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David Protess
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Tue Aug 08 2000 at 5:21:13
American
professor
and
advocate
for the
wrong
ly-
convict
ed. He first became interested in the
death penalty
back in 1953, when he was just seven years old, when he heard about the
execution
of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
. Years later, while teaching
political science
at the
University of Chicago
,
Watergate
got him interested in
investigative reporting
. After he got his
doctorate
in
public policy
, he worked as a
contributing editor
for a
magazine
called "
Chicago Lawyer
" and joined the
faculty
of
Northwestern University
as a
journalism professor
.
Protess wrote about
wrongful conviction
s in "
Chicago Lawyer
" and was able to help clear a
suburban
couple
accused of strangling their
daughter
in the late-
1980s
. Soon, his
office
was inundated with
mail
from
convicts
claiming they were
innocent
, so he enlisted his
journalism
student
s' help in investigating the claims.
Protess and his
class
' first big
success
came when they helped clear the "
Ford Heights Four
", a group of
black men
convicted of a
1978
rape
and
murder
with
testimony
from only one
mentally unstable
witness
, no
physical evidence
, and heavy
media
and
political
pressure. Protess' class discovered old
police
notes indicating that an
eyewitness
had identified four different men who had been seen selling
merchandise
stolen from the
gas station
where the
victim
s were abducted. The students used the lead to track down some of the other
suspect
s, who
confess
ed to the murders. The "Ford Heights Four" were released from
prison
in 1996.
The class' next big success was
Anthony Porter
, convicted of a
double murder
and sentenced to
death
. He was, again, convicted on
testimony
from one less-than-
reliable
source
. After visiting the
crime scene
and re-enacting the murders, the students in the class realized that the eyewitness had been standing too
far
away, looking through a
chain-link fence
after
midnight
. The
ex-wife
of another
suspect
told the students that she had watched her
ex
kill the victims, and the man soon
confess
ed to the crime, allowing Porter to walk out of
prison
.
More recently, Protess and his class helped
reverse
the
rape
and
murder
conviction of
Ronald Jones
, making Jones the
twelfth
death row
inmate
in
Illinois
to be cleared on
DNA evidence
and prompting
Illinois
governor
George Ryan
to
suspend
his state's
death penalty
.
Protess is vehemently
despise
d by most
prosecutor
s, who claim that he starts out with the intent to manufacture
proof
of
innocence
, but Protess' methods involve simply
review
ing the
fact
s of the case and looking for what
prosecutors
and
police
might have
overlook
ed--and Protess notes that he and his class usually determine that the
conviction
was
justified
.
Prosecutorial
complaint
s about Protess' work usually
boil
down to "He's makin' us look
bad
!"
printable version
chaos
Death penalty
The Thin Blue Line
Advocate
DNA library
George Ryan
innocence
Execution
professor
Governor George Ryan on the commutation of Illinois death sentences
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