Alvarez Agonistes: "60 Minutes" Had No Time for the Root of Its Interest in Anita Alvarez - David Protess

Under the spreading chestnut tree/I sold you and you sold me/.There lie they, and here lie we/ Under the spreading chestnut tree. Orwell's 1984

The Two-Minute Hate Drill was crafted by George Orwell in his novel 1984 - George was off by twenty-eight years.  These days the we get a heaping helping of the Two-Minute Hate Drill every day and no time off for Sunday. We have Hate Week cycles: We got Burge; we got Palin: We got Ryan; We got Blago; We got Charlie Sheen; We got Lindsays -Lohan and Graham; We got Joe Walsh: We got Chick Fil A; We got 1%-ers: We got Catholics and We always got Israel!  We have Vanecko and we now have the Random Judge!


My favorite Chicago reporter and one of the best in the business, Natasha Korecki reported this in today's Sun Times about the "60 Minutes" tune-up:

“We are appalled, absolutely, unequivocally appalled by the lack of information [in the ‘60 Minutes’ report],” Alvarez’s spokeswoman, Sally Daly, said. “They did not include information that is critical to this case. Anita spent an hour doing this interview. We were ensured that we were going to get a fair shake ... I didn’t expect that from ‘60 Minutes.’ She could have easily not done the interview. She stood up and explained the cases publicly.”
Daly said the piece failed to report key facts in the cases — the so-called Engelwood Four case and one in which a group of Dixmoor men’s cases were dismissed after they spent years in prison. That included some suspects pleading guilty and testifying against others before judges and juries.
“These cases were presented multiple times to judges and juries,” Daly said. “Our office did a very, very thorough, careful review of these cases. She found that there was not enough evidence.”

The object of the Two Minutes Hate Drill, or a Hate Cycle are determined by the needs of the agreed upon tautologists of the academic, legal, political  and journalistic interest complex: Progressive academic, clerics (UCC, Unitarian, atheist and secularists), elected officials, funding sources (Eychaner, Van Amerigen & etc.), and the cadres of lawyers and law professors in symbiotic solidarity with Medill fashioned editors and columnists. Their reach is national but most effective when pounded out locally.  E.G. David Protess' Innocence Project, rock-rooted on the campus of Evanston, Illinois' Northwestern University and buttresses by the MacArthur and Blum Centers for Law, has trained and sent forth the hundreds of journalists to CNN, Newsweek

Dave Protess no longer operates within the ivy of Northwestern, because Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvares out-ed Professor Dave as a phony and the university booted the Tweedy Fagin - The Chicago Tribune Company's Chicago magazine tried to parse Protess back into a good light: 

“That the university had seen fit to issue a one-sided, nasty, vituperative broadside against him in the form of that press release seemed to be a violation of trust, not only of the university’s relationship with David Protess as a faculty member but a breach of trust with us.”

Cubbage responds by saying that Protess forced the university’s hand. “Northwestern University generally does not discuss publicly actions regarding its faculty and staff,” he says in an e-mail. “However, statements in the media by Professor Protess and our desire to be as forthcoming as possible on an issue of great importance to the University, its faculty, our students, alumni and our community prompted us to make the statement.” . . .A few weeks later, an article by a Medill senior, Brian Rosenthal, appeared in The Daily Northwestern, questioning the reporting methods of Protess and his students. On the same day, a lengthy piece in the Chicago Tribune raised similar questions. Both articles cited two identical episodes (neither of them denied by Protess): that one of his students said she had misrepresented herself as a U.S. Census Bureau employee to learn the whereabouts of a potential source and that another had posed as a ComEd worker to help track down a witness.

Both incidents were contained in the Ferkenhoff report, according to sources. And Protess says Jenner & Block questioned him about both. When I asked Cubbage whether the report had been leaked, he responded, “The University has no knowledge as to whether the report was shared, other than it was not shared by the University’s Office of General Counsel or its outside counsel.” Rosenthal told me that he “had no direct contact with the so-called report.” The Tribune reporter, Matthew Walberg, declined to comment.

The stories could merely have been the result of increased scrutiny brought on by the controversy over Protess and the nature of the accusations against him. Whatever the case, the effect was palpable. Protess’s reputation, as well as his 30-year legacy, suffered a staggering blow. More than that, media attention had shifted away from outrage over Protess’s ouster and onto his and his students’ professional ethics.

Protess offered his defense: There’s a long tradition of reporters going undercover, including for a Pulitzer Prize–winning series in the Tribune in which the reporter William Gaines posed as a janitor to detail hospital abuses.

And several practitioners back him up. “As a longtime investigative reporter who also holds a doctorate and specializes in the history of investigative journalism, I can tell you this,” says the University of Maryland’s Feldstein: “Exposing wrongdoing is not easy. Powerful interests do everything they can to block such challenges to their authority. I can tell you that flirting with a source or paying a source’s cab fare is a routine practice among journalistic professionals, not even a misdemeanor compared to the literal felonies that Protess exposed.”

Others disagree with the practice of journalists misrepresenting themselves. “I don’t say I condone that, and it’s not what I do as a journalist,” says American University’s Lewis. “I always disclose who I am, and that’s how I conduct myself. [But] I also understand that this is a slightly gray area.” In the end, the point was moot. Protess was out. The damage was done—both to him and to the school. “It has a long-term effect that will take a long time for the institution to get over,” says Foster. “It’s one of those moments in the 90-year history of Medill, one of those chapters in the [university’s] history, that I think will remain heartbreaking.

”Not just heartbreaking, adds Leff. Ironic. “From the minute I heard about the Anita Alvarez subpoena, I felt that she set out to ruin David’s reputation and to derail the concept of the [Medill Innocence] Project. And I think she did a damn good job. And I think that, wittingly or unwittingly, the university played right into her hands.”

At the bottom of it all, the question still remains: Why would the university go to such great lengths to not simply reprimand Protess—or even push him out—but to publicly attack him, his work, and his integrity, to virtually excommunicate a man who had brought such renown to the school? (emphasis my own)

And that, boys and girls, was how Anita Alvarez was bumped to front of the line for Two Minute Hate and now in the Hate Cycle.

"60 Minutes" sent their hard hitting team to do a job on Cook County States Attorney Alvarez and they chatted up an Innocence Project talker from a its New York affiliate, Peter Neufield to dig up necrophilia in order to smear Alvarez, but not the hometown cabbie briber and Fagin Dave Protess.  Alvarez was set up and she is now a subject for the scorn of Zorn, the malice of Marin, and eggs of the editorial boards of both papers.

Alavarez was Bush-whacked. Given the editing, the snide and syrupy slurs of CBS 'Byron Pitts, Anita Alvarez did a commendable job with the 60 Minutes advocate. She held her ground and stated the case.

Ms. Alvarez fell afoul of the Medill/NorthwesternLaw/Lawsuit-Lotto Lawyer complex when she out-ed Chicago’s Fagin – David Protess – for the hypocrite-corner cutting phony that he is; causing Northwestern to deep-six him after years allowing The Wrongful Everything Gang to burnish the university’s reputation as Progressive Dreamworks and Hogwarts Illinois

Pulitzer Prize Winning Newsman William Crawford Seems to Have the Progressive "Justice" Industry Squirming

Ever since the Mumia/Burge/Innocence/Gotcha Medill/Lawsuit Lotto Lawyer collective began charging police officers, City, County, State and Federal Justice Systems with systemic race-based torture, false prosecution and intimidation via editorial board, no newsman has ever questioned the roots of the conglomerate formed to challenge arrests, investigations, prosecutions and incarcerations of career murderers, gang-bangers, arsonists and felons. Until now.

A conglomerate consisting of University based foundations like the MacArthur Center for Justice, the Center for Wrongful Convictions, the Medill School of Journalism, the Innocence Project, lawyers like G. Flint Taylor and Jon Loevy, the editorial boards of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times and iconic columnists have fed off of one anothers input, assent and agendas to undermine any and all confidence in American Justice and Law Enforcement and made millions of dollars for lawyers and their convicted felon clientele. They have exacted millions of dollars from tax-payers via settlements and judgments.

The Jon Burge saga was crafted over three decades of constant drum beats of electric shock, suffocations, burnings, beatings and games of Russian roulette upon black men. However no court has convicted any police officer for torture. Jon Burge was convicted of perjury after years of legal three-card-monte by G. Flint Taylor. The MacArthur Center for Justice's Locke Bowman* who was wildly unsuccessful in tagging Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan with torture charges, contributes a regular screed about Police racism, torture, abuse, intimidation and official cover-ups in the daffy pages of Chicago Huffington Post.

Now the onion seems to be getting peeled. Innocence Project Leader Prof. David Protess is exiled from the Medill classroom over charges of ethics violations and manipulation of student methods. One of David Protess's celebrated clients,Anthony Porter is the subject of William B. Crawford's investigation entitled Chimera.

The Chicago Reader, which for thirty years touted the contributions of John Conroy, if not the the Ahab of Jon Burge, certainly the harpoon tossed by G. Flint Taylor of the Peoples Law Office, offers the work of William Crawford for public reading:

William Crawford is a retired 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago Tribune investigative newsman. For the last few years, Mr. Crawford has studied the

Last month Northwestern accused Protess of repeatedly giving "false and misleading information" to university lawyers who were trying to deal with a subpoena from the Cook County State's Attorney's Office for certain Innocence Project documents. Dean John Lavine suspended Protess from teaching this quarter and then Protess went on leave to try to reestablish a new Innocence Project outside the university.

Besides Protess's troubles, Sotos has one more thing going for him he didn't have in 2006—an analysis of the Porter/Simon case by William Crawford, a retired Tribune investigative reporter. Crawford tells me he heard about the case, asked Sotos if he could look through the files, and wound up spending three months compiling a hundred-page narrative he calls "Chimera." He's e-mailed it to everyone in Chicago he thinks might possibly care—particularly journalists and Medill faculty. "Our purpose here," Crawford begins, is "to set the record straight [and] get that record in front of those men and women, in private and public office, who are in a position to begin at once the task of righting the colossal wrong that has taken place."

Crawford was able to get Sotos and himself a meeting this week with Bruce Dold, the head of the Tribune's editorial board. (" I can't say if we'll do anything with his research," says Dold.) Other than that—and, I suppose, the column you're reading now—he appears to have accomplished nothing and possibly done Simon harm.

Crawford did an "extraordinary job" of putting the case record into narrative form, Sotos tells me, yet "the level of abrasiveness he brings is counterproductive."

The most flagrant example of that abrasiveness I've seen is an e-mail Crawford sent John Lavine badgering him for a response to "Chimera." Crawford tells me neither Lavine nor Al Cubbage, Northwestern's vice president for university relations, reacted to repeated e-mails until Cubbage finally asked Crawford to leave him alone. Full of typos, Crawford's final e-mail to Lavine ended with this:

"You have a good night. And I will be in that courtroom when you take the shirt off your back and give it to Alstory. And you tell Protess, who threatened me, you tell him, not in your words but in mine that I will kick his ass right up through the openings in both his ear.s [sic]

"My writing, has been sent everywhere: U.s. atty., Madigan, cook county state's attorye, justice department, every editorial writer. It ain't going away. And again, my amigo will own you and your dip shit school."

Crawford admits, "I guess I got a little pissed. If they think they can sit in their ivory tower ten years later and not even acknowledge I'm asking legitimate questions, they're dealing with the wrong person. I'm going to employ the same set of standards they used."

Lavine didn't respond to my request for comment. Cubbage said "Chimera" had no impact on the university's case against Protess, and he personally didn't read it.

Crawford has also repeatedly e-mailed Protess. In March, Crawford spotted an unflattering story about Protess in the Tribune and decided to needle him. "I didn't get a copy of the Tribune this morning. May I borrow yours?" Crawford wrote. Protess responded, "Sure. Which address would you like to have Anthony Porter and his friends deliver it to?" and listed several addresses where Crawford has lived or worked—a flourish Crawford believes was meant to intimidate him.

Exclaims Crawford: "He spends 90 days convincing the world Porter is innocent, and when Protess seeks to exact revenge, it is Porter he is going to send!"

Protess calls his e-mail merely a "jocular counter punch" to a "creepy" e-mail Crawford had sent him a few days earlier:

Professor,

Question: You ever own a 94 Forest Green Infinity, four door, LP Lyd880

Have a nice night.

Call me, Sapphire, cuz the discovery is going to begin.

Protess says that after seeing the "physical threats" made in Crawford's e-mail to Lavine, he stopped responding to him.

Crawford tells me he actually regards Protess as a secondary figure in the Alstory Simon story. "Chimera" is a tale full of big shots—lawyers, state's attorneys, judges—who Crawford says collectively perfumed Porter and screwed Simon, and he wants them all held accountable. He even says his fear is that Protess has been so weakened by Medill that he will wind up taking the fall alone. "My guess is they can make a sacrificial lamb out of him and then stand up and tell the world, 'We've cured the cancer.'"

Since, according to Crawford, I was the only journalist to actually read his report and get in touch with him, he had high hopes that I'd become his champion. When I asked about his e-mails he sounded forlorn, as if his last shot at making a difference was slipping away. He responded with an e-mail that began, "A final appeal."

"I ask that your story does not become my e-mails. . . " he wrote. "Everyone has a copy of my report. They are all sitting on it, pretending it doesn't exist. And if no one acknowledges it, the hope is it will go away. . .

"I ask you on behalf of a man who deserves rehearing, please keep him in mind. . . . Please do not make Simon pay for my indiscretions."

As for Simon, if there's even half as much reason to think he confessed falsely (as Crawford and Sotos insist there is), he'd make an excellent case study for Protess's Innocent Project. Indeed, says Protess, "I was so interested in Sotos's claim that I had lunch at Ina's with him and [cocounsel] Terry Ekl to hear their side. Their story ultimately didn't add up, and a criminal courts judge agreed."

Sotos remembers the conversation. "We told him we thought in his zeal to free Anthony Porter—which was laudable, they didn't have that strong a case against him originally. They snared an innocent person. He got really defensive."

It is clear that the conglomerate of Progressive Justice Crusaders is squirming.

Keep peeling this onion, Mr. Crawford.


*

Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern
Director, MacArthur Justice Center

Locke E. Bowman joined the MacArthur Justice Center in 1992 and has handled a wide variety of civil and criminal litigation. His work focuses on cases involving police misconduct, compensation of the wrongfully convicted, rights of the media in the criminal justice system, and firearms control. He previously served as law clerk to Judge Hubert L. Will of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and was an associate at Mayer, Brown & Platt. He was also an assistant corporation counsel in the City of Chicago Law Department and a criminal defense lawyer at Silets & Martin before joining the center. Based on votes from fellow attorneys, Chicago Magazine named Bowman an Illinois “Super Lawyer” in 2005 and 2006 for his work in constitutional law and civil rights.

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8978152&postID=4775520044840949560

Northwestern Professor Protess , Our Tweedy Fagin of Medill

Fagin: Clever dogs, clever dogs. Never blowed on old Fagin.

David Protess:

Maybe the Chicago Innocence Project will be going great and I won't want to go back (to Northwestern) because of the hassle ... Maybe it won't succeed and I will want to go back. Or maybe I'll want to go somewhere else, go to some other university. All of my options are on the table.

Chicago Tribune Editorial April 9, 2011:

If Protess misled administrators and attorneys in this case—and it appears he did—what does that say about all those cases he has worked on with students? That question will linger at least until prosecutors and McKinney's lawyers resolve what happened in his case.

That day can't come soon enough.

Had Anita Alvarez caved to the limitless media enabling of Professor David Protess, the Fagin of Medill, all would be just dandy and it ain't. I have long suspected that David Protess was a later-day "kidsman." A Kidsman was a 19th Century recruiter of children for training and guiding pickpockets and cut-throats. The vicious Bill Sykes was one of Fagin's students. The Artful Dodger, who befriends the naive orphaned child of privilege Oliver Twist, is on his way to the next level of crime. Fagin beats and threatens his "children" with warnings of dire consequences for "peaching," or "blowing" on Fagin's activities.

The "children" are rewarded for doing Fagin's bidding.

When Anita Alvarez initially petitioned for Fagin Protess's student e-mails, notes and records pertinent to the McKinney case, the academic, journalistic and legal communities marshaled a formidable army of protest and calumnies leveled at Anita Alvarez.

CNN, Huffington Post, Salon, The New York Times, MSNBC, joined the Chicago Tribune editorial board in terming Cook County States Attorney Alvarez a Gestapo bully. A former Federal Judge, of dubious record and achievement, wrote frequent attacks on Alvarez and defences of Fagin Protess. Click my post title and view a few.

Most telling were the star Protess pupils, now rewarded with CNN, AP, and other blue-chip journalistic postings. The kids did alright by Medill, The Innocence Project and old Fagin himself -Professor Dave Protess.

The Innocence Project and Northwestern University have been besmeared by the very advocacy they demand - outcomes be damned. That is as old as John Dewey, the bespectacled avuncular father of generations of Progressive Fagins.

Fagin was the leader of gangs of children, in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, patterned on the historical 19th Century criminal Ickey Solomon of London.

What does American philosopher and granddad of American public education have to do with David Protess's Procrustean pedagogy? Plenty.

John Dewey holds that Inquiry is Truth - play, if you will, the root of the Laboratory Method in education that established the Lab School of University of Chicago - play long enough and arrive at the original point of inquiry.

The start of an inquiry is an indeterminate situation, usually coming from some practical matter ( convicted felon we want out of jail to raise a the larger issue of systemic failure of American Justice). The first step is to getting a clearer and more specific picture of the problem; the indeterminate situation becomes a “problematic situation”. The inquiry then proceeds by coming up with possible solutions to the problem That is, hypothesis that might help to act upon in the problematic situation. Evaluation then takes place; possible consequences of different solutions are considered, and by doing this the relative value of the solutions are estimated. The final test is when a solution actually is tried as a guide to action. The question of truth and falsehood come into play at this last stage of inquiry, and it is dependent on whether the consequences of acting upon the hypothesis under test are such that they resolve the problem and settle the indeterminate situation. Here, it is important to keep in mind the fundamental that role that Dewey ascribes to the indeterminate situation. It is our conceptions of this situation that guide the rest of the inquiry, and that determines how to evaluate and praise ideas and hypotheses. The indeterminate situation is the beginning of an inquiry, but also controls it throughout [p.207]. Coming back to the correspondence relation, it could be said to hold between the between the first and last stage of inquiry.

The opposite of John Dewey was the mathematician and philosophical historian Bertrand Russell whose rigorous methodologies eschewed "play" for study. Russell takes apart Dewey's playful assertions that begin and end in the very same place. Dewey, and his child Fagin Professor Protess "look" into the assertion that the American Justice System is flawed, because it is sytemnically and intrinsically racist, brutal, dishonest, lazy and corrupt - "What do you think, kids?"

Here is Bertarnd Russell's deconstruction of Dewey in summary by Swedish student of philosophy Björn Östbring:

His (Russell) version of the ( Dewey) correspondence theory is the classical one: the relation is between statements, propositions or beliefs to an independent reality, to empirical facts. A statement is true if what is referred to also posses the properties that the statement asserts. Dewey’s theory is obviously radically different from this, and in Russell’s view it does not even deserve to be called a correspondence theory. Russell’s description of Dewey’s whole theory of inquiry and truth is as follows (2): individuals engage in inquiry with the purpose of better interacting with their environment. In an inquiry, “assertions” are tools, and these assertions can be “warranted” to different degrees. The degree to which an assertion is warranted is determined by their ability to produce the desired results. During inquiry assertions can come to be replaced by better assertions, and sometimes they are the very means that lead to better assertions. The term “better” simply means that it produces more of the desirable results, lets us cope better with our environment, and hence “better” could basically be substituted with “more warranted”. An inquiry does not end; no assertion is the best for all times. The important point in this summary is that an assertion is warranted if it produces the desired results, and that the idea of truth thus loses its static and privileged nature.

Dewey and Protess begin inquiry with the conclusion and all the rest in between is just "play." What student would not rather play than work? Bertrand Russell's logical positivism is damned hard work.

Deweyesque inquiry is tailor made for a Fagin and advocacy journalism and education provides the charming "Master" with high moral ground and an embracing protective laissez faire attitude

Unlike the probity of Russell, the Dewey trained journalists, scholars, and academics will apply no further "inquiry" to other Fagins. Protess, now in disgrace with Fortune and Men's eyes will be an anomaly. A freak.

While the Medill engine will trot out more Heater cases and our Justice System will be further deconstructed in the advocacy playland that is John Dewey's Progressive America, David Protess will disappear into the shadows. Nothing to see here, folks! Inquiry? We don't need no stinkin' Inquiry! Right, Judge Stinky Sarokin?

Police, prosecutors, judges and juries will be villainized and criminals will always have much more benefits than doubts and greater Fagins than David Protess will threaten and reward more students - so long as they don't "peach," or "blow" to the cops.

Americans are fair-minded, but not really all that stupid. No one wants an innocent man punished, but no one wants any and all faith in our justice system destroyed by Fagins and an equally culpable media. We can thank States Attornney Alvarez for sticking to her guns during this entire shabby inquiry.

*

Fagin is described as "disgusting" to look at. He is the leader of a group of children, the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates among them, whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities in exchange for a roof over their heads. At the time of the novel, he is said by another character, Monks, to have already made criminals out of "scores" of children who grow up to live—or die—committing the same crimes as adults. Bill Sikes, one of the major villains of the novel, is hinted to be one of Fagin's old pupils, and Nancy, Sikes' girlfriend and sex worker clearly was.
Whilst portrayed as relatively humorous, he is nonetheless a self-confessed miser who, despite the amount he has acquired over the years from the work of others, does very little to improve the squalid lives of the children he takes in, allowing them to smoke pipes and drink gin "with the air of middle-aged men". In the second chapter of his appearance, it is shown, albeit when talking to himself, that he cares less about those children who are eventually hanged for their crimes and more about the fact that they do not "peach" on him and the other children

http://bjornostbring.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/dewey-vs-russell-on-truth/

Buried Ledes and The 'Wrongful' Conviction Industry

One cop that Jon Loevy likes

Steve Mandell leaves the Dirksen Federal Building in 2005 with his attorney Jon Loevy. | Sun-Times Media file photo

Unlike this crew, who have managed to completly avoid corporate and complicit media Inquiry altogether.

bury the lede

1. (idiomatic) (news writing style) To begin a story with details of secondary importance to the reader while postponing more essential points or facts. 

Lede - means The Man in Old English, interesting to note.

For years, I have written about the willful ignorance of politicians and the media that helped create Chicago's "Wrongful" Conviction Industry.  

Chicago is a Thug Comfort Zone thanks in large part to this Industry that benefits journalists, Marxist academics and unprincipled lawyers.  This Industry benefits very few people and was founded on wishful doctrine - John Dewey's replacement of Inquiry for Truth.  Begin with a premise like 'all police officers are paid racists, Uncle Tom Go-longs, or sadistic fascists operating for Systemic Racism' and any conviction even for the most horrific and bloody of acts can and will be tried in the media and over-turned.

Generations of Chicagoans have been emotionally, intellectually and spiritually water-boarded with the drip-drip-dripping yarns of electric testicle burners, Houses of Screams that no one but John Conroy seemed to hear, and sequestered testimony by disappearing boy scouts and of course Vietnam chestnuts.  Kids unborn when Officers Fahey and O'Brien were, in fact, tortured and murdered by the Wilson Brothers at 80th & Morgan deeply believe that Jon Burge tortured more Black persons than Idi Amin.

The Peoples Law Office, G. Flint Taylor, Jon Loevy, David Protess, Locke Bowman and Aaron Patterson are the founding founding fathers of Systemic Police Brutality and Wrongful Convictions, Llc.

Today, we learned, thanks to a public heads-up from police blog The Second City Cop, of the co-operation the law firm of Loevy & Loevy provided to a man hired to murder for the mob. SCC was required to dig the lede up that was buried deeply down page.

Former Chicago cop Steve Mandell took the stand in federal court Thursday to defend himself against charges he plotted multiple murders.
The risky move — rarely taken by defendants, especially in such a high stakes case — comes at the end of a two week trial at which jurors have heard how Mandell built a torture chamber on the Northwest Side, where he planned to extort, then kill a wealthy suburban businessman, and how he allegedly planned to kill an owner of Polekatz strip club and his wife.
But then this happened:
Mandell said he did “a little bit” of the spying he was being paid for, but was conning Michael by claiming to be doing more work than he was being paid for.
He said he used the computer databases and other tools at the civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy, where he was working as an unpaid process server, to research half a dozen targets Michael had asked him to keep tabs on.
That’s a potential embarrassment for the highly-regarded law firm, which represented Mandell in a 2005 wrongful conviction case against the FBI.
Really? Do tell. The Loevys helped him win a suit against the FBI that was later overturned. And the Loevys also have a habit of scoring large payouts in suits against the City. It certainly sounds like Mandell was hip deep in the shit that got him placed on Death Row once before.
Very interesting. (emphasis my own)

Credit Kim Jansenn of the Chicago Sun Times for providing the  Loevy & Loevy info. Perhaps some investigative jornalist might begin to dig deeper into the Industry and the complicity of academics, lawyers and elected officials in creating the Chicago Thug Comfort Zone.

More interestingly a young Chicago police officer, Martin Preib*, has book coming out this month that sheds light on the protected species of the Wrongful Conviction/Police Torture Industry.



New City Communications **offers a taste of Preib's painstaking research and sharp insights -

 . . . a disturbing vision of David Protess and the Innocence Project emerged, as well as of the wrongful conviction movement itself. In 2011, Protess was caught by Northwestern University “knowingly misrepresenting the facts” in a matter related to an unrelated wrongful conviction case. The attorney for Northwestern told a judge that Protess had altered emails subpoenaed by prosecutors. Protess brushed aside the assertion that he had altered evidence, saying it was just a misunderstanding, but it was enough for Northwestern to conduct its own internal investigation. After this internal investigation, Protess was fired from the university and the school issued a public statement acknowledging Protess’ wrongdoing. I exchanged many emails with Protess and some phone calls with Paul Ciolino when I first became interested in this story. But as my questions eventually revealed my skepticism about the Porter exoneration and the conviction of Simon, as well as the manner in which Protess ran the Innocence Project—which he continues to run to this day independent of Northwestern—Ciolino refused to respond to my inquiries. Eventually, Protess, too, stopped responding to me. How deep did Protess’ lying go? How badly were his cases tainted? Perhaps the best people to answer this question are detectives Salvatore and Gray, and Alstory Simon, who wastes away in prison to this day. “I got accused of a lot of things I didn’t do. There were lies said about me in this case. If they’re lying about me, who else are they lying about? What other detectives are they lying about?” Salvatore says. -

It may be a beginning.  Truth is much tougher to swallow than Inquiry.

*Martin Preib is a Chicago police officer and writer. His first book, “The Wagon and Other Stories from the City,” was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2010. His essays have been published in Playboy, Virginia Quarterly Review (winner of the 2005 Staige D. Blackford Award for Nonfiction) and Tin House.  His new book, “Crooked City,” will be available at Amazon.com this month. -

**Newcity.com is a Web site about Chicago. We start with the core coverage found each week in Newcity magazine, Chicago’s only locally owned and operated cultural weekly, where we’ve been covering the turf for more than 25 years, and extend it with your input on this site.  
**

Carol Marin's Controlled Damage on Anita Alvarez' 'Damage Control'

Anita Alvarez’s efforts at damage control keep generating more damage than control.. . . And I’m not referring to what sometimes appears to be her office’s excessive zeal in prosecutions of would-be critics of the criminal justice system. Like Northwestern students probing wrongful prosecutions. Or citizen watchdogs who attempt to audio-record police or public officials.  Carol Marin Goes Full-Medill on Anita Alvarez

Then of course, I must add probing wrongful prosecutions?????  Bribing is probing?

After the student paid the cabbie, the driver recorded the transaction in his log, today's filing states. Apparently suspicious that it was a drug deal or a sting, he wrote: "detective gave me 60, told me to give him 40, gave me 60... gave him change." The "him" refers to Drakes.

Seems like Professor Dave Protess and the Kids of the Innocence Project - in the zeal to free Mr. McKinney of course - engaged in a little Pay-to-Play, " "You be a Witness to Justice , Mr. Drakes, and You Keep the Change! Change You Can Believe In!". Hickey -11/10 2009: Shell Games Catches up to Professor Dave Protess - Innocence?

What to think!  Carol Marin gives Cook County States Attorney, who was punk'd by 60 Minutes and refused to lie down again with flea-bitten newsies, one of her patented 'You Go, Carol!' haymakers right in the old snot-locker! . . . Well, near her schnoz . . .within a few feet . . .nearby. . . . same Zipcode. Anyway. Carol Marin tried to drag the WLS socko-tag team of Danny Proft and Bruce Wolf into the range of her air-punches with a Marinade of scorn for this 'Alvarez Damage Control.'

What I am talking about is Alvarez’s amazing — not in a good way — interview last Wednesday on WLS-AM in which radio hosts Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft asked about the 2004 death of David Koschman, who was struck, according to police, by Richard “R.J.” Vanecko, the nephew and grandson of two mayors named Daley.
Anyone who has followed this story knows neither the Chicago Police nor the Cook County state’s attorney’s office (where, at the time, Alvarez was third in command) displayed what could be described as zeal investigating this 2004 “heater” case.
Wolf and Proft asked why it had to take 8½ years and the appointment of Special Prosecutor Dan Webb to finally charge Vanecko? . . .Police and prosecutors are not known for their politeness when it comes to charging a case. Prosecutors can override the cops and charge anyway. And police top brass can go over the head of reluctant prosecutors. . . . Any other reason there were no charges back in 2004? Alvarez’s answer to this question is much, much worse.David Koschman’s mother, she said, didn’t ask.“I feel horrible for Mrs. Koschman that she lost her only child,” said Alvarez. “It’s a tragedy. It’s horrific that she has to go through that.”

But?

“But there was no contact with her and our office demanding this be charged,” said Alvarez.

         I can only imagine an incredulous radio audience.

Shoot, Carol, I remain credulous to that answer because Ms. Alvarez answered both Bruce and Dan (@ 14;23 on the broadcast) that from 2004 until Tim Novak ran a story on the Koschman/Vanecko Incident and Death of David Koschman in 2011there was no outrage and demands for inquiry let alone justice.  Sadness, loss, personal grief to be sure for a mother whose only child died in a senseless brawl, but from 2004-2011 there was no public outrage.  

Now, that is incredible. And so is this- Carol Marin seems to believe that it was she and not Chicago Sun Times Investigative Newsman Tim Novak exhumed the the sad story of the late David Koschman. The fact is the city's most tenacious and honest investigative pit bull Tim Novak, unearthed the saga while investigating extended and immediate Daley Family connections to sewer contracts and other things - I believe that in law that is called discover.

The booze-fueled incident, subsequent death and burial of young Mr. Koschman took place in 2004.  Tim Novak dug up the details with a request for a police report, which he received from Chicago Police Department records in 2010 - that was six years after the death and burial.

The year before, Anita Alvarez requested information of the Medill School Journalism pertaining to e-mails and notes of the students of David Protess in the McKinney wrongful conviction drama.  This caused no end of outrage from CNN who hired several of Protess' students from the very case, the Huffington Post and the connected ink-slinging hair-pins local, state and national.  They even trotted out a retired Federal Judge with a very odd CV -to accuse Cook County States Attorney Alvarez of using Gestapo tactics on poor old Dave Protess and his minions. The Headline Club of Chicago issued a scathing rebuke of Alvarez and thundered and woe-be-tied ed up a storm.

However, even Northwestern University which harbors the Medill School of Journalism and docked David Protess's dinghy for years, was forced to axe that cable and cut Professor Dave adrift.

Dave buoyed up as Chicago Innocence Project of the big NYC based Innocence Project International! Medill connects people to good paying gigs - CNN, NYT, & 60 Minutes etc. Talk about a code of silence!  They can silence Gabby Hayes and get Marcel Marceau to canary-up with that power of the media.

Carol Marin is no Medill-ian  herself- she is a U of I grad.  However, following her rather silly Jerry Springer wilderness years landed Carol a gig with 60 Minutes to hitch up with her WTTW and Sun Times and back to NBC 24/7 visibility.  Solid. (these are some cut-outs in my Anita Alvarez scrapbook). Here's a peach, from December 2, 2010 - 

One of the cottage industries that has eroded any and all faith in our Justice System is the Lawsuit Lottery. The Lawsuit Lottery was invented by radical lawyers and assaults police officers, prosecutors, judges and city, county and municipal governments in defense of convicted murderers and career criminals by tugging at the heartstrings attached to our American sense of fair play.The gambit is always the same -

         A. A murderer was convicted of a horrific crime because,

                   B. A prosecutor hid evidence in defense of Systemic Racism

C. A Corrections Official tortured, abused and denied basic civil rights to whole bunch of copyrighted Minorities -usually many black men- while they awaited trial.

D. A convicted murdered can only be freed and given Justice by kids taught by Professor Dave Protess of the Medill School of Journalism as part of the Innocence Project.

Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez smelled the same stink that many newspaper readers found wafting through their senses as the endless parade of G. Flint Taylor Burge Bonanzas and Professor Dave Protess Atticus Finch Productions blared from the front pages and spilled into the evening news shows. Now, we learn, via the e-mails that the Cook County Prosecutor Anita Alvarez has stoically demanded that Professor Dave turn over, that Professor Dave Protess, the too much lionized leader of the Medill Innocence Project, tosses "Treats" to obtain the intended outcome of Innocence, where the Justice System had declared Guilt.No American wants an innocent man to suffer an injustice and the Hegelian Progressives use that sentiment to make millions of dollars and careers for future Katie Courics. Triple figure cab fare, a few few Iron Hotel visits by NIU college cuties . . .nothing seems too costly in the purchase of the intended outcome. That is pure John Dewey flavored Hegelianism.It seems the wheels are off of Professor Dave Protess's Snake-oil Wagon -

It sure seems to me, as one who reads the papers, listens to the news and generally remembers things, that Anita Alvarez as Cook County States Attorney incurred the Medill Media rath-universal when she dared to demand the notes and e-mails that exposed Professor Dave Protess as a hypocrite publicity hound and tweedy Fagin who trained phalanxes of journalist who embrace his ethics.

It also seems to me that a herd of practiced jackals who bound after wounded gazelle's only hardly seem worthy of emulation.   Let's try and remember that Tim Novak broke this sad saga when he was digging after connections in a family sewer scam and blood is always sexier than sewage.

Cook County States Attorney is getting hammered because she out-ed a hypocrite.  Carol Marin is only doing what Medill Industries requires and this applying Controlled Damage upon one who crossed them -Anita Alvarez.

2011 -Jan. 4: Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak requests the Chicago police reports from the Koschman investigation through the Freedom of Information Act. Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Timeline-David-Koschman-RJ-Vanecko-Richard-Daley-181887991.html#ixzz2FDuOoW7f  

Professor Dave Protess's "Treats" for "Innocent" Murderers

One of the cottage industries that has eroded any and all faith in our Justice System is the Lawsuit Lottery. The Lawsuit Lottery was invented by radical lawyers and assaults police officers, prosecutors, judges and city, county and municipal governments in defense of convicted murderers and career criminals by tugging at the heartstrings attached to our American sense of fair play.
The gambit is always the same - a murderer was convicted of a horrific crime because

A. Systemic Racist police officer ( black, white, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander) tortured, abused and denied basic civil rights to a copyrighted Minority - usually a black man - in order to close a case.

B. A prosecutor hid evidence in defense of Systemic Racism

C. A Corrections Official tortured, abused and denied basic civil rights to whole bunch of copyrighted Minorities -usually many black men- while they awaited trial.

D. A convicted murdered can only be freed and given Justice by kids taught by Professor Dave Protess of the Medill School of Journalism as part of the Innocense Project.

Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez smelled the same stink that many newspaper readers found wafting through their senses as the endless parade of G. Flint Taylor Burge Bonanzas and Professor Dave Protess Atticus Finch Productions blared from the front pages and spilled into the evening news shows. Now, we learn, via the e-mails that the Cook County Prosecutor Anita Alvarez has stoically demanded that Professor Dave turn over, that Professor Dave Protess, the too much lionized leader of the Medill Innocense Project, tosses "Treats" to obatin the intended outcome of Innocense, where the Justice System had declared Guilt.

No American wants an innocent man to suffer an injustice and the Hegelian Progressives use that sentiment to make millions of dollars and careers for future Katie Courics. Triple figure cabfare, a few few Iron Hotel visits by NIU college cuties . . .nothing seems too costly in the purchase of the intended outcome. That is pure John Dewey flavored Hegelianism.It seems the wheels are off of Professor Dave Protess's Snakeoil Wagon -

CHICAGO, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Northwestern University's Medill Innocence Project arranged a visit from a female student as a "treat" for a prisoner, prosecutors allege.

Illinois prosecutors say the visit and a possible offer of unspecified promises were made before the prisoner recanted his testimony in a 1993 murder and armed robbery case, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

Authorities produced three memos and an e-mail sent by students of Northwestern journalism professor David Protess to an attorney representing convicted murderer Armando Serrano, who is seeking a new trial.

The memos include suggestions that Francisco Vicente, who testified against Serrano but later recanted to the students, was upset that a private detective who works with Protess failed to make good on unspecified "considerations."

The e-mail, sent by a student investigating the Serrano case, said a female former student agreed to join a visit to Vicente in prison after he requested her presence.

Dangling a girl infront of a locked-up gent,Professor Dave?

Well, that is all part of the magical world of Hegalian Dialectic that dominates academic methodology - Truth is mutable. As that old Vermont Sap John Dewey said,

Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart's desire.

If Professor Dave and the Kiddies in his charge really want convicted murderers to be innocent men, well they will by golly be just that . . .with the help of Lawsuit Lottery Lawyers, gutless politicians, and really goofy journalists.

The Medill Onions Get Dave Protess Peeled - It's A Start

No one wants an innocent person punished, unless one is nuts.  One can be nutty enough to play act the role of Atticus Finch and Che Guevara in one costume : The Ambulance Chaser Revolutionary Journalist.  That is the situation facing the Innocence Project's former Wildcat Fagin - Professor Dave Protess, of the Huffington Post.

David Protess is to journalist academician, as G. Flint Taylor is to altruist attorney, in my simple helot's opinion.

For almost thirty years, Protess and the Torture industry's ambulance chasers( Loevy & Loevy/ Locke Bowman/ G. Flint Taylor et al)  have done to the American justice system, what Jeffery Anderson attempted to do to the Roman Catholic Church complete;y undermine faith and confidence in its institutions.  Their labors could never have been accomplished without active complicity of the media - newspapers and television.  Knowing that a few bad apples can spoil the whole barrel,  these radical capitalists scattered fruit and burned the lathe and cooper's rings.

Chicago's epidemic homicide rate is given the same level of concern as the weather,  "Outlook Bloody for next few days with a storm murder expected over the weekend."  Everyone complains about the murderers, but no one seems willing to do anything about the tweedy creeps who spring them and make them Lawsuit Lotto winners.

Accepting Burge as the next best thing to Heinrich Himmler is as common as acknowledging Jane Addams as the Father of Labor.  I belong to nether camp.  I am older than Burge Mytholgy acolytes and I personally know the family of the Wilson Brothers who seemed to have not only tortured and murdered Officers O'Brien and Fahey, but created, though uncredited of course, the Torture Industry and burnished the reputations of the Innocence Project dilettantes.

About two years ago, I received an e-mail from Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago Tribune reporter Bill Crawford (ret.), which praised my amateurish efforts to at least have some reporter, any media person, to question the narrative of 'the systemic racist police brutality culture and the electric testicle zapper.'  Bernardine Dohrn was the first person who opined that Commander Burge, a decorated Vietnam baby-killing military policeman, might . . .might mind you, have learned torture techniques including the hand cranked nut zapper, when she took her post at Northwestern.  Dorhn's compelling hypothetical was repeated,  reprinted and reified in Sasha Abramsky's Mother Jones article, as well as every syllble written by John Conroy and gradually artificially reconstructed and admitted in court.

Here's Bill Crawford:



(compiled by Martin Preib
HT-Second City Cop

This week, The Chicago Reader, which had an active hand in crafting not only the Burge mythology, but also the media apotheosis of Prof. Dave Protess, offered the first genuine scrutiny of Protess and his works.

Call me crazy, but the reactions of readers of Michael Miner's column seems to signal shifting of templates beneath the Florsheims of Protess and also the Torture Industry.

We can handle the truth. It would be nice to read some in the near future.

Crawford Has Innocence Project's Protess Media Pals Copping Pleas

The big onion, that is the Innocence Project's David Protess and his methods, is peeling away. More so the choir Protess not only preaches to, but writes the libretto for, Chicago's media seem to be hiding or copping a plea.

Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader, a pioneer news organ that has made challenging investigations, arrests, interrogations, indictments and convictions of every African American career criminal over the last three decades its centerpiece-even maintaining the canon of John Conroy (no longer working for The Reader) on its main page, presented the work of Pulitzer Prize winning newsman William Crawford - Chimera.

Chimera takes a second look at the role of Protess, Innocence Project and the Chicago Media in its crusade to free violent recidivist criminal Anthony Porter at the cost of Alstory Simon's freedom.

David Protess was 'relieved' of duties with his thirty year post as director of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Innoncence Project, over ethics issues concerning his direction of student investigators.

Eric Zorn, a Protess acolyte, has an interesting comment on yesterday's article by Mike Miner. Miner, himself, appears to copp a plea having been a devout Innocence project choir boy now appearing to help peel the Protess onion.

Why is Crawford so sure Porter is guilty and Simon innocent? His analysis relies far too much on pugnacity and sarcasm to persuade anyone else half as much as it's persuaded him. But he does give us reason to think the original case against Porter might have been stronger than anyone who knows of the case only by its reputation supposes — and that Protess’s team of investigators (most of them students) did a rather superficial job of looking into it.

But Crawford’s strongest argument is implied: Porter is guilty because Simon is innocent. And in trying to get readers to accept the idea that Simon would confess to a murder he didn’t commit, Crawford accuses the Innocence Project of manipulation and misrepresentation — the kind of tactics Protess is now being held accountable for, as in this long article in Thursday’s Tribune, and this one in Wednesday’s Daily Northwestern.

Oh, heavens! Not pugnacity and sarcasm? Sarcasm? Personally, I think that sarcasm flavors the sauce that has been poured on the facts that manage to find their where into print in Chicago.

Crawford offers much more - real analysis and actually journalistic leg-work, as opposed to a chatty call over to the Medill School for some copy.

Crawford describes, largely in Simon’s words, a visit to Simon’s home in Milwaukee by Paul Ciolino, a private investigator for the Innocence Project. Crawford writes:

.Barely conscious, Simon was awakened from his stupor around 6:30 a.m. by two men, armed with guns, who identified themselves as ‘police investigators’ from Illinois. They accused Simon of having murdered two individuals years ago in Chicago’s Washington Park.
The uninvited guests [Ciolino and an assistant] told Simon that Inez [Jackson], his ex-wife, and "other witnesses" had signed statements alleging that Simon had indeed committed the murders. Despite protestations from Simon that the two men were "crazy" and that they leave his house at once, Simon said the two so-called police investigators then slapped a video into a portable player. As the tape rolled, a black male appeared on the screen, claiming to have been a witness to the Washington Park murders. The unidenfied man — who much later would be found to have been an actor hired and scripted by Ciolino — said Simon was the triggerman.

Simon’s intruders then piled on. After playing the video and producing a copy of Inez’s signed affidavit, and that of her nephew, Walter Jackson, and others also incriminating Simon, Ciolino pulled a pink rabbit out of a black hat. The private eye glanced into a mirror hanging on Simon’s wall and spotted a news report flashing across Simon’s TV, which was otherwise not viewable. The TV was turned to Milwaukeee’s CBS station, which was broadcasting a news report in which Inez is seen asserting that Simon had committed the murders…

The surreal, outrageous events unfolding around Simon that morning, in his own home, triggered a well of fear within.

“Ciolino kept tell me that they had all the evidence they needed to convict me. That I was going to go down for these murders and end up on Death Row, and there was nothing I could do about it. After seeing this story on TV, I was no longer just angry, I was scared to death. For the first time, I believed that I was actually going to be charged with committing the murders,” Simon stated in a sworn affidavit.

Now the icing on the cake. Ciolino told Simon that all Protess wanted was to free Porter, that when Porter got out, millions of dollars would be flying around from book deals, Hollywood movies and the like. And Simon would be sharing in the largesse. Simon had to move quickly, however, because Chicago police were on their way to Milwaukee at that very moment to arrst Simon and return him to Chicago in chains to face the music.

“He [Ciolino] convinced me that he was actually trying to help me by giving me a way out before the police got to my house to arrest me. He said that if I gave a statement saying I did the crimes in self-defense, that he would get me a free lawyer, that the professor would make it so I would only have to serve a short time in prison, and that when I got out, I’d be taken care of financially and would not have to work again,” Simon alleged.

If Simon agreed and confessed, Ciolino promised Simon that a Chicago lawyer, a veteran member of the defense bar by the name of Jack Rimland, would take Simon’s case. And Rimland would take it free of charge. Simple as pie.”

And Simon, who’d been insisting on his innocence, eventually “caved.”

To underscore his account, Crawford quotes from a laudatory 2002 Chicago magazine profile of Ciolino by Bryan Smith. Here’s Smith’s account of Ciolino’s showdown with Simon:

Ciolino has been threatened with subpoenas and indictments more times than he can count by people who make their living finding reasons to throw people in jail. As a result, he knows he has to do everything by the book.
He danced close to the edge in the Porter case in getting Alstory Simon, the suspected real killer, to confess to the murder.

Showing up unannounced at Simon's house in Milwaukee, Ciolino said that he was a private investigator and that he had a videotape of a witness who said Simon had committed the Washington Park murders. The "witness" was actually an employee of Ciolino's. Watching the bogus video, Simon remarked, "Man, that guy wasn't there. He ain't no witness."

'Yeah?" Ciolino shot back. "How do you know that if you weren't there?" At that point, recalls Ciolino, "he looked at me like, 'Why did I open my mouth?"' Afterwards, Ciolino convinced Simon that if he confessed on tape, things would go easier for him. "We just bull-rushed him, and mentally he couldn't recover," Ciolino says.

So there was a phony videotape of a “witness” to the murders. And as my article mentions, Simon did wind up with Jack Rimland as an attorney. And he got 37 years not two.

So was Crawford wrong about any part of this encounter?

Ciolino calls it a “fairy tale.”

There was no mention of two years, no mention of a movie deal, he says. Simon asked for the name of a lawyer and Rimland was one of three names Ciolino gave him. The CBS newscast, which Crawford suggests was a setup, was “just dumb luck.” But it was because Inez Jackson had confessioned on TV the night before that Ciolino visited Simon early the next morning. “You go late at night or early in morning. If I’m up there at noon, [by then] Inez has a couple of bullet holes in the back of her head,” Ciolino says.

He tells me he happened to run into Simon in prison years later. Simon thanked him for doing him a favor. “I’m out of here in 15 years [with good behavior],” Simon said. Ciolino says to me, “Porter was going to be smoked! Somebody think Rimland did a bad job for him!” He goes on, “I’ll tell you what I’ll tell anyone else. If anyone thinks I’d tell a lie for Anthony Porter they don’t know anything about me. I’ve yet to meet the guy I’m willing to fall on my sword for. I didn’t care about Anthony Porter particularly as a person. It was all about what happened. And there was no way Anthony Porter committed that murder. Alstory did that murder, there ain't no question about it.”

I should add one thing. Paul Meincke of Channel Seven visited Simon in prison back in 2006 and reported that Inez Jackson now claimed “she was coached and coaxed into fingering her husband with promises of money from future book and movie deals on the Anthony Porter story. As for Simon himself, Meincke tells me today that he came away from Simon’s cell “with the distinct impression he could have been telling the truth. He seemed to be fairly genuine.” Meincke says a photographer with him had the same reaction.

Here is Eric Zorn's reaction:

Eric Zorn:
Simon's multiple admissions, apology to the victims, etc. make it hard to credit the idea that he was simply acting to go along with some scheme, but, as I wrote (and as you noted I wrote) it would have been better for Simon to have gone through the plea process with a lawyer who had no ties whatever to those with a stake in the outcome of the Porter case. Just seems like common sense. As does, by the way, my suggestion to Simon and his new attorneys that they release Jack Rimland from any bonds of attorney/client privilege so he, Rimland, can tell us his version of this story.
One last thing -- I reiterate my suggestion to Mike Miner that his blog also contain his columns. It seems perverse and very 20th century to separate them.

Posted by Eric Zorn on May 6, 2011 at 5:33 PM | Report this comment

Most flavorful

Judge H. "Stinky" Lee Sarokin is Back Doing Medill Bidding and Wrong from the Headline

Judge H. "Stinky" Lee Sarokin is a retired East Coast Federal Judge who quit amid a cloud twenty years ago for sunny Californ-eyeAy!

Judge Sarokin was the the legal-air-freshener for all Stinky Jurors and Library Card Holders back in the day. Hence my sobriquet -that and Judge Stinky* is doing hack work for the Medill Empire and the Greek Pastry Arianna Huffington at Huffington Post. Hey, why not pick up a few nickels!

Here's the deal Professor Dave Protess a Progressive Sacred Cow stepped on his ethical Johnson, or rather bid his Kids to do the stepping by bribing (it seems) crack-head Witnesses for the Prosecution's Overturn in the Andrew McKinney Case.

Andrew McKinney is an Innocence Project pet-Convict - McKinney was convicted of murdering a security guard -Professor Dave and Kids Demand that McKinney is Innocent, because the Innocence Project has adopted McKinney. Professor Dave Protess is a Scared Cow in a Herd of Scared Cows - Medill Empire -Northwestern Law and School of Journalism.

Walp! Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez did not roll-over and 'accept' Protess Protestations of McKinney Innocence. In fact Alvarez asked for Discovery Items - student notes and other such stuff. Judge Stinky Lee Sarokin has labeled States Attorney Alvarez a Gestapo thug. A bit strong there Stinky . . .well, you are Okay with strong.

Protess and be Damned!

The Medill Empire goes Jihad on any and all critics and has trotted out an endless parade of Protess Protestors including Judge Stinky and the Editorial Board of the Medill rival Sun Times who have manged to get that paper as close to closed as possible.

Judge Stinky Sarokin is a howl. Here is his headline from Huffington Post:
Voila!
Cook County Prosecutor Continues to Investigate Students for Trying to Free an Innocent Man

Nope. That is not why, nor is she investigating the Kids, Stinky.

She, Alvarez, subpoenaed their notes and academic records for Professor Dave's class; now, Dave had them act like Private Investigators (P.I.s) and argues that they are journalists and Medill's lawyer managed to insult the judge in the case and it was revealed that the kids appear to have bribed a witness.

Not only did Stinky paste up a dead-wrong headline but his last paragraph is what the non sequitur is all about!

The Medill Innocence Project was successful in exonerating 11 inmates and the Illinois governor cited those wrongful convictions in commuting the sentences of everyone on death row. One can understand that the prosecutor's office might be embarrassed as a result by the efforts of a bunch of journalism students, but such embarrassment does not warrant a vendetta against them. ( really?)The prosecution should join in the righting of wrongful convictions not be investigating the students engaged in the effort, no matter what their personal motives may be. ( Follows Whta?)If they get a good grade for freeing an innocent person, they deserve it. Right now the prosecution is flunking. (Participle Dangling? The Flunking Presecution? Flunking Science? Flunking Broadway. . .Do The Flunking Broadway?)

Medill. Protess and the Innocence Project do not smell too good at this point -Sacred Cows or not - but Judge Stinky thinks that it is Chanel # 5!

*On June 5, 1996, Sarokin announced that he would resign outright from the Third Circuit, effective July 31, 1996.[10] Sarokin cited his fear that his opinions from the bench might be used politically. "It is apparent that there are those who have decided to 'Willie Hortonize' the Federal judiciary, and that I am to be one of their prime targets," he wrote in a letter to President Clinton. "In the current political campaign, enforcement of constitutional rights is equated with being soft on crime and indeed, even causing it."[10]

In a separate letter to colleagues, Sarokin denied that his decision to retire had had anything to do with the court's decision not to allow him to move his chambers to California.[10]

Professor Dave Protess -Innocence Project or Blair Which Project?

Last night the State of Virginia executed a monster. Ironically enough the sniper-serial killer John Allen Muhammad - the Beltway Sniper was covered by Life Coach and former Journalist Jayson Blair.

Blair made more mistakes in his reports than the number of people who firmly believe that there is a steam heater (used to torture poor black men) in Area 2 Police Headquarters on East 111th Street. That's alot of mistakes.

Only a very few years ago the Medill Empire went to war on Sheriff Mike Sheahan. When the MacArthur Center for Justice teamed with the Medill Empire ( Tribune journalists/Chicago Magazine Medill School of Jornalism/Bernardine Dorhn & etc.) to PROVE that Sheriff Micahel Sheahan brutalized prisoners at Cook County Jail, it took a jury less than twenty minutes to tood all charges. Sheriff Sheahan quipped "Tribune Investigative Journalism is BS."

Medill Professor Dave Protess, an icon in the Justice Industry, seems to have wildly overplayed his hand in the controversy surrounding the McKinney Gambit. The McKinney Gambit holds that the Innocence Project has sanctified his cause and therefore he must be set free.

Hold on there, Professor Dave! Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez requested that all students involved in this project turn over notes and that their records be admitted as discovery items.

Howl! Howl! Howl! The Medill Empire went on full boil

1. CNN:
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.

2. Retired Federal Judge Sarokin in Huffington Post .

But I truly believe that the attempt of prosecutors to subpoena "the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of their journalism students themselves" at Northwestern University warrants and deserves the Gestapo label.

3.The Chicago Headline Club of the Society of Professional Journalists

The Chicago Headline Club, a chapter of the national Society of Professional Journalists, strongly protests the subpoenas issued by the state's attorney's office. The club issued this statement:

"The Headline Club believes Alvarez should rescind the subpoenas and stop pressuring Medill Innocence Project students to reveal all of their notes, recordings, e-mails and even grades given. Instead, her office should use what they have already from Medill students as a basis for their own further investigation. We recommend applause for the students' efforts to protect the innocent."

4. Daily Protess Protestations of Purity in the Chicago Tribune/WGN/& etc.

Until yesterday. Now it seems that Dave Protess and the Innocence Project were doing Procrustean Investigations - All the News That Fits.


Two witnesses were paid it appears, $40, or $50-$100. Cab Fare or Crack Cash it matters not. Here's some money tell our truth.

States Attorney Anita Alvarez called the bluff of a Sacred Cow in a herd of Scared Cows and the lowing of the cattle will only get more deafening.

This whole issue just may prove to be a Jayson Blair Which Project - journalism and lawsuit lotto lawyering where the facts are fabricated to fit the agenda.

I am cynical. We will see if I am wrong.

Virginia did a great service to America in putting a monster down. There is another such monster in Cleveland. There are many monsters for Professor Dave to service.

However, thanks to Anita Alvarez, the Justice System will be a little more wary of the Innocence Projects.

Shell Games Catches up to Professor Dave Protess - Innocence?

After the student paid the cabbie, the driver recorded the transaction in his log, today's filing states. Apparently suspicious that it was a drug deal or a sting, he wrote: "detective gave me 60, told me to give him 40, gave me 60... gave him change." The "him" refers to Drakes.

Seems like Professor Dave Protess and the Kids of the Innocence Project - in the zeal to free Mr. McKinney of course - engaged in a little Pay-to-Play.

"You be a Witness to Justice , Mr. Drakes, and You Keep the Change! Change You Can Believe In!"

The Medill Empire encompasses Northwestern Law and Schools of Journalism and they work very well and nicely with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.

Americans love to root for Innocent Men Falsely Accused/Tortured/Disrespected/Hookwinked/Bamboozeled/Bewitched/ Bothered and Bewildered - we do, honestly we do.

However, given the thick padding American Justice gives to the accused it sometimes might be a stretch to find a really innocent man. The more Innocent men the more news it will be and the more funding for pet projects like the Innocence Project.

Every young law student harbors the dream of being this Century's Darrow - the Lawyer of the Damned. There are no Clarence Darrows. There are only the balsa wood imitations like G. Flint Taylor.

Thus, I have a tough time soiling my boxers when the Tribune fulminates against Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez in her rather respectful demand that Professor Dave Protess, an insulated Professor at Northwestern University whose work on behalf of career criminals looking to get out of prison has been most newsworthy and celebrated, cough up the Discovery material - it seems Professor Dave may have let it be known that grades might be attached to convictions overturned by the Kids. Professor Dave gets crowds to hush at the sound of his name - he is such an on-the-level-straight- shooting- Justice Samurai.

Until now. Hokey-pokey! Cab Cash!

It sure looks like States Attorney Alvarez caught Professor Dave with his Innocence down around his ankles.

Officials with the state's attorney's office also said there could be a bias on the part of students seeking better grades by finding more witnesses.

Northwestern and its attorneys respond by saying the investigation should be treated as one conducted by journalists. They said the county already has all on-the-record information, including interviews and copies of audio and video tapes.

I wonder if Judge Stinky Sarokin will continue treating us with his Cook County States Gestapo pieces.

Blood on the Streets of Chicago - Everyone knows Why; No One is Telling the Truth, But The Good Police

That's right, Officer; only people in blue shirts and checker banded hats have your back.

I know many Chicago Police Officers, black, white, yellow and brown.  They are my neighbors and they protect me and the students I serve in one of Chicago's most active killing grounds: Gresham. They are brave, witty, professional and patient.  I have watched them run down streets in Gresham and Englewood towards gunfire that is never "police" shootings.  I have heard them tell about the oddities and frustrations and politics of the job with rhetorical flourishes that embarrass a Metaphysical Poet, 

I have sat with them when a young black teenager explained how the GDs, or the Stones harassed, threatened, robbed and beat them for book bags, cell hones, or change.  I have talked with them about the mistreatment meted out Daley, Aldermen, Rahm, Alderman, Jesse Jackson, Pastor Pfleger, Andy Shaw, Mark Brown, Carol Marin, Eric Zorn, Neal Steinberg, John Conroy,  Dan Placko, G. FLint Taylor, Jon Loevy, Locke Bowman, the Blum Center for Justice and MacArthur Center for Justice and they shrug and say, " They give us way too much credit for being crafty, vicious and mean. Hell we are just not that smart. Most of us went into the Service (military) and not Northwestern after Mendel, Loyola, Mount Carmel, Harper."

Then I read about the Chicago Police in the Chicago Tribune and the Sun Times, watch Phil Ponce on WTTW and I ask myself, " Where are all of these racist Mymidons hiding?"

Actually, I do not really ask that question.

Chicago is a Thug Comfort Zone.  It was created by Thugs, of course, but also Peoples Law Office, Bernardine Dorhn, Shasha Abramsky, G. Flint Taylor, Dave Protess, the Center for Wrongful Convictions, The Bluhm Legal Clinic, the editorial Boards of both news papers, the MacArthur Foundation, The Woods Fund, Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago City Council, Governor Pat Quinn, the Illinois Legislature, Attorney General, Lisa Madigan and all of our social justice activists across this the town.

Jon Burge is the face of the police.  Most critics of Jon Burge were not alive during his time on the police force, but free-lance writer John Conroy married the Bernardine Dorhn narrative of Vietnam War born methods and racist methodologies to the court briefs of Peoples Law Office G. Flint Taylor back in the late 1980's.  A sexy story with a beefy red-faced cop bulldozed legal and law enforcement procedures and practises off the streets and into the court of public opinion.

Murdering Felons were all wrongfully charged, prosecuted and convicted.  Murder by arsonist, the torture and assassination of two police officers returning from the wake of a murdered rookie cop, monosyllabic psychopaths became the Hurricane Hunters and even Cliff Huckstables of Chicago.

Commander Jon Burge was never convicted of torture, but is universally accepted to be one.  He is no Alfred Dreyfus, but he did go prison for perjury via legal and rhetorical forensics , thirty years in the making. In the Chicago memory hole is the fact that Burge arrested and helped convict criminals, during Mayor Harold Washington's terms of office and they were not solely African American victims of systemic racism.  Burge was a pro-active street sweeper of thugs and became a political liability for gutless politicians.  Thug life flourished, because there are no longer consequences to anything in Urbs in Horto.

The urban life without consequences is masked with the compelling narratives,

• systemic racism
• a culture of police brutality
•  the system is broken
• cops code of silence
• Homan Square black ops
• police shootings
•  gun violence
• more money for jobs, education and 'lives turned around.' 

This morning before I went to Mass, I read Second City Cop, as is my wont.  I read this important blog, because it is much more accurate than Frank Main.

I read about the anguished words of a west side grandmother from an article in Chicago's usually very accurate DNAinfo Chicago. The anonymous police officer who blogs is a very good writer and a very fair minded person.  Like most Chicagoans, this writer of the SCC blog eschew bullshit, which is the staple of the Chicago Media and the political and social Justice classes.  I reprint the piece in full:

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2016
Boo Hoo
The neighborhood is noticing something:
Delores Coleman watched 22-year-old Irell Mitchell's life come to an abrupt end around the corner from her home Monday evening and, she said, the police came and went in 90 minutes.
"They didn't talk to anyone ... they just picked up his body and left," Coleman said. "Didn't do no investigation or nothing."
90 minutes to tag, bag and wrap up a crime scene? Well done! There should be a lot more scenes like that.
Hours later, gunmen returned to her block, firing a volley of shots that hit 10-year-old Tavon Tanner in his back while he sat with his family on their front porch. The next day he was in critical condition, with a bullet lodged in his chest.
The 3900 block of West Polk Street has been choked by violence all year, but for her part, Coleman said the twin tragedies Monday made her feel abandoned.
"It's clear the police don't give a f--- about us," she said. "They don't care. We call them, and they just ride right past us."
Well grandma, it's pretty clear that the neighborhood doesn't give a fuck about....well, pretty much anything.
Is anyone in the media asking why the 10-year-old got shot? The neighborhood knows, the detectives know, the coppers know. We've gotten a bunch of e-mail about it, and it gives lie to everything the "community" has been protesting the past few months. This wasn't a kid caught in the crossfire. But god forbid the media actually does its job, interview people, and report what is actually going on in the 'hood, especially if it runs contrary to a "police don't care" narrative.
The trouble is, it was a police sergeant who enabled that kid to even get to the hospital.
Labels: general

This city needs an enema.   Chicago ain't ready to be cleansed.