A Promise of Justice

In this expose of an astonishing case of legal incompetence, Protess, a professor of journalism and urban affairs at Northwestern University, and Warden, a Chicago freelance investigative journalist, detail the inept police work, perjured testimony and mistakes of defense attorneys that combined to convict four African American males of crimes they did not commit. Childhood friends who grew up in East Chicago, the ""Ford Heights Four""--Dennis Williams, Kenny Adams, Willie Rainge and Verneal Jimerson--were arrested and found guilty of the 1978 double rape and murder of a white couple. Warden, receiving a letter in 1982 from Williams on death row, became persuaded that the convictions were based on tainted evidence and published an article on the case in Chicago Lawyer. Appeals, retrials and other strategies failed to free the men until Protess joined the struggle with three of his students and a team of volunteer lawyers. Their investigation of police files, the use of new forensic technologies and interviews with those connected with the case helped lead to the arrests of the real killers. In 1996 the Ford Heights Four were released. Notwithstanding their dramatic portrayal of a heroic effort, against all odds, to rectify the failures of the justice system, some troubling errors in the writers' account lead one to wonder if all their facts have been thoroughly checked. (Aug.)