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Solving a Murder Mystery - the Role of Students Editor's
Note: David Protess, Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence and Professor of Journalism and Urban Affairs
at Northwestern wrote the following article in 1994. His students subsequently played a much-publicized role in winning
freedom for death row prisoners who had been wrongfully convicted. When my students
and I met 27-year-old Stuart Heaton, he was serving the second year of a life sentence for murdering a teenage girl in the
tiny southern Illinois town of Ramsey. The meeting took place in an intimidating setting -- Menard penitentiary, a medieval-like
fortress that overlooks the Mississippi River on the Illinois-Missouri border. We had
come to the prison in 1992 as the last stop in a statewide search for new evidence in the case, a project that had begun months
earlier when I came to question Heaton's guilt and asked students if they wanted to work on the case for my investigative
reporting course (C24. News Media and Social Reform). Several students excitedly had volunteered. Student-researchers had been instrumental in unearthing evidence in other cases of wrongful convictions that I had
helped expose, and the Heaton case proved to be no exception. On this trip alone, students had located and interviewed a key
alibi witness who had not testified at Heaton's trial, and found court documents that pointed to an alternate murder suspect.
Now, at the prison, it was time for the students to form their impressions of Heaton himself. Timid
at first, the students warmed to the task of interviewing Heaton when they realized that he was more anxious than they were,
and after I tried to set the appropriate tone for the session with some initial questioning. Soon, each student jumped in,
often asking thoughtful questions about Heaton's relationship with the victim, his alibi for the day of the crime and
his knowledge of the alternate suspect they had helped to identify. Most important, there was a provocative exchange about
a DNA test that had been used to implicate him in the murder. Hours later, in the parking
lot outside the prison, they mused over his answers and tried to assess his true guilt or innocence. Some remained skeptical,
either disbelieving Heaton's answers or wanting to believe that it wasn't possible for an innocent man to suffer such
a fate. Others became true believers and relished the thought of further pursuing the evidence they had uncovered. If there
was a consensus, it was that it would be difficult to return to the routine of the classroom.
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In the ensuing months, the Heaton case would take many legal and investigative twists-and-turns,
each involving student participation. Several students continued to work on the case after the quarter had ended, helping
to develop enough evidence against the alternate suspect that the state police agreed to re-open their investigation.
One student did an Independent Study on the forensic applications of DNA, focusing on the
tests performed in the Heaton case. Her findings were so exciting and newsworthy that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
encouraged us to co-author a multi-part series on the evidence -- months before the O.J. Simpson murder case. The newspaper
articles prompted a fresh review of the DNA evidence by a scientist who concluded that the tests proved Heaton was, in fact,
innocent. Heaton's ultimate fate remains uncertain, his case now before the Illinois
Supreme Court. The court is expected to render what should be a landmark decision on the admissibility of DNA evidence sometime
in 1995. More certain are the educational benefits, and pitfalls, of our enterprise.
From the students' point-of-view, the experience was the capstone of their coursework at Medill; several already have
used the knowledge they gained in their professional careers. I also found it to be rewarding, having long believed that learning
works best when it is experiential, interactive and shared. And there are few joys greater than faculty-student collaborations
that lead both to publications and public good. However, such enterprises are not without
concerns and costs. First, serious problems arose in selecting the student-researchers. More than a manageable number of students
volunteered for the Heaton project, forcing me to make some difficult choices. While I tried to use appropriate criteria,
including experience, interest and availability, many of the non-participating students felt "left out." The other
assignments, though they involved investigative fieldwork, were viewed as "second class" and "outside the prof's
main interest." Then there were a host of safety issues that arose. The long,
unfamiliar drives on interstate highways had been my foremost concern -- until the students developed evidence against the
alternate suspect, who happened to live in the same town where they were staying overnight. I also became concerned that the
local authorities might learn of the students' presence and try to question or even harass them.
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After a lengthy conversation with university attorney, Mike Weston, I developed fairly stringent
guidelines on how the students should conduct themselves in different situations. And when a student excitedly called me with
the news about the alternate suspect, I headed immediately to St. Louis -- close enough for a quick rendezvous but far enough
away to allow them to continue their research on their own. (We eventually linked-up at the prison without incident.)
There also were important questions to consider about the appropriate scope of their
responsibility. After all, the stakes were high in a murder investigation that might well effect the fate of an innocent man
as well as his family and community. Ultimately, I tried to strike the balance
in favor of giving the students the latitude to learn by making mistakes, hoping that none would prove fatal to the investigation.
As a safeguard, we repeatedly role-played interview situations, scripting questions and possible answers. Still, mistakes
were made, the worst occurring when a student was so intent on obtaining an interview with a member of the murder victim's
family that she misrepresented her identity and purpose for her visit. On the whole, however, I found that the students were
an invaluable resource for getting people to talk. Youth and enthusiasm more than made up for occasional naivete and lapses
in judgment. Finally, there was the arduous task of evaluating their performance.
In this case, the evaluation process was made especially difficult because the students had worked in groups, rather than
as individuals, and because, as in many experiential assignments, their performance was influenced by many factors over which
they had limited control. Student self-assessment was somewhat helpful in determining
grades, though limited by their opinion that they all deserved "A's" because they had "learned and contributed
so much" in their research. More useful was the requirement of an additional assignment that had to be completed by the
entire class and was less fraught with evaluation bias. And, I concluded, it would be wise to give the students both a group
grade for overall performance and individual grades based on the quality of the research memos they were each required to
submit. The final class of the quarter was devoted to reporting the findings to the
class and, more importantly, to reflecting critically on the larger questions the assignment raised about the role of journalism
in American society. All-in-all, I have come to believe that, despite the obstacles,
experiential projects should be an integral part of college curricula, wherever possible. In this case, the defining moment
that convinced me that the benefits indeed had outweighed the costs occurred when the student who committed the ethical gaffe
told the class, "I learned so much about journalism ethics by having the opportunity to screw-up."
In winter quarter (1994-95), I plan to devote an entire course to practica on wrongful convictions.
I will report on the results in a future issue. Meanwhile, I invite readers to share their experiences with similar endeavors.
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