What do you think?
Rate this book
Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison
Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune: “Should be on the reading list of every journalism school and law school in this country.”
In 1983, Anthony Porter was convicted of the brutal double murder of Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard. While sitting in the bleachers near Chicago’s Washington Park swimming pool, the victims were shot multiple times at point-blank range. Porter was sentenced to death.
In 1998, within fifty hours of Porter’s scheduled execution, the Illinois Supreme Court granted a stay, pending a hearing on Porter’s mental competency. At this point, journalism professor David Protess and his Northwestern University Innocence Project students took up Porter’s cause. Soon, Porter was released from prison, and Alstory Simon, then a Milwaukee resident, was convicted of the Washington Park homicides.
But that’s not the end of the story. Nor is it all of the story. Simon himself has now been exonerated and is suing Northwestern University, David Protess, and two other individuals for more than $40 million in punitive damages. This is the true story of how and why Alstory Simon replaced Anthony Porter in prison.
In 1983, Anthony Porter was convicted of the brutal double murder of Marilyn Green and Jerry Hillard. While sitting in the bleachers near Chicago’s Washington Park swimming pool, the victims were shot multiple times at point-blank range. Porter was sentenced to death.
In 1998, within fifty hours of Porter’s scheduled execution, the Illinois Supreme Court granted a stay, pending a hearing on Porter’s mental competency. At this point, journalism professor David Protess and his Northwestern University Innocence Project students took up Porter’s cause. Soon, Porter was released from prison, and Alstory Simon, then a Milwaukee resident, was convicted of the Washington Park homicides.
But that’s not the end of the story. Nor is it all of the story. Simon himself has now been exonerated and is suing Northwestern University, David Protess, and two other individuals for more than $40 million in punitive damages. This is the true story of how and why Alstory Simon replaced Anthony Porter in prison.
- GenresNonfiction
239 pages, Paperback
First published June 8, 2015
17 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
William B. Crawford
2 books2 followersWilliam B. Crawford is a former reporter, writer and legal affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. During a twenty-three-year career at the newspaper, he was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize as well as many other major awards for his work. After leaving the newspaper, he was the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s senior vice president of global communications. In 2002, he co-founded O’Connell & Crawford LLC, a media strategy and crisis management firm.
Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison
(Amika Press) is Crawford’s second book. His first was a thriller novel, Rent Asunder.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 24, 2018
*4.5 stars
We talked to William Crawford at a meet-the-author book signing sponsored by our local library in the fall of 2015. At that time we were very interested in this true story of crime, punishment and injustice about which this author was obviously so passionate. Our interest was further tweaked because both our daughter and son-in-law were Northwestern graduates and NU was being sued for their role in this miscarriage of justice.
His book languished on our bookshelves until it was brought to mind this week by my reading of The Enchanted, a fiction book which is set on death row in an ancient prison.
The story in a nutshell: In 1999, largely through the efforts of the Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism led by Professor David Protess, an innocent man named Alstory Simon was wrongfully imprisoned for a double murder he did not commit and spent more than fifteen years in jail before being exonerated in 2014.
The $40 million suit Alstory Simon has brought against Protess, the university and others claims that "it was not a journalism class at all as the students during the entire fall 1998 semester did not 'create or submit any articles for review or publication.' Instead, the suit asserts, the students were used as 'pawns to deflect public scrutiny from the blatantly illegal and unethical investigative techniques routinely employed by Northwestern's employees and/or agents to generate statements from witnesses without regard to the truth or falsity of those statements.'"
Fascinating reading!
We talked to William Crawford at a meet-the-author book signing sponsored by our local library in the fall of 2015. At that time we were very interested in this true story of crime, punishment and injustice about which this author was obviously so passionate. Our interest was further tweaked because both our daughter and son-in-law were Northwestern graduates and NU was being sued for their role in this miscarriage of justice.
His book languished on our bookshelves until it was brought to mind this week by my reading of The Enchanted, a fiction book which is set on death row in an ancient prison.
The story in a nutshell: In 1999, largely through the efforts of the Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism led by Professor David Protess, an innocent man named Alstory Simon was wrongfully imprisoned for a double murder he did not commit and spent more than fifteen years in jail before being exonerated in 2014.
The $40 million suit Alstory Simon has brought against Protess, the university and others claims that "it was not a journalism class at all as the students during the entire fall 1998 semester did not 'create or submit any articles for review or publication.' Instead, the suit asserts, the students were used as 'pawns to deflect public scrutiny from the blatantly illegal and unethical investigative techniques routinely employed by Northwestern's employees and/or agents to generate statements from witnesses without regard to the truth or falsity of those statements.'"
Fascinating reading!
June 15, 2020
The Antithesis of Innocence Project
Crawford has shed light on the absolutely unthinkable. Corruption at the highest levels of justice conspiring for personal gain of money and fame, with no regard or compassion for the lives personally, severely injured.
I was interested in becoming involved with what I thought was a noble cause, namely the investigation and freeing of persons wrongly convicted. What I experienced was a justice system so corrupt that I am afraid to go near it.
Truth surely stranger than fiction!
Crawford has shed light on the absolutely unthinkable. Corruption at the highest levels of justice conspiring for personal gain of money and fame, with no regard or compassion for the lives personally, severely injured.
I was interested in becoming involved with what I thought was a noble cause, namely the investigation and freeing of persons wrongly convicted. What I experienced was a justice system so corrupt that I am afraid to go near it.
Truth surely stranger than fiction!
December 9, 2015
How naïve I've been regarding our justice system. If Chicago is typical of the machinations of justice, we are all in trouble.
September 22, 2025
The story is important, but this is so terribly written that it was truly painful to get through. I got so annoyed throughout that I made a rant list on my phone lol but I won’t get into it all here.
It’s extremely biased, and it’s ultimately just the author’s way of trying to assert how important and smart he is. He’s obsessed with himself. It’s also just not professional-level writing. It’s bad. He’s supposed to be a high-falutin journalist…
It’s too bad this story wasn’t done well, because it would be good for more people to know about this.
P.S. The concept behind the Northwestern class is insane and so irresponsible. I can’t believe it was a thing!!
It’s extremely biased, and it’s ultimately just the author’s way of trying to assert how important and smart he is. He’s obsessed with himself. It’s also just not professional-level writing. It’s bad. He’s supposed to be a high-falutin journalist…
It’s too bad this story wasn’t done well, because it would be good for more people to know about this.
P.S. The concept behind the Northwestern class is insane and so irresponsible. I can’t believe it was a thing!!
November 24, 2018
Simon, Alstory: the centerpiece of the story who, as a consequence of a sinisterly brilliant scheme [...]was tricked into pleading guilty to the 1982 pool murders through promises he would do only two years in prison and receive huge monetary awards upon his release. Simon served more than fifteen years and left prison penniless.
- William B. Crawford, _Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison_
#KindleUnlimited book number two. This is a scary story because it's true and it's recent. Well written. Well researched.
It's a complicated story, but Crawford does a good job in organizing the information and helping the reader keep things straight without repeating information over and over.
Recommended for anyone interested in the criminal justice system, free press, investigative reporting, criminal psychology, etc. and anyone who cannot understand why someone might plead guilty to a crime s/he didn't commit.
- William B. Crawford, _Justice Perverted: How The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison_
#KindleUnlimited book number two. This is a scary story because it's true and it's recent. Well written. Well researched.
It's a complicated story, but Crawford does a good job in organizing the information and helping the reader keep things straight without repeating information over and over.
Recommended for anyone interested in the criminal justice system, free press, investigative reporting, criminal psychology, etc. and anyone who cannot understand why someone might plead guilty to a crime s/he didn't commit.
November 22, 2015
This book left me more muddled in my mind than most have. The story of a double homicide in 1982, conviction death penalty sentence for the defendant. Then the Innocence Project steps in and gets another person to confess who apologizes to the victims' families at his plea hearing. Then he turns out to have not been the murderer. Filled with witnesses changing stories, information about tactics of the journalism students and a lot of other conduct. Should read this book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews