Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit Defense Blog : Wrongful Conviction Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Andrew M. Hale Law Firm

Journalists and law students have been investigating criminal cases for years.  Much of their work has been used to convince judges to free prisoners convicted of serious crimes such as murder and rape.  For years, judges and prosecutors have accepted the evidence gathered by journalists and students and have never questioned the authenticity of their new evidence.  That is now starting to change.  In the last few months we have seen Cook County prosecutors subpoenaing student records - searching for why and how witnesses are changing their stories after all these years.  

Now, it appears this trend is moving to Michigan.  The metro times is reporting: that a Wayne County prosecutor wants University of Michigan Law School students to testify against a man they've been working to exonerate. Innocence Clinic co-director David Moran is asking Wayne County Circuit Judge Tim Kenny to strike the students from the witness list, as well as a journalist who sat in on some of the clinic sessions last year as part of a fellowship. Moran argued at a hearing Monday that the students have the same confidentiality privileges that lawyers have, and that assistant prosecutor Robert Stevens should not be able to call them to try to make his case. "What Mr. Stevens has requested would decimate our legal team," Moran said.

As part of their work with the Innocence Clinic, the students helped their professors last year convince Kenny to set aside Dwayne Provience's 2001 murder conviction. At the time, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy agreed evidence was withheld from Provience's defense at his trial and that he should be granted a new one. Kenny released the 36-year-old Detroit man from prison and scheduled a new trial for April 5. Provience had been serving a 30-to-60-year sentence for the March 2000 death of Rene Hunter, who was fatally gunned down at a northwest Detroit intersection. Police have said it was drug-related.

Stevens filed his witness list March 5, and it includes six students who have been enrolled or interned with the clinic, another law student who was present at witness interviews and a California journalist named Peggy Lowe. A writer for The Orange County Register, she was part of the prestigious Michigan journalism fellowship program last year, and attended clinic sessions and interviews.

At Monday's hearing, Stevens responded to Moran's objections to the students' possible testimony. Stevens said because the students have had statements published in newspapers, have interviewed Wiley and appeared in a YouTube video about the case, he should be able to call them to the witness stand. "All this is fair game," Stevens said in court. "I need to know the context of [Wiley's] conversations with each of these persons. Each one of those persons is a prosecution witness." Kenny requested a written argument from Moran due March 25, and scheduled a hearing for March 29. "I think I need you to brief this issue as to how, in effect, law students become attorneys for the duration of the entire trial," he said.

Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, says the students' research raises interesting questions that could affect how far any confidentiality privilege extends. "Are they detectives? Are they investigators? Are they now inserting themselves into the criminal justice system, which is fine, but not necessarily as defense attorneys?" Burns asks. Roles other than as defense attorneys could make them prosecution witnesses, he says.

We will be following this story.  Hope to see more questioning going on.  Why after all these years and a couple of interviews by law students and journalists are witnesses recanting?  Whats the real story?  The students and the journalists should come clean.  Once again - we've said it before - if there is nothing to hide, than there is nothing to worry about - or is there......

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In 2005, Maria Guzman filed a civil rights lawsuit against Chicago police officers claiming her home was illegally searches and she was unlawfully detained.  Police officers had a valid search warrant. The search warrant was for a single family residence.  After being in Guzman's home for twenty minutes, police officers realized that it was not a single family residence as it appeared from outside - so they left.  Defendants won summary judgment, but the case was reversed by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court held that the search was illegal because the officers should have known they were not in a single family home and left earlier.  

At her damages trial, Guzman claimed she was "emotionally distressed" by these twenty minutes. Guzman claimed police put her unborn baby into distress and caused her to have contractions when she was only thirty weeks pregnant. Guzman asked the the jury for thousands of dollars in "medical expenses" and unspecified damages for "emotional distress."  

The jury saw right through it all and came back in under two hours  with a $1 verdict for the "technical violation."

Mary McCahill, Anne Preston, and Tom Platt of the Corporation Counsel's Office represented the police officers.

Larry Jackowiak, Louis Meyer, and Adele Nicholas represented Guzman.

Another great result!!!  

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As previously reported,  lawyers for McKinney sought to distance themselves from the students who allegedly used improper influence - paying and flirting  - over witnesses to get them to give statements that would exonerate McKinney.  

According to news reports, A judge today accepted a request from a man convicted of a 1978 murder to drop much of the controversial evidence pointing to his innocence that was dug up by Northwestern University journalism students. Judge Diane Gordon Cannon agreed to drop the evidence from a motion for a new trial filed by Anthony McKinney. She asked that McKinney sign an affidavit stating he understood the consequences, explaining that he is being treated in a psychiatric ward....The judge in the case has not yet ruled on the subpoena, but Karen Daniel, McKinney's lawyer, has said the more important issue at hand is whether her client was wrongfully convicted. Daniel said she believed dropping much of the questioned evidence would render moot the subpoena, but prosecutors have disagreed. They say all the evidence being used in the battle to get McKinney a new trial was part of the Medill Innocence Project's investigation.

We agree - the entire investigation is at issue. What is Northwestern trying to hide? 

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In a recent court opinion, issued by United States District Court Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys in Bell v. City of Chicago, Chicago Police Department CR files were deemed protected from public disclosure. Judge Keys explained "the newly-amended FOIA expressly exempts from disclosure records relating to disciplinary adjudications." Section 7(1)(n) of the 2010 FOIA per se exempts from disclosure:  

Records relating to a public body's adjudication of employee grievances or disciplinary cases; however, this exemption shall not extend to the final outcome of cases in which discipline is imposed.

The Court explained that it need not address the "privacy considerations" of the officers because the 2010 FOIA trumps all.  As for the overstated contention that the "public's need to access the record outweighs any interest the Defendants may have in maintaining their confidentiality," Judge Keys cited language from the recent Seventh Circuit decision in Bond v. Utreras, where the Court explained “pretrial discovery, unlike the trial itself, is usually conducted in private.”

Geri Lynn Yanow of the Corporation Counsel's Office represents the defendants and Melinda Power represents the plaintiff

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On March 4, 2010, a federal jury exonerated a 10th District Chicago Police Department tactical team accused of anally searching a man named Byron Christmas and vaginally searching his girlfriend, Tiffany Banks. The lawsuit alleged that the police officers attempted to cover up the body cavity searches by planting evidence and maliciously prosecuting Mr. Christmas and Ms. Banks. According to the officers, Christmas and Banks were arrested after they were caught selling heroin in Chicago’s Southwest side community of North Lawndale. After two days of deliberation, the jury unanimously found in favor of the officers. The jury further rejected Christmas and Banks’ inflammatory claim that their infant was abandoned in an alley at the scene of the arrests.

Although 911 evidence linking Mr. Christmas to drug dealing was not presented to the jury, the plaintiffs’ story fell apart because Ms. Banks voiced no special concern about her baby when she met with a lawyer and a physician the evening of her arrest.

Mary Ann Spillane, Shneur Nathan and Jonathan Green of the Corporation Counsel's Office represented the Chicago Police Officers. Chris Smith, Ray Smith, and Robert Johnson represented Christmas and Banks. 

Way to go Corp Counsel!!!!!!

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