Prosecutors Turn Tables on Student Journalists

[Are_grits_groceries]

For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school 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 Illinois governor once cited those wrongful 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 County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.

<snip>
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.

Northwestern University and David Protess, the professor 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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/25innocence.html?hp

Intimidation! Trying to shut this down.

[Hoopla Phil]

1. The motivation of the students is not relevant to the content of their findings. UNLESS

some sort of malfeasance is suspected in the students work. But THAT must be asserted and a reasonable suspicion proven BEFORE any violation of the students privacy can be made.

I suspect the O.P. is correct and this is an intimidation tactic to pluck the sticking thorn that the student club is.

[ThomCat]

6. Agreed. The prosecuters don't like being second-guessed by a

a bunch of college kids. So they are playing a bit of hard ball to deliver the message that they're always right regardless of the facts, and they don't want any two-bit college kids sticking their noses in where they aren't welcome.

The message they are really delivering is that justice, as far as they are concerned, is all about power, not about truth. They have power and they're more than willing to use it to get their own way.

[Hoopla Phil]

2. K and R

[annabanana]

3. I don't see how that would make any difference at all..the Science

is the Science in these cases..not the motives of the students.

[rucky]

4. Same could be said of prosecutors getting rewarded for a high conviction rate. n/t

[lonestarnot]

Welp someone has to keep those private prisons in business.

They're the only ones hiring!

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[Bitwit1234]

7. Prosecutions

Have you ever noticed, once the prosecution get a suspect in their sights they try to fit the evidence to fit that person no matter how slight. I am not saying they do that in all cases. But you know with all the people being found innocent today, that were convicted on this tunnel vision, some of it has to be suspect itself. Look at Virginia. They are still resisting giving prisoners a chance to have their DNA checked in a lot of cases, even after the state found they made mistakes in prosecuting people. And not that they have such good DNA tests, I think they should test those that want it.