Advocacy against wrongful convictions, criminalizing mental illness, the death penalty, and other justice issues is under fire.  Free speech suffers when one works for justice for convicted persons.  I am glad Northwestern is fighting releasing information on the students who have no charges pending against them.  Why investigate the students?


Students who question murder convictions under investigation
By Nicole Lapin, CNN
November 6, 2009 -- Updated 1440 GMT (2240 HKT)

Prosecutors subpoenaed students' records, saying team's motive was good grades; Northwestern won't submit records; hearing scheduled for Tuesday

Editor's note: Nicole Lapin is an anchor and reporter based at the
CNN Headquarters in Atlanta. She graduated from Northwestern
University's Medill School of Journalism.

(CNN) -- It was two-and-a-half days before Illinois Gov. George Ryan
was to leave office in 2003. I sat in a crowded auditorium in
Northwestern University's Law School in Chicago, where Ryan was
expected to make a major announcement on capital punishment.

"Half, if you will, of the nearly 300 capital cases in Illinois have
been reversed for a new trial or for some re-sentencing." he said,
his voice tired but clear.

Wrongful convictions had been all over the papers around that time --
the Anthony Porter case, the Ford Heights Four, Rolando Cruz.

"How in God's name does that happen? In America, how does it happen?"
Ryan continued. "How many more cases of wrongful conviction have to
occur before we can all agree that this system in Illinois is broken?"

On that day, the governor commuted the sentences of all death row
inmates in the state and credited an unlikely source for helping him
make his decision: Professor David Protess' undergraduate
Investigative Journalism class at Northwestern University's Medill
School.

In the previous decade, Medill students had uncovered some of the
most high-profile wrongful convictions in the city. The class had
worked to secure the release of 11 innocent prisoners, five of whom
were scheduled to be executed.

As a wide-eyed journalism student at Northwestern, I remember feeling
proud of my classmates, proud of my school and proud of the
profession I was entering.

Today, six years later, Protess' class is far from the center of the
same praise. Presented with evidence in a new case, the state
attorney's office is questioning the motivations of the messenger --
the class itself.

The students have raised questions about the murder conviction of
Anthony McKinney. In response, the state attorney's office issued a
subpoena for the students' grades, grading criteria, expense reports,
syllabi and e-mail messages -- mine included.
Find out more about the Medill Innocence Project.

The year after Gov. Ryan's speech, I signed up for Protess' class. I
was assigned to the team working on McKinney's case, who was
convicted in 1978, when he was 18, for shooting a security guard in
Harvey, Illinois.

On the night of September 15, 1978, a white security guard named
Donald Lundahl was killed at close range by a shotgun blast while
sitting in his car.

Later that evening, a police officer noticed McKinney, an African-
American, running down the street. He was arrested.

McKinney had no violent criminal history and was not in possession of
a weapon. He was briefly released after telling police he was
watching the Muhammed Ali-Leon Spinx heavyweight championship fight
when the murder took place and was running from "gang-bangers" when
the officer saw him.

Authorities questioned another teenager, who told police that he saw
the murder, claiming he saw McKinney, from 50 yards away, say, "Your
money or your life," and shoot Lundahl.

McKinney was picked up again, and after a second lengthy
interrogation, he signed a confession, typed by police. During his
trial, he recanted the confession, and said it was coerced.

But based on officers' testimony and that of the teenager, McKinney
was convicted of murder.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but because he had no record,
McKinney was sentenced to life in prison. Had his sentence been
death, McKinney would have been executed long before the commutation
of death row cases in 2003. He would have been dead well before
Protess even took up his case.

Since Protess started the course in 1992, his classes have
investigated about 50 cases.

Although the ones that are chosen have major red flags, like lack of
physical evidence, not all convictions are found to be unjustified.

Of the 50, 11 led to exonerations. Two indicated solid evidence of
guilt. The rest are under review by the judiciary or were
inconclusive, Protess said.

Protess made clear to all of his classes that the coursework was
about pavement-hitting journalism, the process behind discovering the
truth -- guilt or innocence. I went into the class to learn that
process.

During the two quarters I took the course, I lived the McKinney case.
My team and I spent nights and weekends doing things I never told my
family or friends because they wouldn't believe me. Some times it was
a matter of staking out a source's house or going to smoky, seedy
bars to fish for information on the decades-old case.

Those times, a professional private investigator and another team
member would be in the car listening for the words "winter wedding"
-- the "safe word" we were supposed say into the cell phones in our
pockets if something dangerous ever went down. (It never did.)

Unlike other Medill classes, this course was hands-on, gritty and
raw. I gained more practical skills in those months than in all of my
other college courses combined. The experience prepared me to do the
work I have done professionally and will continue to do throughout my
career.

In our investigation, we reenacted the crime scene and determined it
was impossible to discern any words spoken or shouted from 50 yards
away.

Later, we tracked down the then-teenage witness who said he saw
McKinney that night. The man recanted his testimony on videotape, and
told us police beat him.

We also found a fire department document that indicated the
paramedics were called to the police station during McKinney's
interrogation, raising the question of whether he was roughed up
during his interrogation as he said he was.

We interviewed the "gang-bangers" who chased him that night. They
acknowledged they chased him after the Ali fight because they were
angry he had damaged their car earlier.

Finally, we identified alternate suspects, one of whom stated on
videotape that he was there when the murder was committed -- and that
McKinney wasn't.

After I graduated, the investigation continued. Once Protess felt
there was enough evidence, after nine teams of student reporters had
worked on the case, the information was shared with the Center on
Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern's Law School and McKinney's
legal team.

The audio and videotaped interviews, affidavits and other on-the-
record interview transcripts we worked on also were presented to the
district attorney's office. Last year, the new evidence was submitted
to the Cook County Circuit Court in an effort to exonerate McKinney.

I am still haunted by the case. I am still haunted by my visit to see
McKinney in prison -- the gentle face of a man who still has hope
after so many years.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Sally Daly, told me that
we, as students, were "conducting these interviews for a grade in
this class."

She went on to say the "request for the grades goes to explore any
possible bias, interest or motive."

The claim is that we, as students, were motivated to get witnesses to
play into a preconceived thesis of innocence in order to get good
grades. I think I speak for my fellow alums when I say this class was
never about grades.

It has always been about searching for truth and justice for people
whose cases didn't get due diligence from a bogged-down system. This
was about journalism in its purest and most passionate form.

For years, the class has been a check on the work of police and other
law enforcement officials. Protess has seen and dealt with his fair
share of heat for more than a decade, but never anything like this
attempt to investigate the investigator.

Northwestern is not complying with the request for documents. A court
hearing on November 10 will decide if the subpoena will stand. While
we were students at the time, we "took reporting to the Nth degree,"
as the dean of the school told The Chicago Tribune. We functioned as
journalists and should be protected by reporter's privilege laws.

About 50 similar programs across the country are watching to see what
precedent could be set if the state is entitled to these materials.
Will programs like Northwestern's continue if the volunteers are
worried about attorneys' fees to handle requests for documents?

Recently, Judge H. Lee Sarokin, the federal judge who famously freed
Ruben "Hurricane" Carter on a murder conviction that proved to be
unfounded, wrote in support of all former members of "Team McKinney."
"If a reporter hopes to win a Pulitzer or an investigator for the
defense hopes to obtain further business," he wrote, "how can those
motives possibly be relevant to the evidence obtained?"

The focus should be on the evidence, not grades. Student information
is irrelevant to Anthony McKinney's case. Being forced to hand over
private information will not only compromise the integrity of the
program, but create a chilling effect on free speech and
investigative reporting.

I recently went back and watched Gov. Ryan's speech on YouTube. I got
the same chill I did watching it in person that day. I can only hope
that a new generation of students has the opportunity to feel that, too.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/06/lapin.wrongful.conviction/index.html?eref=rss_us

__._,_.___

FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY


  FREEDOM OF SPEECH


  FREEDOM OF PRESS


FREEDOM OF RELIGION 

Mary Neal
http://Care2.com/c2c/group/LetFreedomRing

MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com

 

Boston is a great city - and Music Hall has a fame almost as extensive as that of Boston. Nowhere more than here have the principles of human freedom been expounded. But for the circumstances already mentioned, it would seem almost presumption for me to say anything here about those principles. And yet, even here, in Boston, the moral atmosphere is dark and heavy. The principles of human liberty, even I correctly apprehended, find but limited support in this hour a trial. The world moves slowly, and Boston is much like the world. We thought the principle of free speech was an accomplished fact. Here, if nowhere else, we thought the right of the people to assemble and to express their opinion was secure. Dr. Channing had defended the right, Mr. Garrison had practically asserted the right, and Theodore Parker had maintained it with steadiness and fidelity to the last.

But here we are to-day contending for what we thought we gained years ago. The mortifying and disgraceful fact stares us in the face, that though Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill Monument stand, freedom of speech is struck down. No lengthy detail of facts is needed. They are already notorious; far more so than will be wished ten years hence.

The world knows that last Monday a meeting assembled to discuss the question: "How Shall Slavery Be Abolished?" The world also knows that that meeting was invaded, insulted, captured by a mob of gentlemen, and thereafter broken up and dispersed by the order of the mayor, who refused to protect it, though called upon to do so. If this had been a mere outbreak of passion and prejudice among the baser sort, maddened by rum and hounded on by some wily politician to serve some immediate purpose, - a mere exceptional affair, - it might be allowed to rest with what has already been said. But the leaders of the mob were gentlemen. They were men who pride themselves upon their respect for law and order.

These gentlemen brought their respect for the law with them and proclaimed it loudly while in the very act of breaking the law. Theirs was the law of slavery. The law of free speech and the law for the protection of public meetings they trampled under foot, while they greatly magnified the law of slavery.

The scene was an instructive one. Men seldom see such a blending of the gentleman with the rowdy, as was shown on that occasion. It proved that human nature is very much the same, whether in tarpaulin or broadcloth. Nevertheless, when gentlemen approach us in the character of lawless and abandoned loafers, - assuming for the moment their manners and tempers, - they have themselves to blame if they are estimated below their quality.

No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government. Daniel Webster called it a homebred right, a fireside privilege. Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South. They will have none of it there, for they have the power. But shall it be so here?

Even here in Boston, and among the friends of freedom, we hear two voices: one denouncing the mob that broke up our meeting on Monday as a base and cowardly outrage; and another, deprecating and regretting the holding of such a meeting, by such men, at such a time. We are told that the meeting was ill-timed, and the parties to it unwise.

Why, what is the matter with us? Are we going to palliate and excuse a palpable and flagrant outrage on the right of speech, by implying that only a particular description of persons should exercise that right? Are we, at such a time, when a great principle has been struck down, to quench the moral indignation which the deed excites, by casting reflections upon those on whose persons the outrage has been committed? After all the arguments for liberty to which Boston has listened for more than a quarter of a century, has she yet to learn that the time to assert a right is the time when the right itself is called in question, and that the men of all others to assert it are the men to whom the right has been denied?

 It would be no vindication of the right of speech to prove that certain gentlemen of great distinction, eminent for their learning and ability, are allowed to freely express their opinions on all subjects - including the subject of slavery. Such a vindication would need, itself, to be vindicated. It would add insult to injury. Not even an old-fashioned abolition meeting could vindicate that right in Boston just now. There can be no right of speech where any man, however lifted up, or however humble, however young, or however old, is overawed by force, and compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.

Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money. I have no doubt that Boston will vindicate this right. But in order to do so, there must be no concessions to the enemy. When a man is allowed to speak because he is rich and powerful, it aggravates the crime of denying the right to the poor and humble.

The principle must rest upon its own proper basis. And until the right is accorded to the humblest as freely as to the most exalted citizen, the government of Boston is but an empty name, and its freedom a mockery. A man's right to speak does not depend upon where he was born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is the solid basis of the right - and there let it rest forever.

Mary Neal
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/

" It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money."