STUDENTS COME TO INMATE'S RESCUE

On Death Row: Class's Probe Points To Another Man As Killer.

CHICAGO -- Last September, David Protess, a journalism professor at
Northwestern University, got a call from the lawyer for Anthony
Porter, a man who had been on death row since 1983.

The lawyer knew that Protess assigns his journalism students the task
of re-investigating questionable murder convictions and asked if the
class could look into Porter's case. But Porter was scheduled to be
executed on Sept. 25, three days before the Northwestern class
convened for the semester, so Protess had to turn down the case.

Then, two days before Porter was supposed to be executed for the
murder of a young couple in 1982, he was granted a stay so a court
could consider his lawyer's motion that Porter, with an IQ of 51, was
not mentally competent and should not be put to death.

That gave Protess and his class the time they needed. With the help of
a private investigator, Paul Ciolino, the journalism students and
Protess examined court records, re-enacted the crime and tracked down
old witnesses. What they found suggested that another man had
committed the murders.

Wednesday, that man, Alstory Simon, gave a videotaped interview to the
private investigator, implicating himself in the murders and
apparently exonerating Porter.

``Before I knew anything, I just pulled it up and started shooting,''
Simon, a 48-year-old Milwaukee laborer who used to live in Chicago,
said in the 10-minute videotape. ``I must have close to busted off
about six rounds.''

Now, the prosecutor's office has reopened the investigation.

``It's like a heavy load's been lifted,'' Porter said in jail. ``I
just thank God that everything came out all right.''

If Porter, 43, is cleared, he will be the 10th person released from
death row since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977, second
only to Florida, which has had 18 such cases since 1973. His case
would also become another in a spate of crimes in Illinois that have
raised questions about police investigations and the airtight
reliability of convictions in death penalty cases.

Protess, whose class had a leading role three years ago in freeing
four men wrongfully convicted of a 1978 gang rape and double murder in
suburban Ford Heights, said he did not believe Illinois necessarily
made more mistakes in death penalty cases. Rather, he said, the state
has aggressive lawyers, journalists and advocates who are actively
engaged in the issue.

Porter was convicted of killing Jerry Hillard, 18, and his girlfriend,
Marilyn Green, 19, who were shot to death in Washington Park on
Chicago's South Side on Aug. 15, 1982, after an annual parade
celebrating black culture. Two days after the killings, the police
charged Porter, 27, who was a gang member with a previous conviction
for armed robbery.

Protess said he accepted the Porter case for his class because there
seemed to be ``evidence of innocence,'' specifically an assertion by
the mother of one of the victims, Offie Green, that Porter was
innocent because she had last seen her daughter leave for the park
with Simon and his wife, Inez Jackson.

``In a lot of these cases there are not the investigative resources
for indigent defendants,'' Protess said. ``My college students have
the time to investigate.''

The students re-enacted the crime, based on the description given by
the prosecution's lead witness, William Taylor, and interviewed other
witnesses. In December, the students visited Simon, who denied
involvement. Then the students tracked down a nephew of Inez Jackson
in jail, who said he had heard Simon confess his guilt. Last Friday,
they found Jackson in Milwaukee, now estranged from Simon. She told
them Simon had committed the crime.

Simon said that he had been a drug dealer at the time and that that
day, he and Hillard argued about money Hillard owed him. He said
Hillard had made a motion as if he was reaching for a gun.

``I was in fear of my life,'' Simon said on tape. He said he did not
intend to shoot Green.

A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department, Lauri Sanders, said
Thursday that the department had not seen the taped confession.