It appears that some Cook County prosecutors don’t like journalism students looking into whether innocent people may have been wrongly convicted, so they’ve decided to investigate the students. The NYT reports:
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.
The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas.
Twirlip says:
Cook County? We know where Obama learned his media relations.
October 25, 2009, 11:13 amAJK says:
To be fair, David Protess and his attorney are some pretty unsavory characters.
October 25, 2009, 11:16 amML says:
Do tell. How is this at all related to Obama?
October 25, 2009, 11:23 amTwirlip says:
Obama is not exactly the most First Amendment friendly President this country has ever seen. I’d think that even his defenders could admit that much.
And Obama learned his politics in Cook County.
October 25, 2009, 11:38 amJKB says:
I like that their concern whether some students could have been motivated by having a good grade associated with witness statements supporting innocence. There concern is touching, i.e., whether untrained interviewers guided witness statements toward innocence. Of course, they will ignore to alternate, i.e., that trained, experienced interrogators steered witnesses toward statements supporting guilt.
October 25, 2009, 11:48 amObeliskToucher says:
Sounds like a fairly normal discovery request. Is there any reason why the prosecutors shouldn’t have this information?
October 25, 2009, 11:51 amGuesty Guest says:
Twirlip, you’re really reaching and it makes you look like an idiot.
October 25, 2009, 11:55 amJohn Thacker says:
At all related? Well, the Cook County state’s attorney is an elected Democrat. Here’s a picture touted by her campaign website of her campaign director with Michelle Obama. That’s a long way from saying that Obama’s especially connected with her, but it is “at all” related.
Is it too suspicious of me to note that the New York Times article doesn’t say “Democrat” or “Democratic Party” anywhere in the article, and to think that if this were a Republican state’s attorney or US attorney, it would be prominently mentioned?
October 25, 2009, 11:58 amTwirlip says:
I bow before your iron-clad logic and expert marshalling of the facts. Henceforth I will of course always sing the praises of President Obama, like any loyal and non-racist American.
October 25, 2009, 12:01 pmjccamp says:
“It appears that some Cook County prosecutors don’t like journalism students looking into whether innocent people may have been wrongly convicted…”
Isn’t it just as likely that the explanation from prosecutors – could students have been encouraged via grading to exaggerate claims of innocence while ignoring evidence consistent with guilt? – is truthful? Your OP makes assumptions which are not supported by the news cite. In either case, would not honoring the subpoena lay the matter to rest?
October 25, 2009, 12:07 pmSomething Wicked says:
I agree with Twirlip. I was in Chicago over the summer and while walking around noticed my show was untied. Obama wears shoes.
October 25, 2009, 12:08 pmpdxlawyer says:
“Isn’t it just as likely that the explanation from prosecutors — could students have been encouraged via grading to exaggerate claims of innocence while ignoring evidence consistent with guilt?”
I presume that it also follows that police personnel and promoton practices are relevant evidence in every criminal trial involving statements developed by policemen, and not merely collateral. /sarcasm
October 25, 2009, 12:16 pmkrs says:
Reading the article, this doesn’t sounds quite as alarming as the post would imply. This is a subpoena in the context of a particular case. An inmate is relying on evidence gathered by the Medill people in support of a request to review his conviction. The prosecutors are asking for information that would allow them to assess the quality of that evidence, including information relevant to bias. Medill presents this stuff as the work of a neutral observer, but I think the prosecution is entitled to question that.
The requests are overbroad, but such is the nature of discovery. Start with a ridiculously broad request, then the other side raises every objection in the book, then there’s a bunch of douchebaggy lawyer posturing back and forth, and ultimately there’s either an impasse requiring the court’s intervention, or some reasonable subset of the original request gets produced.
The blog post makes it sound like the U.S. government’s spy agencies’ files on Martin Luther King or other instances of the government investigating its critics. I think this is a little bit different, and I’d chalk the facial heavy-handedness of the requests up to the observation that discovery practice brings out the absolute worst in lawyers and is one of the reasons that the profession is so hated.
October 25, 2009, 12:22 pmkdackson says:
For the same reason you don’t have to show your grades when you argue a case.
Or, if you prefer, for the same reason that Obama does not divulge his grades**.
It’s none of their damn business.
**I still find it curious how Obama’s grades and writings while in college are treated as a state secret. If Bush, McCain, Gore, and Kerry all had their academic records public, it is only fair that Obama release his. Of course, unless he’s afraid that his grades were lower than Bush’s (as Gore’s and Kerry’s were).
October 25, 2009, 12:27 pmcrabbott says:
The bias argument is pretty weak. It would only be relevant if students were eliciting false testimony from witnesses, putting themselves at risk of federal liability, to get a better grade.
Notably, in many jurisdictions defense lawyers can often make the same charge at police detectives and officers. After all, officers who get confessions and break big cases are going to get recognition and possible promotions. Nevertheless, I know in my jurisdiction the courts would almost certainly not permit the defense to obtain materials pertaining to such bias (personnel records, departmental policies, etc.) in the absence of a more specific reason for the material, even though it might be something you could ask about in witness interviews or at trial. So I’m not sure why prosecutors should get leeway that defense lawyers frequently do not.
October 25, 2009, 12:30 pmCornellian says:
I guess it must be illegal to question prosecutors or their methods, motives or results. At least in Cook County.
October 25, 2009, 12:39 pmCornellian says:
Nevertheless, I know in my jurisdiction the courts would almost certainly not permit the defense to obtain materials pertaining to such bias (personnel records, departmental policies, etc.) in the absence of a more specific reason for the material, even though it might be something you could ask about in witness interviews or at trial. So I’m not sure why prosecutors should get leeway that defense lawyers frequently do not.
It would be funny to see the school’s lawyers show up at the hearing with a boat load of case law in which that same prosecutor argued the defense shouldn’t get to see the personnel evaluation of the cops and other public employees involved in the case because the need for such materials was wholly speculative.
October 25, 2009, 12:41 pmCornellian says:
Nevertheless, I know in my jurisdiction the courts would almost certainly not permit the defense to obtain materials pertaining to such bias (personnel records, departmental policies, etc.) in the absence of a more specific reason for the material, even though it might be something you could ask about in witness interviews or at trial. So I’m not sure why prosecutors should get leeway that defense lawyers frequently do not.
It would be funny to see the school’s lawyers show up at the hearing with a boat load of case law in which that same prosecutor argued the defense shouldn’t get to see the personnel evaluation of the cops and other public employees involved in the case because the need for such materials was wholly speculative.
October 25, 2009, 12:41 pmGuesty Guest says:
Thank you for posting this. Now I know to ignore everything you say. How’s Free Republic treating you this morning?
October 25, 2009, 1:05 pmEric Stein says:
You may be overlooking the upside of this. Doesn’t their subpoena indicate their willingness to disclose the same information about their team?
October 25, 2009, 1:07 pmHauk says:
Which of course raises the question, who is “the most First Amendment friendly President this country has ever seen”?
October 25, 2009, 1:15 pmMalvolio says:
Hmmm, it’s the “Innocence Project”, not the “Neutral Observer Project”. It’s the witnesses’ neutrality that is important, and therefore subject to question. The advocates are assumed to be biased to their own sides.
Here’s an interesting question: say I’m a defendant in an otherwise unrelated case being prosecuted by the same DA who filed this discovery motion. I file my own motion, fishing for any kind of dirt in the DA’s personal history, grades, arrest record, maybe divorce proceedings. Wouldn’t the DA be estopped from asking to quash the motion on the grounds that he himself has already asserted that the seeking the true motivation of an advocate is legitimate field for investigation?
Probably James Madison, given that he wrote the thing. But kudos for saying “raises the question” instead of “begging the question”.
October 25, 2009, 2:07 pmdrunkdriver says:
I’m not sure the juvenile intro, It appears that some Cook County prosecutors don’t like journalism students looking into whether innocent people may have been wrongly convicted, so they’ve decided to investigate the students really accomplished much for your point.
October 25, 2009, 2:28 pmjccamp says:
The name of the project is the Medill Innocence Project. Journalism students working for an Innocence project aren’t going to get much traction discovering that a person adjudicated guilty many years ago is probably guilty. The point is to find guilty persons who can be freed, and consequently termed “innocent” when a retrial after three decades becomes a practical impossibility.
I can see the headlines now. “Innocence Project Investigators Declare Inmate Did It”
Yeah, sure.
Success is predetermined by a solitary finding. Under these circumstances, it’s entirely relevant to question the tactics and motivation of the Project participants.
October 25, 2009, 2:46 pmDaniel Shinkle says:
pdxlawyer:
Interestingly enough, among the motions one should expect from an Innocence Project defense is the personnel and disciplinary record of a police officer expected to give testimony. That said, unless these students are giving substantive evidence, this seems like a stretch unless there is reason to believe they framed this case. It is a very intrusive request. I can imagine circumstances that would support it, but I can say that about most subpoenas or searches.
October 25, 2009, 3:01 pmArthurKirkland says:
Would not this line of reasoning require questioning the tactics and motivation of every prosecutor in every prosecution, and dismantling the immunity that shields prosecutors from accountability with respect to their conduct?
October 25, 2009, 3:02 pmbyomtov says:
Success is predetermined by a solitary finding. Under these circumstances, it’s entirely relevant to question the tactics and motivation of the Project participants.
You make it sound like once the students conclude a convict is innocent that’s the end of the story. IANAL, but gee, I thought there were hearings and things where the evidence gathered by the students could be challenged, and the prosecutors could make their own arguments. Given that the prosecutors have pretty strong incentives to support the conviction this sounds pretty dumb.
Maybe the students could demand any and all information about the prosecutors’ ambitions and motivations. “Have you ever discussed how this case might affect your career? Do you have any thoughts of seeking higher office?” etc.
October 25, 2009, 3:06 pmHauk says:
I expected some wiseacre to say Madison. But to clarify, “… while he was President.”
October 25, 2009, 4:03 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Kind of confusing.
That’s funny, because the subpoena clearly lists grades among the deliverables.
I get that the prosecutors might want any information relevant to the case that they don’t have. I don’t get how the students’ grades could possibly be thought relevant, unless the prosecutors want to use this to gauge the reliability of that information by determining how strong the students’ motives might be to fudge; which seems strange b/c I’d like to think they had better reasons to accept or reject evidence than mind-reading whether a third party had lied or not. Some people would probably fudge to get the grade, IF the grade is tied to the subject’s innocence (a big if) and some would not, so I can’t see how this helps.
So either (1) the prosecutors think the students’ grades are somehow relevant to the veracity of the information, and they simply want to make absolutely certain that justice is done in this closed case; or (2) they have another motive, for instance, to discredit and shut down the program. If (2), which seems more likely to me, then either (2a) that’s because they don’t want to look like bad and stupid people when the convicted are shown to be innocent and freed, or (2b) because the students’ work is somehow hindering them in getting their job done regarding their current activities.
I’d be willing to entertain (2b) but that’s not what they’re claiming. What they are claiming doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.
October 25, 2009, 5:28 pmjccamp says:
First, it is not at all uncommon for police officers to be questioned about such things as whether a specific case resulted in awards or promotions, whether the officer has complaints from civilians on file, whether the officer has ever lied in any circumstances, etc. Not every judge allows the defense wide discretion in such matters, but certainly there is a threshold that is permitted. If the defense were to discover some affirmative answer about, say, a specific arrest leading to promotion or financial benefit to the officer, I think the questions would be allowed. The issue of police
training and experience is always subject to defense examination, as it should be.
Next, of course there is a judicial proceeding that follows. The issue is whether the students unduly influenced persons to make statements supporting their position, which is, of course, exactly the same thing they are accusing the original detectives of doing. Except they haven’t offered a motive for what the cops did. If the students did it to gain an “A”, that would be material I think.
“Would not this line of reasoning require questioning the tactics and motivation of every prosecutor in every prosecution…”
No. Prosecutors don’t get paid any more for prosecuting more or fewer cases. If anything, most prosecutors stand accused of disposing of too many cases, not of taking too many to trial. But if an elected prosecutor took a tenuous and high profile case to trial just before an election, you don’t think that would be mentioned to the trier of fact?
I don’t know anything about the details of Mr McKinney’s case. But I don’t see why students who set out with a specific finding in mind should not be subject to some scrutiny when they discover alleged facts supporting the finding they wanted from the beginning.
October 25, 2009, 6:11 pmteqjack says:
jccamp and others, the article mentions in passing that the project has more than once concluded that the convicted persons were guilty as charged. This is not exactly a sign of unthinking slanting of evidence.
October 25, 2009, 6:13 pmMilhouse says:
teqjack:
No, it doesn’t. It quotes those involved in the project as making such a claim. That’s not the same thing. The prosecution is entitled to find out whether and to what extent this is so.
October 25, 2009, 6:29 pmjccamp says:
Teqjack -
The quote says something to the effect that only twice in four years have the students decided that a conviction being investigated was actually correct.
Hardly overwhelming evidence of their evenhandedness. I don’t suppose they might tell us how many cases were considered in past four years. Might be a violation of journalistic independence.
A cynic might conclude that in two instances, they were unable to generate peer pressure or guilt in government witnesses and induce them to recant.
October 25, 2009, 6:34 pmFormer Medill grad says:
The claim that Medill students would twist the facts to support a pre-ordained outcome is specious. The first things that got hammered into us Medill-dos, at least back in the ’90s, was that any story submitted in class containing a factual error in a story would receive an F–no exceptions. (A spelling, punctuation, usage or grammatical error only knocked you down part of a letter grade.)
I never took Prof. Protess’ class, but it’s hard to see this as anything other than a ham-fisted attempt to chill scrutiny of prosecutorial/police misconduct.
October 25, 2009, 6:41 pmjccamp says:
“…would twist the facts…”
I don’t think anyone is claiming the students twisted the facts. What I think the prosecution suspects may have happened is something like this:
student: Did the police pressure you to testify?
witness: Yes, they pushed me really hard (to tell the truth).
student: All you have to do is to say that you weren’t positive but the police made you say it. You’ll be a hero in the neighborhood and the man has already done 30 years. Hasn’t he paid his debt? Isn’t it time he was free?
Is this didn’t happen, and the students would have received the same grade, regardless of whether they were able to successfully research an old case and find flaws, why not allow the examination?
October 25, 2009, 7:44 pmLN says:
It’s always a bad sign when people spend more energy attacking the messenger rather than the message. My top-notch investigative work reveals that prosecutors’s careers are enhanced when they nail down convictions and send people to jail; I think this obviously reveals that their role in the judicial system is fundamentally untrustworthy.
October 25, 2009, 8:32 pmLarryA says:
If students were exaggerating innocence it would show up in the hearings. Convictions wouldn’t be being overturned.
This is a case of kill the messenger.
October 25, 2009, 8:59 pmArthurKirkland says:
I did not understand that any argument was based on the volume of cases the students reviewed. The issue is results (and the consequences of results). I believe a prosecutor would be rewarded (or punished) for a case result at least as much as any student would be rewarded (or punished).
I also have seen far more evidence of inappropriate prosecutorial bias (and, at times, misconduct) than I have seen evidence of inappropriate student bias concerning innocence projects, but that is probably because I have observed more prosecutions.
October 25, 2009, 9:47 pmDG says:
How does this fit in with FERPA?
October 25, 2009, 9:56 pmDavid Nieporent says:
You’re confused. Police officers are witnesses. Of course you can inquire into the bias of a witness. What does that have to do with these students, who aren’t witnesses, but investigators?
By your reasoning, prosecutors could subpoena the defense attorney’s bank records to see whether he has a financial incentive to pressure witnesses to lie in favor of his client.
October 25, 2009, 10:48 pmjccamp says:
“If students were exaggerating innocence it would show up in the hearings.”
No, that’s an incorrect interpretation of what’s happening. If witnesses recant, un-recant (?), return to their recanted story, etc, al that confusion works to the benefit of the accused. At the time of trial, that’s as it should be. However, years later, witnesses are susceptible to pressure to shade their original testimony for any number of reasons. The presence of differing narrative from the same witness does not go to finding some truth. It causes confusion which only serves to obfuscate the truth if the original statement was the most accurate.
Please remember that the witnesses referred to were reluctant – at best – contemporaneous with the original trial. It probably would not take much to get them to change their original stories which were seen as benefiting the prosecution.
Maybe they are now telling the truth. Maybe not. But that has little to do with the issue of whether the students who obtained their now changed testimony, changes that apparently were not important enough to tell to anyone until the students came asking, may have influenced the witnesses. it’s not about the students inaccurately representing what the witnesses now say. It’s about whether the students have unduly influenced the new statements from witnesses who have remained silent for 30 years, apparently undisturbed by conscience until the Innocence Project came calling. That seems to be a legitimate issue to be explored in an adversarial hearing.
After all, the thrust of the Innocence Project argument is that the original detectives, now probably long retired and deceased, unduly influenced the witnesses to testify untruthfully. If you buy that as believable, why is it no longer believable that a journalism student looking for an “A” and a ticket to grad school wouldn’t do the same thing?
October 25, 2009, 11:27 pmjccamp says:
“You’re confused. Police officers are witnesses. Of course you can inquire into the bias of a witness. What does that have to do with these students, who aren’t witnesses, but investigators?”
Police officers testify at trial at to what they did and observed during their investigation. You know, because they’re investigating a crime. Like investigators. Police officers are rarely witnesses in the sense that they have first hand knowledge of the actual crime from actually witnessing the crime itself.
If these students investigate the crime and learn something about the crime which becomes subject to court testimony, they are subject to being subpoena’d as witnesses.
So, your distinction escapes me.
“By your reasoning, prosecutors could subpoena the defense attorney’s bank records to see whether he has a financial incentive to pressure witnesses to lie in favor of his client.”
No need to see bank records to answer that question. Unfortunately, defense counsel don’t have to make their representations under oath.
I’m being a smart-ass. Not all criminal defense attorneys would suborn perjury or browbeat an innocent person in an attempt to shake that witness from his/her truthful testimony.
October 25, 2009, 11:40 pmjccamp says:
Arthur –
Sorry Let me rephrase. In my experience, prosecutors are graded on a won/lost percentage. There is a disincentive for them to try tough cases, and an incentive to abandon or plea out cases that are not an absolute lock. Losing a case, especially a high profile capital or life case could wipe the career value from a string of winners. If anything, prosecutors future financial remuneration would be maximized by avoiding cases with iffy circumstances. So prosecutors are not locked into a predetermined decision for any particular case. I think rather they tend to evaluate them into two tracks: easy to difficult, and who-cares to career-maker (or breaker). Prosecutors have a huge range of options, from outright nolle prose, pleas to lesser crimes, dropping or changing the charges to something easier to prove, to trial. Also, although I’m sure many will minimize the value, prosecutors take an oath about the burden to be met when charging. Once a decision is made to actually try a case, of course there is an assumption of guilt. That is the prosecutor’s ethical burden.
Journalism students from something called the Innocence Project, on the other hand, take no oath, obtain no value from anything but a finding of “no longer guilty” which can be later called “innocent”, and have no intermediate options. As I said, there is no value in a headline “Innocence Projects Says Inmate Did It”, except maybe for the novelty of it all. But then, we’d only see that in the Onion perhaps.
I’m not claiming McKinney is guilty. I don’t know the case. I’ve certainly known a few prosecutors over the years that I would never work with, for the reasons you note. But that has little to do with whether it is a question for a court to consider that the students may have unduly influenced the suddenly conscience-stricken witnesses after 30 years of silence. I think these long-after-the-fact recantations have about the same value as a jail-house snitch testifying the other way, absent true issues of provable fact via, say, scientific testing.
October 26, 2009, 12:00 amDavid Nieporent says:
Police officers are testifying because they’re witnesses to something. Otherwise, it kind of falls under the category of “irrelevant.” Perhaps they’re witnesses to the defendant’s confession, or witnesses to the location of the drugs, or witnesses to the blood-stained clothing at the defendant’s apartment. Unlike these students, who aren’t witnesses.
In the unlikely event that happens, that would be true. Is that what’s happening here? No. Your fantasy scenario was that the bid bad… journalism students were somehow intimidating witnesses into recanting, because somehow that was as “believable” to you as a cop, with a gun and badge, influencing a witness.
October 26, 2009, 12:51 amDavid Nieporent says:
s/bid/big. Edit function stopped working.
But you failed to explain how seeing their grades would shed any light on that.
October 26, 2009, 12:52 amChris_t says:
Nailed it.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
October 26, 2009, 1:44 amcrabbott says:
I think there’s a missing distinction here: what may be asked on cross-examination in a hearing is not entirely co-extensive with the right to pretrial discovery. Sure, you can ask questions all you want to try to establish bias by a testifying police officer, but that doesn’t mean you get to look at the personnel record beforehand. By the same reasoning, I would think if a prosecutor can show relevance, they can question testifying witnesses at a post-conviction hearing about things pertaining to bias (whether there’s an academic incentive, etc.), but that doesn’t mean they automatically get to look at the person’s grades in advance.
October 26, 2009, 2:15 amreader says:
Without commenting on the merits of the prosecutor’s motion, it does seem interesting to me that the one former student from the journalism school pretty much confirms that the purpose of the project is not journalism — the student came to Northwestern specifically to work on the Innocence Project, and now is working for a capital legal defense organization rather than a news organization.
October 26, 2009, 8:18 amPintler says:
That seems like the wrong incentive structure. If you have a horrible crime with certain guilt, but iffy proof because of inadmissible evidence, don’t you want the prosecutor to go all out even against long odds?
Likewise, where is the reward for passing up the slam dunk conviction where it’s not obvious justice is served by prosecuting?
October 26, 2009, 8:48 amjccamp says:
Pintler –
I wasn’t judging the value of the assessment system in place, just describing my experience with it. I do not disagree with what you say. Most (state) prosecution offices are headed by an elected official, who personally may have little to do with actual courtroom events. Like every elected official, they are susceptible to public opinion and media coverage, and typically, they worry more about the one high profile loss (or reversible win) than lots of slam-dunk convictions. That mentality flows downward. The career prosecutors who thrive avoid ambiguous cases and go for the easy ones. There are exceptions, who are a pleasure to work with.
Within the prosecution decision process, there is usually a dynamic tension, with the cops on one side, wanting every single case charged and tried, and the lawyers on the other, who never are satisfied and are reluctant to try anything save the one with a videotape of the crime and a priest and a doctor as eyewitnesses.
Assistant U. S. Attorneys are often the exception to this generalization. Many (most?) AUSA’s are doing government service only for a few years, and plan to return to private practice. They seem less concerned generally about the long-term career prospects of taking a case to trial without some written guarantee of success.
As Arthur pointed out – and as you might expect within any group – there are those (few, hopefully) who recognize the value of good publicity and assume a different tack. They might bolster the weak case in ways beyond the (ethics) permissible.
October 26, 2009, 10:19 amjccamp says:
David -
If, 30 years after the original testimony, a witness recants sworn testimony, admits to perjury, and offers a new statement which now exculpates the original defendant, and does all that on the impetus of and in the presence of a student, then that student is certainly fair game for inquiry by the prosecutor. They would probably be called to testify.
“Your fantasy scenario was that the bid (sic) bad… journalism students were somehow intimidating…”
That’s not what I said at all. It doesn’t help your position when you resort to hyperbole or misrepresentation. What I said was that the students could have induced the changed testimony. We’re talking about witnesses from a sub-culture than mistrusts and dislikes the government, and particularly the police. Peer pressure within the community is discouraging of anyone co-operating with or helping the police or the courts, especially in the case of a crime with racial overtones like this one. Friends and relatives of the defendant may know and influence potential witnesses, even if the witnesses can withstand the pressure not to be a “rat.” Under these circumstances, witnesses are very susceptible to arguments to recant and help the defendant obtain a release, and implicitly, for the witnesses to obtain some sense of rehabilitation within their community.
Anyone with experience in the poorer communities, especially those which are limited to any particular ethnic group, can verify this dynamic. Or, if you like, look at some of the case law on recanted testimony and why it is normally given less weight than the original testimony.
I didn’t say it happened. I said it was a legitimate line of inquiry for the government to pursue. A witness who claims to have lied under oath and imprisoned an innocent man for 30 years without a guilty conscience suddenly develops pangs of truthfulness because a student from the Innocence Project stops by? That doesn’t raise an eyebrow from a skeptic such as yourself?
October 26, 2009, 10:36 amzuch says:
ObeliskToucher:
Where do you get that this is a “discovery request”?
Cheers,
October 26, 2009, 11:59 amzuch says:
kdackson:
Some ODS, eh?
Here’s some [easily Googled] info for you:
Here’s some more:
Cheers,
October 26, 2009, 12:12 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Surely not, unless during questioning the actual recanting witness provides some indication that the students’ testimony would be relevant. Moreover, let’s suppose your theory of influence were true: how exactly would the students’ grades reveal anything meaningful about that?
Let’s put it this way: suppose these weren’t journalism students, but full-time journalists. Now, a journalist certainly has an incentive to get a recantation; “Innocent man wrongly convicted” is obviously a much better story than “Guilty man rightly convicted.” But so what? Do you think a prosecutor would be permitted to rummage around in the journalist’s bank accounts merely based on the claim that the records might reveal that the journalist had a financial incentive to influence witnesses to give him a better story?
October 26, 2009, 5:42 pm