this 30 year old homicide conviction, in fact a law firm filed the petition for a re-hearing.
Quoting the Chicago Tribune news article:
“In 2006, the students took their findings to the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern law school’s Bluhm Legal Clinic. A year ago, it filed a petition on McKinney’s behalf for a hearing in Cook County Circuit Court. The state’s attorney did not seek to have the petition dismissed and agreed that a hearing should be held.”
What exactly do the students GRADES, NOTES or their EMAILS have to do as evidence to be examined by the Cook County Prosecutor??
The students are really no different than a Private Investigator being hired to pursue leads in a case that the police are no longer interested in or investigating.
Albeit, in this case unpaid private investigators.
Whim,
In most states there is a big distinction between a journalist and private investigator, the latter requiring a license in most places. As far as I can tell the students haven’t done anything that a normal citizen can’t do.
Of course what the state is doing is obscene, but the state is merely giving the people what they want: the ability to believe that the system protects the innocent and punishes the guilty. If the students can’t be intimidated into stopping, then evidence can be uncovered that can be used to discredit them (and that can ALWAYS be found if you’re looking for it). Then the average person can go on trusting the police and believing that everything the system does is justified and for their own good.
On a related note, I was walking down the street on Monday and a dog growled at me and ran toward me (somewhat menacingly). If I (a) owned a gun and (b) had it with me, I would have shot it as any reasonable person would. It turns out (cue the dramatic music) that nothing happened at all. It’s a good thing that I’m just some person and not charged with protecting innocent people (like the dog’s owners) from thugs…
Is this the same Alvarez as in Alvarez v. Smith?
Familiar story these days. Doubting Alvarez has anything to fear from the DOJ. AUSA Tanya Treadway is doing exactly this to activist Siobhan Reynolds of the Pain Relief Network.
[...] is doing it. Yeah, the state where cops fight to remain unaccountable for their actions and State’s Attorneys hassle journalism students for exposing wrongful capital convictions. What a wonderful standard you set for prosecutorial [...]