Free Republic

A wrongfully convicted man filed a $40 million lawsuit on Tuesday against Northwestern University, a former journalism professor, a private investigator and an attorney, accusing them of framing him for a double murder to get another man released. Alstory Simon, 64, of Ohio, claims in the lawsuit that he was the victim of unethical tactics by a team focused on freeing another man in what became a celebrated Illinois wrongful conviction case. Simon was imprisoned in 1999 after confessing to the 1982 murder of two people in a park, and spent more than 15 years behind bars before he was...

The Anthony Porter case dominated local news here for weeks, and its effect was felt in early 2003, when departing Governor George Ryan emptied Illinois' death row. Yesterday, a jury in Chicago ruled against Porter, stating the City of Chicago did not act in a malicious matter when they investigated the double murder Porter was convicted of in 1982. Six years ago, two days before Porter was to be executed for that crime, a Northwestern journalism professor, David Protess, and some of his students located a Milwaukee man who confessed to the murders. That man has since recanted. Hmmm... What...