Ex-inmate sues Northwestern University and journalism prof, says they coerced a false confession
Seeking to free one Illinois inmate imprisoned in a high-profile double-murder case as his execution date loomed, did a Northwestern University journalism professor help coerce another man into making a false confession to the crimes?
The answer to that question is yes, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Chicago by Alstory Simon. He was convicted in the 1982 slayings of Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard after Anthony Porter, who initially was found guilty of the murders, was released from prison based on Simon’s videotaped confession. Porter’s case also led to the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, reports the Chicago Tribune. An earlier Chicago Tribune story provides additional details.
Simon was freed last year, at the request of prosecutors, after the conviction integrity unit of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office found what State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez described as “a series of alarming tactics,” which were “unacceptable by law enforcement standards” behind the videotaped confession obtained by an NU journalism team that led to Simon’s guilty plea.
Among the claimed tactics criticized by Alvarez was a ploy by a private investigator working with NU’s Medill Innocence Project. He impersonated a police officer when he went to Simon’s home, Alvarez said. She said an actor also spoke to Simon pretending to be a witness to the shootings of Green and Hillard near a swimming pool at Washington Park, on Chicago’s South Side, CBS Chicago reported last year.
Simon’s current lawyers, Terry Ekl and James Sotos, question as well whether Simon’s criminal defense lawyer, Jack Rimland, at the time of his guilty plea had a conflict of interest, because he was introduced to Simon by the Northwestern team.
In addition to Northwestern and its former journalism professor, David Protess, the suit names Rimland and a private investigator as defendants, reports the Chicago Sun Times. The suit seeks $40 million in damages for the nearly 15 years Simon spent behind bars, alleging malicious prosecution, conspiracy and infliction of emotional distress.
“Northwestern’s conduct permitted a culture of lawlessness to thrive in Protess’ investigative journalism classes and investigations, which not only placed Northwestern’s students at an alarming risk to their own safety, but resulted in the crimes perpetrated against Simon,” the suit alleges.
The school initially backed Protess after Alvarez raised questions about Innocence Project tactics. However, Northwestern later accused him of providing misleading information to Cook County prosecutors. That led to a parting of the ways in 2011 between the university and Protess, a tenured professor who had been there nearly 30 years when he retired in the midst of the controversy, as a Chicago magazine article details.
The Innocence Project’s work on behalf of a dozen exonerated inmates has put Protess “in the hall of fame of investigative journalists in the 20th century,” associate professor Mark Feldstein of George Washington University told the New York Times (reg. req.) in 2011. “Using cheap student labor, he has targeted a very specific issue, and that work has reopened cases, changed laws and saved lives.” Many credit the Innocence Project for the Illinois governor’s decision to shut down the state’s death row, the newspaper notes.
However, the methods used by Protess were not necessarily mainstream:
“It was always kind of fuzzy whether he was engaged in journalism or a kind of guerrilla social justice law operation where the ends justified the means,” former Medill dean Michael Janeway told the Times. “David was not totally irresponsible. He was zealot in pursuit of a cause, a cause you could not question.”
Rimland declined to comment when contacted by the ABA Journal.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Journalism & Justice: Did Innocence Project Student Reporters Get Too Close to Lawyers?”
Chicago Now: “Anthony Porter and Alstory Simon: Do not believe the narrative”
Daily Northwestern: “Murder conviction of Alstory Simon overturned after doubts shed on Protess investigation”
Journal Sentinel (opinion): “Duped by Medill Innocence Project, Milwaukee man now free”
New City: “Crossing Lines: What’s Wrong with the Wrongful Conviction Movement”
