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Prosecutors Seek Journalism Students’ Grades After They Help Free Innocent

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-good-deed-goes-uninvestigated dept.

There's only one thing Cook County prosecutors hate more than crime, and that's being proven wrong. This leads us to journalism professor David Protess and his class. Already having helped prove the innocence of 11 men behind bars, his investigative journalist students have spent 3 years investigating the case of a man convicted of killing a security guard. The students believe they have evidence that shows the wrong man is in prison. In response, the Prosecutors Office has issued subpoenas to professor David Protess seeking his students’ grades, his syllabus and their private e-mails. They claim since the team was made up of students, they may have been under pressure to prove the case to get a good grade. “Why are we talking about our grades when we should be talking about whether there’s an innocent man in prison?” said Evan Benn, a former Protess student mentioned in the state’s subpoena.

4 comments

  1. Testable assertion by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    "It's been framed as a witch hunt or a fishing expedition, and it's not," said Sally Daly, spokeswoman for Alvarez. "We're engaging in a discovery process as we would in any criminal investigation."

    1. So, in discovery they usually try to introduce federally-protected records of defence witnesses without factual bearing on the case? Do they try to get their medical records to try to build some tenuous link to mis-motivation?
    2. Just how many Daly's are there in Chicago government?

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    My God, it's Full of Source!
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    1. Re:Testable assertion by jayme0227 · · Score: 1

      Does it matter what grades they got? Either the information that they provided was accurate or it wasn't. It should be easily verifiable if the students were able to come up with it. This is nothing but a witch hunt, regardless of what Ms. Susan Daly claims.

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      But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
  2. Ahem.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get that man out of prison, and do it fast. The Protess will need every hand able to hold a gun when the zerg start their second assault.

    Where's the door again? Ah, thank you kind sir.

  3. Purview by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe we're just not aware that the Cook county Prosecutors Office has "making sure students get fair grades" is within it's purview. Really, it's got nothing to do with the Prosecutors Office wanting to keep it's count of convictions high (actual guilt be damned). They are really just looking after the hearts and minds of our school kids.