David Protess is one of the early advocates for Hank Skinner.
Protess teaches an investigative journalism class at Northwestern University. As part of that class, his students are assigned a crime to investigate. The investigations are sometimes so complex and so thorough that they pass from one class to the next. Should the students' journalistic investigation indicate that an innocent person is being prosecuted, has already been convicted, or faces execution, their work is turned over to the Medill Innocence Project to allow the case to be pursued through the court system.
Not coincidently, David Protess is founder and director of the Medill Innocence Project. That project too is associated with Northwestern University. Protess has long realized the propriety and wisdom of creating a strict division between teaching investigative journalism and pursuing legal cases to assist those wrongfully accused or convicted. More on that in a moment.
