What happens when the pursuit of justice becomes so focused on proving innocence that the evidence itself takes a back seat?
In this piece, author and longtime law enforcement professional Steve Scarborough examines the extraordinary Anthony Porter case—a story involving not one, but potentially two devastating failures of the justice system—and the case that ultimately made him question the innocence movement.
The Case That Made Me Question the Innocence Movement
By Steve Scarborough
The Anthony Porter case is a prime example of the innocence movement spinning out of control. The case uncovers what happens when overzealous activists within the innocence industry, seeking validation, manipulate the justice system.
A university professor of a journalism school and his students began investigating a death penalty case and decided that a convict who was professing his innocence was wrongfully convicted. The students investigated that case, interviewed a witness, and surmised that Porter was innocent of murdering two teenagers in a Chicago park in 1982. Porter directed the students to other witnesses who said another man, Alstory Simon, was the murderer.
A private detective friend of the professor then obtained a confession from Simon, and Porter was released and exonerated. Simon was convicted and would serve 15 years in prison before an investigation would determine, ironically, that he was innocent and wrongfully convicted.
Porter sued the state for compensation for his incarceration. After the case was reviewed much later, the materials presented by the professor and the journalism students to exonerate Porter were largely discredited. And reinterviews of the original witnesses seemed to confirm that Porter was guilty.
A wrongful conviction and a wrongful exoneration in one case.
In 1982, two people, 18-year-old Jerry Hillard and 19-year-old Marilyn Green, were in a park on the South Side of Chicago, at about 1 a.m., sitting in the bleachers that overlooked the community pool. A man seated near them stood up and shot them. Four other people were in the pool area, and they all saw some portion of the shooting. One man actually saw the shooting, and the other saw the person who shot running toward them. They all said they knew the shooter from the neighborhood.
A responding Chicago officer saw a man running from the bleachers, stopped him, and released him. All of the witnesses, including the police officer, identified Anthony Porter as the shooter. Porter was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to death.
Porter was eventually released after student journalists and their professor, David Protess, at Northwestern University, investigated the case around 1998 and decided that he was innocent. This impression was mainly due to the sightlines around the pool and doubt of the witness testimony. The University and Protess promoted the case, and the media latched onto a new narrative of a wrongful conviction.
The students interviewed Porter and believed him when he said he was innocent. They also interviewed the main witness in the case and saw doubt in his statement and then wrote a statement for him that implied he recanted his testimony. This statement was prepared by a PI working for Protess and completely reversed his court testimony. This information was brought to the media as “the only witness recanted his testimony.”
The witness was later interviewed by investigators, and he denied ever recanting; he believed Porter was guilty and merely wanted to put the whole case behind him.
The Professor and his students eventually brought forward another suspect in the case, based upon a suggestion by Porter. Porter directed them to Walter Jackson, who said Alstory Simon had told him he did the killings. Jackson’s Aunt said that she was there, in the afternoon, not morning, and described two couples in the stands. (Despite all the witnesses saying they saw only one couple, the victims, and Porter. Simon was interviewed by the PI, and the PI showed him a fake video of someone saying Simon had committed the crime. The PI had another intimidating male with him during the interview. The PI also told him about the Jacksons’ statements. Simon confessed in a video recording (Simon later said it was based upon a script the PI had prepared and that the PI had told him he would make money on movie and book deals), and that video was released to the media by Protess.
Protess told the media that Porter was “railroaded,” and that they were objective and unbiased in their investigation. (A student was later interviewed and confessed that they felt the assignment was to “find evidence that would lead to freeing this man.”) The main statement from the professor was that there was an assumption that there was only one witness and that he had recanted, and the media ran with it.
An investigation panel was formed and reviewed information about Simon’s confession, the statements from the Jacksons, the recanting of the “lone witness,” and other statements from the students. The panel decided that Porter was innocent.
Simon was arrested and obtained an attorney, and the attorney convinced him to plead guilty. It was later learned that the attorney shared offices with Protess and the PI.
In 1999, even though Simon’s mother said he was home with her that morning, Alstory Simon was convicted of the murders and given 37 years. He would eventually serve 15 years in prison.
Anthony Porter was exonerated in 1999. Upon his release from prison he told stories about being tortured by police and, in 2005, Porter filed a lawsuit against the state for compensation. The assumption seemed to be that since he was deemed innocent he should be compensated. In defending the lawsuit, the state reinterviewed the witnesses and presented their statements. The jury refused to award Porter any compensation.
A federal inquiry was eventually conducted, and all available witnesses were interviewed, including Inez Jackson. The discrepancies in her account about the genders of the people at the pool and the time of day were exposed, along with the number of shots she heard, and the fact that Inez was Simon’s ex-wife.
They also learned that Walter Jackson had been incarcerated with Porter and that Porter had convinced Jackson to get Inez to help him. Jackson said that Porter had said he was working with Professor Protess, and this would get him out of prison. Jackson later admitted that he had lied, and Inez also later admitted she had made up her story.
When the other witnesses were interviewed, none of them said they saw Simon there, but all said they saw Anthony Porter at the pool that morning, and just one other couple of young people.
In 2014, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez noted the investigation of the case was corrupted, and her office could no longer maintain the legitimacy of Simon’s conviction. Simon was released from prison in October, 2014.
The spotlight then reverted to the journalism school and Professor Protess. The professor and students also came under fire for journalistic improprieties in the Anthony McKinnery case. Prosecutors noticed some inconsistencies in the journalists’ interviews of supposed witnesses. In 2011, Professor Protess was suspended by the university for doctoring internal records.
As a matter of interest, Porter had a criminal record prior to the murders, including robbery, theft, and assault. A number of other people also came forward saying they had been robbed by Porter; one even had been robbed by him at the location of the killings.
Additionally, Porter was arrested in 2011 for stealing deodorant from a Chicago pharmacy. He pleaded guilty to retail theft and was sentenced in 2012 to one year in prison.
Steve is the author of The Innocence Machine: The Innocence System Gone Haywire, an investigative examination of the evolving innocence movement and the distinction between the evidence and the media narrative. The book explores the importance of maintaining objective evidentiary standards while pursuing justice.
Want to Dig Deeper?
If Steve Scarborough’s examination of the Anthony Porter case has you questioning how evidence, assumptions, and competing narratives can shape our understanding of a crime, continue exploring his work.
In True Crime in Real Time, Steve puts you in the detective’s seat. You’ll examine crime scenes, review evidence, question witnesses, and work through real cases as they unfold—deciding for yourself where the evidence leads.
And in The Skeptical Juror’s Handbook, Steve takes a closer look at how we evaluate evidence, recognize bias, and think critically about the stories presented to us in the courtroom and beyond.