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Questioning convictions
Pulitzer prize-winning reporter gives the scoop on getting innocent men off of death row
Lauren Sigel
Issue date: 10/16/08 Section: News
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People have been executed in the United States for crimes they did not commit.
This is just one of many shocking yet truthful statements that Maurice Possley - a former criminal justice reporter for the Chicago Tribune and a 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner - said during his lecture Wednesday night to a group of students and staff at OSU.
"The idea that someone would admit to a crime that they didn't commit is mind-boggling," Possley said. "It goes to show the power and intimidation that interrogation rooms wield."
According to Pam Cytrynbaum, a new media communications faculty member at OSU and a former writer for the Chicago Tribune, Possley's work has included coverage of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and the culmination of the grand jury investigation of the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. He has also worked as an investigative reporter and as a deputy metropolitan editor.
"When Frank Ragulsky (director of student media) asked me if I knew of any extraordinary journalists that would inspire students, I told him to look up Maurice Possley. I worked with him from 1992 to 1997 while I was at the Chicago Tribune," Cytrynbaum said. "He was also the key note speaker for Fall Press Day.
"His career is the kind of career that every journalist wishes they could have. His stories have resulted in the release of innocent men from death row, helped end the death penalty in Illinois, and exposed the fragility and flaws of the American criminal justice system."
Possley, who is also a co-author of two books titled "Everybody Pays: Two Men, One Murder and the Price of Truth" and "The Brown's Chicken Massacre" and is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize on two other occasions for his investigative journalism work with other Tribune reporters, touched on a number of topics during his lecture. Most of them revealed controversial information about our nation's criminal justice system.
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WILLIS WILSON
posted 8/16/09 @ 2:44 PM PST
CORRUPTION,CONSPIRACY AND MURDER ,,,, THE WRONG MAN
THE SCHAUMBURG ILLINOIS POLICE DEPT. IS DIRTY AND HAS BEEN MORE THAN 20 YRS. THE SCHAUMBURG POLICE AND MANY HIGH LEVEL PEOPLE ARE INVOLVED IN AN INCREDIBLE ONGOING CRIMINAL COVERUP AND CONSPIRACY ,,,, THE BLATANT FALSE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF ME, LYING TO A GRAND JURY, MALICIOUS PROSECUTION, ARMED KIDNAPPING, DEVIATE SEXUAL ASSAULT, RAPE AND MURDER OF YOUNG SUBURBAN GIRLS, PERHAPS FROM THE 1960,S. (Continued…)
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