Georgia Garvey reports:
Two witnesses told investigators they were paid during a probe by Northwestern University journalism students into a 1978 shotgun slaying that the students believe unjustly sent a Harvey man to prison for life, prosecutors alleged Tuesday.
The witnesses told investigators with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office that they were given money in the hopes that their statements would help free Anthony McKinney convicted of murdering a security guard, prosecutors said in a court filing. The witnesses were identified as Tony Drakes and Michael Lane.
“This evidence shows that Tony Drakes gave his video statement upon the understanding that he would receive cash if he gave the answers that inculpated himself and that Drakes promptly used the money to purchase crack cocaine,” according to the filing.
Read more in The Chicago Tribune.
Well, those allegations, if true, might certainly put a slightly different complexion on a case originally reported here and here. But the professor in charge of the Innocence Project claims that the prosecutor’s filing is:
“so filled with factual errors that if my students had done this kind of reporting or investigating, I would have given them an F.”
We’ll have to wait and see as this unfolds.
Hat-tip, TechDirt.