The Media Equation - Illinois Prosecutors Take Aim at the Medill Innocence Project - NYTimes.com:
"Since 1992, Prof. David Protess at the Medill school at Northwestern University has worked with undergraduate journalism students to investigate cases in which prosecutors appear to have taken aim at the wrong people. That might be about to happen again, only this time the students themselves would be the targets.
In one of the most recent cases, students working with the effort, which became the Medill Innocence Project in 1999, uncovered evidence that suggested Anthony McKinney had been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for almost three decades for the murder of a security guard in 1978.
Mr. McKinney was running by the scene of the crime, was questioned and later charged. He confessed, but later said he had been beaten with a pipe — an interrogation technique not without precedent in Chicago — and forced to sign a confession.
"Since 1992, Prof. David Protess at the Medill school at Northwestern University has worked with undergraduate journalism students to investigate cases in which prosecutors appear to have taken aim at the wrong people. That might be about to happen again, only this time the students themselves would be the targets.
In one of the most recent cases, students working with the effort, which became the Medill Innocence Project in 1999, uncovered evidence that suggested Anthony McKinney had been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for almost three decades for the murder of a security guard in 1978.
Mr. McKinney was running by the scene of the crime, was questioned and later charged. He confessed, but later said he had been beaten with a pipe — an interrogation technique not without precedent in Chicago — and forced to sign a confession.