John Ewing's case caught the attention of producers at CBS and production of a TV documentary commenced. Then
the Michigan Department of Corrections refused to let the camera
crew into the Jackson prison to interview John. At the same time, they refused ABC's
Barbara Walters an interview of Jack Kevorkien and gave the red light
to NBC's Dateline on interviewing Thomas Cress (Calhoun) for their
program about the destruction of evidence in that case. Here's how John Ewing's
friends & family expressed their opinion of camera ban.
Some recent media coverage:
Journalism & Justice (from The Northern Express, Northern
Michigan's Weekly August 2-8 2001)
A quest to free an
inmate convicted of rape raises questions over news media access and 1st
Amendment rights.
Kathleen
Anderson
If you are traveling west on
Interstate 94, look up when you’re about 5 miles either side of the State
Correctional Facility of Southern Michigan (Jackson Prison). The billboards
staring down at you aren’t advertising the best gas price or next fast food
stop. The two roadside placards feature a cameraman outside a prison fence.
Framing the top of the signs is the question: "No news cameras in prison?
What’s the real story?" A web address, completes the message.
Outdoor advertising isn’t cheap but it is available to anyone, including
inmates who can’t get their stories told in conventional ways. So the members
of Justice for John, a grassroots organization fighting for the release
of inmate John Ewing, whom they believe to be innocent, pooled their resources
and purchased the billboards. Last year the group produced a web page
chronicling the events leading up to Ewing’s 1985 conviction.
The internet has become the silent mouthpiece for some prisoners and Ewing’s
page caught the attention of a national network. "CBS canceled plans for a
TV documentary when the Michigan Department of Corrections refused them an
on-camera interview," said Linda Forster, head of the group and sister of
Ewing. "So we’re forced to tell his story via other, more expensive
avenues."
At a time when reports of prisoners found to be innocent are making headline
news, some states are further restricting media’s access to prison related
issues. Data gathered in 2000 by the Society of Professional Journalists
showed that 11 states, including Michigan, prohibit recorded interviews. The
restriction, according to MDOC director, Bill Martin, is for a number of
reasons. "We adopted a policy that attempts to treat reporters in much the
same way we treat the public with regard to access to prisoners." Starting
in the late 1980's, the prisons saw a steady increase in the number of requests
for prisoner interviews.
Perhaps the increase can be tied to DNA’s explosion onto the forensic front.
The genetic profiling science, first used here in 1987 to gain a conviction,
soon became the critical tool for the defense in proving innocence. To date,
DNA testing has overturned 88 convictions including 10 death row cases. And the
number continues to rise. According to Huy Dao
who coordinates inmate requests at the Innocence Project, "Every time an
exoneration receives media coverage, we are deluged with requests for
assistance. The media's power to expose injustice, if done responsibly, is
awesome."
In the preface of Actual Innocence (Scheck, Neufeld, Dwyer, 2000),
the authors write: "Stories of innocent people liberated from prison by
DNA tests have flickered onto news shows almost faster than the eye can
follow." But a DNA exoneration will never be the basis for Ewing’s
release. Nor will viewers get to see how all of the physical evidence disappeared
in his case. Court records and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests
indicate that the Michigan State Police crime lab cannot account for lab slides
in the four rape cases charged to Ewing.
James Adams, Ewing’s attorney through the state appeals, acknowledges the
possibility of a piece of evidence getting lost. "But in four
cases!?" says the Jackson attorney. "What I find disturbing is the
fact that the officer in charge of the cases ordered the Washtenaw County rape
kits destroyed shortly after Ewing’s first request for DNA testing in 1989.
Then the Jackson County evidence disappears; then the lab slides and
file jackets from the State Police. And have you ever heard of a case where the
prosecution is unable to produce any trial exhibits? Coincidence?"
Frank D. Eaman of Harper Woods, Ewing's federal habeas corpus lawyer,
explains the arguments he is now raising in federal court. "There is a
strong case here that a law enforcement officer deliberately withheld evidence
from John's defense attorney at trial. This evidence, that the jury never
heard, would have helped establish John's innocence and prove he was framed by
an overzealous law enforcement officer. And then, after he's convicted, when he
has a chance to clear himself through DNA testing, the evidence that would
clear him disappears."
"That’s just one of the chapters we’re trying to tell," says
Forster who will admit to a love-hate relationship with the media. In 1984,
local Ann Arbor area papers focused on the "serial rape" case for
almost a year. Headlining the series was the account of how Ewing was
"caught trying to rape a woman who got away." At a 1995 Evidentiary
Hearing in Jackson County before Judge Chad Schmucker testimony disclosed that
the investigator in charge of the case had provided the news with the concocted
story of the "attempted rape." The rumor was the primary reason for
bypassing the sentencing guidelines and dispensing a life sentence on Ewing.
"We were tried and convicted before entering a courtroom," says
Forster, "but we still need the press to expose all that went wrong."
The sentiment of media dependence is echoed by many former inmates who
attribute their freedom more to journalism than justice. Ron Keime was a
Michigan resident when, in 1974, he was arrested in New Mexico on kidnap and
murder charges. His conviction resulted in a death sentence. Fast forward to
1998 when he, along with 28 former death row inmates, were guests of honor at
the First Wrongful Conviction Conference hosted by Northwestern University’s
Law School and, ironically, School of Journalism. "If it hadn’t been for
Steve Cain, a former Ann Arbor News reporter, I’d still be in prison
today," said a thankful Keime.
The DOC takes no issue with reporters as long as they conduct their
interviews during normal visiting hours and without recording devices. Members
of the press agree that such restrictions hamper accurate reporting and
severely limit the ability to even undertake the story. Bill Proctor, a
reporter with WXYZ-TV in Detroit, owns a unique place in crime coverage. Prior
tools of his trade included a gun and a badge when he worked as a cop in
Washington, D.C. Now he investigates with a camera...except on prison stories.
But in the past, Proctor’s TV news coverage unveiled a succession of elements documenting
the mishandling of the Timujen Kinsu (Fred Freeman, Port Huron) case.
Proctor believes that the department’s ban on cameras is another example of
an attack on a media incorrectly perceived as advocating prisoners’ rights.
Dawn Phillips, attorney for the Michigan Press Association agrees and adds that
the latest battery of media restrictions were proposed in response to negative
publicity stemming from prison conditions and lawsuits filed by women prisoners
alleged to have been exploited by male guards. Martin strongly denies these
allegations stating that the policy restricting cameras from prisons is backed
by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Countering that argument is Peter Sussman, who, since serving as editor of
the San Francisco Chronicle for 29 years, has become somewhat of a point
person on prison/media issues. Sussman and his colleagues among the Society of
Professional Journalists argue that the Bureau of Prisons has taken an old
ruling (Saxbe vs Washington Post, 1974) and incorrectly applied it to
bolster their stance. "That ruling," says Sussman, "was specific
to one issue tagged the ‘Big Wheel’ theory. Prison officials claimed that media
coverage of certain inmates caused disruptions inside institutions because of
the inmate’s new-found celebrity status. Security was the reason for the ruling
that removed a prisoner’s right to entertain the press. At issue now is
our First Amendment Right to Freedom of the Press."
The requests received by the MDOC are not limited to conventional news
programs. Martin objects to the variety of sources seeking access; sources that
could be viewed as "news-entertainment" like TV talk shows and
documentary films. Randal Dale Adams might argue that point. It was a
documentary film, The Thin Blue Line, that first introduced the
electronic media’s capability to draw attention to a gross miscarriage of
justice. The 1988 movie is a compilation of on-camera interviews that tell the
story of how Adams was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for the murder
of a Texas police officer. Had film maker Errol Morris been denied access to
Adams in prison, the execution would likely have proceeded.
Though not a death penalty state, Michigan cases have caught the attention
of three national networks simultaneously. NBC’s Dateline can expect to
be denied a prison pass for their episode highlighting the destruction of
evidence in the Thomas Cress (Calhoun County) case. Forty Eight Hours
(CBS), also shut out, was equally intrigued by the same issue of evidence
destruction in John Ewing’s case.
Ewing’s more famous Jackson jail-mate is the third subject that won’t be
televised. In 1999 Barbara Walters of 20/20 got the red light to taping
an exclusive with Jack Kevorkian. ABC took Bill Martin and his deputy director,
Dan Bolden, to court because their directive, at the time, allowed taped
interviews. In March of 2000, Genesee County Circuit Court Judge Robert Ransom
ruled in favor of ABC. Shortly thereafter the Department of Corrections amended
its own policy by adding the camera ban to it’s growing list of media
restrictions. At the same time they appealed Ransom’s ruling. In early June the
Michigan Court of Appeals overturned the lower court decision, siding with the
Department of Corrections to keep ABC out of the DOC.
Heath Meriwether, publisher for the Detroit Freepress, believes that
no excuse given by the DOC warrants restriction of the media in the prisons.
"Michigan taxpayers deserve to know that their prisons are being held
accountable for how they operate. Cutting media access makes prisoners more
vulnerable to abuse and corrections officials susceptible to charges of
wrongdoing. Michigan taxpayers, prisoners and even government officials deserve
better."
In the meantime, prisoners like John Ewing will continue to depend on the voices,
creativity, and money of friends and family to tell their stories - in whatever
way they can. Forster says it would take a highway full of billboards to tell
every chapter in her brother’s story.